New NCAA legislation on academic misconduct in works

A group of university presidents and college athletics staffers is building a proposal to clarify when the NCAA should dig into cases of academic fraud by its student-athletes. 

The report brought forward by Ohio president Rod McDavis, who is the chairman of the NCAA's committee on academics, says the proposal should be tabled by the end of June, according to AP's Ralph Russo.

The committee is preparing for some backlash from campus leaders who believe it's the school's responsibility – not the NCAA's – to deal with in-house academic missteps. 

"On the surface it seems like it should change, however, what we all hear from campuses is that the courses offered, curriculum, majors, rigor, etc. are an institutional or campus department matter," said Kim Durand, associate athletic director for student development at the University of Washington. "Institutional autonomy should reign."

In a January interview with the Associated Press, NCAA head of enforcement Jon Duncan said academic misconduct is on the up-and-up and that his department was dealing with 20 open academic-misconduct cases.

Currently, an NCAA violation from academic issues stems from the act of one student-athlete gaining a competitive edge over another. 

Durand said the committee's goal is to mitigate the gap between guidelines and enforcement. 

"If you have a case where an egregious act has happened, but (if) the student-athlete is being redshirted or blows out his or her knee and doesn't compete for you that year or doesn't need those credits to make themselves eligible, then there is not an NCAA violation," said Durand, the president of the National Association of Academic Advisors for Athletics.

Another is a misguided attempt by the NCAA in pinpointing what exactly the violation in question might be and how punishable it is. 

"If I'm looking for guidance from the NCAA manual on what steps I need to take and where this falls under, I may have to look at three, maybe four different places in the manual," Durand said. "So that's confusing."