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Transparency lacking in suspensions

Posted on September 23, 2010September 23, 2010 by Staff

By Eddy Landreth
Staff Writer

CHAPEL HILL – When this football season concludes, there could be more guilt to assess than whether some players took illegal benefits from an agent or cheated academically. The NCAA and Carolina could be in line for a large helping of guilt, although both will assuredly deflect it.

What if only two or three kids are found to have broken some rule?

Shaun Draughn, the starting running back a year ago before suffering an injured shoulder, was “cleared” before UNC played Georgia Tech last weekend. The question is, cleared of what? The administration’s overreaction? Draughn served a one-game suspension to start his senior year, a game that he cannot get back.

No one has apologized to him or said that he was unjustly suspended. The public has never been told what he was supposed to have done. His charges, if they ever existed, were not explained in an open and fair manner.

And it was not just any game. He missed the opportunity to play in the Georgia Dome on national television during the prime-time television hour.

But, hey, he’s been cleared – of what, we just do not know.

The NCAA is the collection of member schools that comprise it. It operates out of Indianapolis, but unfortunately the enforcement branch infrequently represents what students at the member institutions are taught is the American way. The most fundamental basis for our supreme law of the land, the United States Constitution, guarantees the writ of habeas corpus.

“A writ of habeas corpus is a judicial mandate … ordering that an inmate be brought to the court so it can be determined whether or not that person is imprisoned lawfully and whether or not he should be released from custody,” is a definition defined by the courts.

There is no writ of habeas corpus where the NCAA is concerned. One is guilty until proven innocent. Thus the example of Draughn and possibly the other 12 who remained suspended at the start of the week.

A writ of habeas corpus guarantees a powerful majority cannot rob individuals of their freedom, or in this case, an athlete’s well-earned opportunity to perform, without a fair hearing.

“The [writ of habeas corpus is a] fundamental instrument for safeguarding individual freedom against arbitrary and lawless state action,” the courts have consistently ruled.

The remaining football players may eventually be found to have broken either school or NCAA rules and thereby forfeit their privilege to play. But their cases will be conducted behind closed doors.

The lesson has been that they have no rights. Yes, playing ball is a privilege, but being robbed of it should not occur without an open and fair hearing that follows due process.

We can all live with their eventual guilt or innocence. What we should not abide is doling out this so-called justice in a tyrannical fashion.

6 thoughts on “Transparency lacking in suspensions”

  1. Bill Balaban says:
    September 23, 2010 at 3:18 pm

    Habeas Corpus is intended to protect an individual’s guaranteed rights under our Constitution. It has never been interpreted to protect an individual’s privileges. Until you can establish a property right under our Constitution that a football player has a right to a hearing, your missive falls just as short as our AD, Head Coach & the NCAA in this entire debacle. Possibly you are talking about the public’s right to know, because when a scholarship student athletic signs an NCAA Letter of Intent, that scholarship student athletic has agreed to abide by the NCAA & Carolina rules, i.e., no due process & no habeas corpus.

  2. Kirk Ross says:
    September 23, 2010 at 3:33 pm

    Dear Readers,

    Please remember that our policy asks that you sign your comments as you would a letter to the editor (full name, and if your would, geographical location).

    Thanks,

    Kirk Ross
    Editor, The Carrboro Citizen

  3. Bill Balaban says:
    September 23, 2010 at 3:40 pm

    Bill Balaban
    Camp Hill, PA
    Class of ’71

  4. Pingback: Another good Article on the NCAA in rega… « NSClive's Blog
  5. Al Searsa says:
    September 25, 2010 at 8:50 pm

    I think what the author is really addressing is fairness. If he is a staff writer he likely understands that this is not a constitutional matter. It certainly would be fairness to have an early judgment as to probable cause. Unspecified charges announced to the entire world without any resolution is injurious in several ways. I don’t know if players have taken the matter to court but I know of least one case where an assistant coach did and he won.

  6. Ty Ferrell says:
    September 26, 2010 at 5:14 am

    I agree with the reader who posted that the article was designed to expose the unfairness of all of this as it relates to the players. I don’t think he was truly stating that this was a violation of players’ constitutional rights. The essence of the article to me is “guilty until proven innocent” just “ain’t the American way”. For the record, I agree.

    Ty Ferrell
    Wilkesboro, N.C.

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