USC Probing Tutor Program

USC receiver Mike Bastianelli will sit out a second consecutive game and possibly a third after admitting he received improper assistance from an athletic department tutor on a paper two years ago.

Bastianelli, held out of last week’s game at Notre Dame, met with school officials for a second time Thursday and was told he would not play Saturday against Oregon and possibly will sit out the Washington game Nov. 1.

Bastianelli’s case is part of a larger, ongoing internal investigation of the practices of counselors in the school’s Student Athlete Academic Services department. Two SAAS employees, including the one who worked with Bastianelli, have charged that tutors routinely compose and write papers for members of the football team.

“We appointed a faculty committee in early October to investigate charges made by a USC employee about academic and ethical improprieties,” USC provost Lloyd Armstrong Jr. said. “That committee has been conducting a series of very thorough interviews and is about three-quarters of the way through the process.”

The investigation appears to cover at least the last two years since questions were raised about a paper Bastianelli turned in as a freshman. At this point, the Pacific 10 Conference is not formally involved, though it would be expected to review the matter if NCAA violations were found.

Bastianelli, a junior, said he told investigators that he and an SAAS employee, Dr. Christopher Cairney, worked on the paper together and that Cairney typed the paper and also composed part of it.

“The thing is, we both sat down and both worked together,” Bastianelli said Thursday. “Yeah, he typed it. He typed the majority. I can’t type, or I’m a very slow typer.

“It was my work involved. He kind of started to write on his own. I sat there and let him. . . . He’s an employee of the university.”

Cairney, one of the employees who has made the charges of impropriety against SAAS, said he told investigators that Bastianelli wrote the paper himself and reiterated that Thursday.

“It’s obvious this is a salvo back at me [for bringing the allegations in September],” Cairney said in an interview with The Times. “They’re lobbing artillery at me and using Bastianelli, and that’s bad. That’s the only reason they would go back two years. Bastianelli is really hurt. . . . His life revolves around football.”

Bastianelli was told he won’t play during a meeting with Noel Ragsdale, USC’s faculty athletic representative, and Patricia Tobey, director of academic support for the university’s Learning Center.

“It hurts a lot to know I can’t play next week, and possibly against Washington too,” he said. “I guess the rule is three games minimum in my situation.

“I thought telling the truth would help me. It would have hurt me more if I had not told the truth.”

Cairney, coordinator of the Learning Support Program within SAAS, first detailed his concerns in a memo to the athletic department’s Oversight Committee on Sept. 2.

Cairney said he was put on paid administrative leave Sept. 8 regarding another departmental matter.

The second member of the SAAS department to step forward with concerns about unethical behavior was tutor Noel M. Looney, who made specific charges in a Sept. 22 memo.

”. . . I have witnessed on several occasions that specific tutors that were hired and directed by [advisement counselor] Janice [Henry] have been seen typing papers for USC student athletes that are participating in our football program,” Looney wrote in a memo obtained by The Times.

Henry could not be reached for comment.

Looney on Thursday called Bastianelli “a sacrificial lamb” caught in a battle of departmental infighting.

“[Cairney’s] allegations [against SAAS] are the solid truth,” Looney said. “These [tutors] have spent three, four, five hours in the computer room,” Looney said. “That’s gross plagiarism. They [the tutors] are doing the work, doing the composing. That shouldn’t happen. That’s over the line.”

University counsel Todd Dickey said the school is aware of the SAAS employees’ allegations.

“We’ve certainly heard those things as well,” Dickey said. “As of now, they are unsubstantiated charges until we complete the investigation.