Penn begins probe into Marrow case

Provost Stanley Chodorow heads the committee that will examine the handling of the star athlete's status. A four-member committee supervised by Provost Stanley Chodorow began its investigation yesterday of the alleged cover-up of football star Mitch Marrow's academic ineligibility. Within the next 10 days, the committee, chaired by Chodorow and Anatomy Professor Peter Hand, will review the sequence of events surrounding Marrow's violation of NCAA eligibility policies. The committee will submit its findings to University administrators and the NCAA, and may recommend disciplinary action for officials involved. It will also evaluate Penn's broader system for monitoring athletes' eligibility. Other committee members include Bernard Lentz, director of institutional research and analysis, Materials Science Professor Wayne Worrell and Associate General Council Debra Fickler. Hand did not return phone calls yesterday. Fickler and Worrell refused to comment about any aspect of the investigation and Lentz was unavailable for comment. Although the Athletic Department released a statement Sunday that it would conduct its own investigation, Chodorow said Tuesday that he would head the committee, and University spokesperson Ken Wildes added that he is unsure why the Athletic Department ever said that it would oversee the investigation. The Provost's office is better suited to look into this matter of "academic concern," Chodorow said. "We wanted to make the investigation more arms-length from the Athletic Department," he added. While an investigation by ahletic officials is "normal practice in NCAA schools," Chodorow said Penn's Ivy League status makes it more reasonable for academic officials to look into the matter. Every department involved in the investigation ultimately reports to the provost. These include the Athletic Department, the Office of the College of Arts and Sciences and the Wharton and School of Arts and Sciences deans' offices. Chodorow -- who heads the committee, but does not sit on it -- will see the committee's recommendations first. He will be responsible for the decision about whether or not to fire anyone involved in the affair. The University could also voluntarily forfeit all of the five victories in which Marrow took part, dropping its season record from 6-4 to 1-9. Chodorow will then submit the recommendations to the NCAA and "probably" the Ivy League office, Wildes said. Once the NCAA sees the report, it will make its own decisions about whether sanctions should be imposed on the Athletic Department. Even if the University does not voluntarily forfeit its wins, the NCAA could force such a penalty. But Chodorow said earlier this week that such a harsh outcome is unlikely. "The NCAA has a well-established process with these kinds of things," he said. "It might propose a penalty -- but it is rarely as bad as recommending that all games must be forfeited." Wildes said he is unsure if the committee's recommendations will be made public, especially since some information might relate specifically to Marrow, making the release of personal details a violation of federal privacy laws. Earlier this week, Marrow's attorney Arthur Merion accused a University professor involved with the case of violating the Buckley Amendment by disclosing personal information about Marrow, including his grade point average, to the Philadelphia Inquirer, which broke the story.

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