Records show communications issues between Willingham, UNC

Willingham, who launched into the national spotlight in January with a CNN report in which she claimed that many student athletes at UNC enter the school reading below a third grade level, has been under fire from the university which employed her ever since.

Willingham says her data is objective and accurate; the university says an independent review of her work shows that the conclusions drawn cannot be made with her data set and her research methods go beyond what she outlined in her application. 

Willingham’s research, her collection methods and her dissemination of the data have put the researcher and UNC at odds since that time. A look at emails between Willingham and school faculty, and Willingham’s application to perform her research, illuminate that difference of opinion.

Six months after Willingham alerted Dean to the problem, Jeanne Lovmo, the university’s compliance director in the Office of Human Research Ethics, asked Willingham to cease her work.

"Any further use of these data in the absence of IRB (Institutional Review Board) approval constitutes a University and federal violation,” Lovmo wrote.

The university forbade Willingham from releasing her research without a second application and review. 

Willingham has claimed that action in effect ended her work.

The school released a public statement stating her research was not actually suspended because it was never approved in the first place.

Willingham pointed her research findings to high-revenue sports - football and basketball - saying that many were put on a track that kept them on the field instead of in the classroom.

"Athletes of profit sports should be able to major in whatever they want, and not be limited with their choice," Willingham said. "My research shows that the athletes are not college ready, and we (UNC) couldn't fulfill our promise, which is a real education."

Willingham said she plans to leave the university after the Spring 2014 semester because of a hostile work environment, but UNC stated that they would afford her the same opportunity to get research approval as anyone else.

“I do believe that when she originally applied to do the research, she had good intentions,” said Bradley Bethel, a reading and writing specialist at UNC. “Later, as she got absorbed into the controversies, and as the media started exploiting her, she began to misrepresent what the research had been.”

Bethel pointed out that Willingham’s application for her research was specifically designed to look at learning disabilities and ADHD studies, but she later claimed that she was tasked with looking at reading levels.

Willingham insists that she filled out her applications properly and even consulted the IRB for help in her accuracy.

“Her argument is a diversion away from the facts that her methodology was completely flawed,” Bethel said. “Either she fabricated her methodology to come up with the statistics she had or she fabricated her statistics. There’s no way to tell for sure which one, but at some point she started fabricating.”

The paper trail shows a gross amount of miscommunications between the two sides.

In her application, Willingham indicated she would collect  identifiers such as names and dates of birth as well as “generalizable knowledge.”

According to her own proposal, she was not to have direct interaction with the 46 subjects she had grouped.

Based on Willingham’s responses on the IRB approval form, it was determined that her research did “not require IRB approval,” nor did it reach into the federal definition of “human subjects research.”

It was at this point that the university saw their first flags and requested she adhere to “pending stipulating change(s) and/or clarification(s).”

On Jan. 8, 2013, Willingham said all her data would be “de-identified” and links to identifiable data will be “destroyed before importation” into the collection system.

The next day, the Office of Research Ethics again ruled that her study didn’t require IRB approval.

There was no issue with the request in the eyes of the university and it was processed the next day without needing IRB approval.

Willingham added that the low GPAs were knowingly aided by “UNC’s paper class system” and offered to Dean that academic fraud would continue unless intensive reading instruction was offered.

Again, she received a letter from OHRE stating that no IRB approval was necessary.

No specific athletes were named in the piece, but Willingham said that she was part of a culture of cheating and admitted to signing forms that prevented NCAA violations.

UNC issued a statement saying they did not believe Willingham’s claims.

Later in the same email, Dean stated to Willingham that she has refused to turn over the data sheet for review by the university despite being asked for it “on several occasions.”

After a meeting the following Monday in Dean’s office, he emailed her calling their conversation “inadequate and disappointing.” Willingham followed up with a spreadsheet that included all the identifiable data Dean requested.

While the university contends that they did not suspend approval for Willingham’s research, Lovmo’s letter said, “if you wish to continue with the research using these data, please submit a full application for review by the IRB. Any continued use of these data in the absence of IRB approval constitutes a violation of University and federal policies for protection of human subjects.”

In a press release by UNC-CH dated Jan. 21, Daniel Nelson, the OHRE director, stated that “We did not suspend Mary Willingham’s research … it was our realization that the researchers had, in fact, been in possession of named data all along.”

Borasky’s response does not say the word “no,” but again adds loopholes for Willingham including a second definition of “primary data,” a need for consent of use and a concern over student information sharing across third-party lines.