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Fatima Ahmed-Farouta

  • A Brief History of College Cheating Scandals

    by Fatima Ahmed-Farouta

    Cheating and college sports go hand-in-hand. This is especially true in college football, with its extreme competitiveness and the potential to launch careers. Cheating scandals have embroiled most of the top colleges in the country for decades, and the cases run the gamut from cash payments to players, free (and illegal under NCAA rules) perks, academic fraud, financial aid fraud, and -- of course -- drugs, alcohol, and prostitutes. Here is a list of some of the most prominent and cringe-worthy scandals in the history of college sports:1) 1986: SMU gets the death penalty. In 1986, the ABC affiliate in Dallas revealed that the Southern Methodist University football program had been paying its players signing bonuses of up to $25,000. Further investigations by Dallas media unearthed apartments provided to players rent-free, and an NCAA investigation showed that thirteen players had been paid about $61,000 from a slush fund set up for that specific purpose. This practice had gone on for years, with the complicity of both coaches and top school officials.

  • Redressing Wikipedia's Historical Gender Gap

    by Fatima Ahmed-Farouta

    Image via Shutterstock.Wikipedia has a problem with women.Statistics released by the Wikimedia Foundation point to a huge gender disparity in the ranks of contributors. Women only constitute approximately 15 percent of Wiki editors. This isn't a new problem -- a 2011 University of Minnesota study of gender ratios on Wikipedia came to the same conclusions, and noted that the Wiki gender gap hadn't changed significantly over the preceding five years.