UPDATE: After you finish reading this post, the latest blog post related to this story can be found here

You may have already heard that Maryland backup quarterback Josh Portis, who was expected to see significant playing time this season and possibly even take the starting job away from Jordan Steffy, was suspended for the season for violating the University Academic Code of Conduct. Portis, a cousin of Clinton Portis of the Washington Redskins, is a sophomore who sat out last season after transferring from the University of Florida. Portis will have two years of eligibility remaining assuming he returns next year. The Terps only have 3 remaining eligible signal callers following 2 transfers in the off-season.

The announcement was made prior to Saturday’s win over Villanova. Portis was not in attendance. After Saturday’s game, Portis told at least one reporter that he didn’t plagiarize and that his GPA was over a 2.0 but initial reports were citing privacy laws as limiting what the University of Maryland could say about the violation.

In Tuesday’s Baltimore Sun, Heather Dinich reported that Brandon Bullock, who now attends East Carolina, said that Portis cheated by looking on his paper during a quiz in American Studies 212 (Diversity in America) during the spring semester. Portis refused comment on Dinich’s article, which went into a few other details. Bullock, who is from Bel Air, told Dinich that he got a note back after that quiz to see the instructor who brought up academic dishonesty while showing him copies of his quiz and another quiz with the name covered up and the answers to the quiz were similar including one question that they were identical “word for word.” Portis reportedly sat behind Bullock and to the left. Bullock also told Dinich that Portis approached him later and asked him to say that there answers were so similar because they had studied together.

Today’s Examiner reported on Dinich’s story and added a few other interesting details. The article says that Bullock told them (via e-mail) that after his comments in The Sun that he heard from Student Affairs at the University of Maryland and they told him he should contact a lawyer before he made any other comments on the cheating. Bullock also told them that he was considering a retraction of his comments to The Sun and that he is “very stressed” about the situation.

Dinich reports on her blog that Coach Ralph Friedgen didn’t get any questions about Portis during today’s ACC teleconference. Most of the Portis talk at Tuesday’s news conference apparently dealt with adjusting roles on the team in the wake of Portis’s absence. The comments on a previous Dinich blog post have quite a few Maryland fans giving their opinion on the matter including quite a few who think the punishment was too harsh. Patricia Portis (Josh’s mom) said he didn’t engage in “premeditated cheating” because it was just a quiz and that he was tired from practice and made a mistake and that he needs to learn from it. Friedgen said that athletes at the University had to be held to a higher standard and also has refused to comment on whether Portis could or would appeal the suspension (I believe he possibly could.)

Assuming all of the statements given are true, there are some interesting questions raised by the articles in the Sun and Examiner over the past couple of days. Based on my reading of things, it would appear that after the teacher caught the apparent cheating, Portis tried to get out of the situation by pushing Bullock to say they had studied together. Bullock left College Park for Greenville, NC and then winds up being charged with faciliting cheating (which he denies) by supposedly allowing Portis to cheat off of his paper. When Bullock talked to the media, he got a call from Student Affairs telling him he should talk to a lawyer before he comments further.

I don’t see why they would be telling Bullock to talk to counsel in this matter. I’m not sure the privacy laws that apply to a University would apply to Bullock or any other student telling a newspaper something that happened. It seems at first glance like there was some sort of veiled threat in the Student Affairs phone call to Brandon Bullock about the Sun article since his hearing still hasn’t come up yet from the facilitating cheating charges (and he isn’t allowed to be there since he’s no longer enrolled at UMCP.) At the very least, it seems like very ham-handed tactics by some administrators and in a worst-case scenario for academic integrity at the University (especially among athletes) it could be a sign of strong-arming a whistle-blower or attempting a cover-up.

There probably aren’t going to be any on-the-record answers from anyone in College Park about anything related to this matter including Bullock’s allegations. If anyone in the know on this matter (on-campus or off) wants to talk about it, leave a comment below or send e-mail to mail@insidecharmcity.com. All sources will be protected. Anybody at Student Affairs, the Athletic Department are welcome to e-mail official statements to the same address. I’d also like to offer Mr. Bullock a forum to talk as much as he wants to about this matter – all he has to do is email.

One last note (that doesn’t necessarily mean a thing): as of Wednesday afternoon, Bullock does still have Portis as a friend on Facebook.

UPDATE: The latest blog post related to this story can be found here.