OK the way things have been presented to UNC is spelled out in things that Emmert has been saying for a couple of years...that the NCAA has not and can not set it's role as an overseer of what classes are good and what classes are "easy". What they can do is to make sure that classes are not created solely for the purposes of athletics. That's why Michigan got into trouble a while back..they had classes that were not available to the student body as a whole.
The AFAM program at UNC was created as a purely academic path that would appeal to minority students, specifically African-Americans. In it's early days back in the early 1980's it was judged to be one of the hardest programs at the University. So when you're rated tougher than pre-med, pre-law, pharmacy, etc that says a lot. It began to suffer when they hired a well known scholar to lead the Program as a Chair. He was interested in building the numbers and could not have cared less about the academic integrity. He turned it over to an Assistant who was glad to indulge her views that all students deserved an A or B. It became a disaster.
When our accreditation agency looked into things, they were professionally upset that a non-Professor actually was engaged in grading students and setting course requirements...I guess they never went to a school that used GA instructors, etc. Even they didn't claim the courses were invalid or useless, their beef was with the lack of oversight by the College of Arts and Sciences that had an idea it was going on but refused to act because they believed oversight of Professors and Chairs was wrong. Another disaster.
The NCAA has flat out stated that as long as UNC recognizes the classes the NCAA has no business declaring the athletes that got credit for them were ineligible. UNC has said it will not invalidate those classes since that would affect over 3000 students of which slightly less than half were athletes to begin with. I'm sure the Registrar is happy over that.
So here's where we are at..in the NOA the NCAA is looking at now there were no allegations against UNC's MBB or Football or Baseball programs. They DID hit women's hoops and both soccer programs for improper interaction with the Academic advisers who helped kids get into courses that were full, not scheduled to be given in certain semesters, and telling the Assistant what grades the students need to get to stay eligible.
The AD's office has told people to be prepared for a large fine by the NCAA and sanctions on the programs were found to have given improper benefits (academic interactions).