One of the emergent themes among whistleblowers is that their allegations often do not lead to NCAA violations. It happened at Georgia in the 1980s, Nebraska in the 1990s, Tennessee earlier this decade -- and could occur at Ohio State as well, where the academics of Maurice Clarett and other football players are under scrutiny.

The reason: "Academic freedom." It's a term used by universities to defend their right to draw up classroom policies and practices in whatever manner they see fit. As academic entities, they are given wide latitude by the NCAA, which is after all an athletic governing body, to determine what constitutes excessive collaboration by tutors, improper grade changes and other unethical behavior.

The whistleblowers

Some of college sports' most notable scandals came to light because of their conviction to right wrongs they discovered. But in the wake of their decision to speak up, whistleblowers often endure a backlash from both their college employers and the college's fans. Four whistleblowers shared their tales with ESPN.com: Norma McGill: Since getting involved in the Maurice Clarett saga with her accusations of academic wrongdoing, Norma McGill, a former graduate assistant at Ohio State, has been homeless at times. Jan Ganglehoff: She toppled one of college basketball's rising powers, costing Minnesota coach Clem Haskins his job. But since coming forward with admissions that she wrote papers for athletes, Jan Ganglehoff has suffered from bouts of depression, undergone quadruple bypass heart surgery, and lost 80 pounds. Linda Bensel-Meyers: After raising concerns about academic wrongdoing following Tennessee's 1998 national championship football season, Linda Bensel-Meyers was stripped of her administrative duties and her office was relocated to the basement. Jan Kemp: Two decades after blowing the whistle on academic wrongdoing at Georgia, where she was fired and then reinstated after winning a lawsuit, someone finally said thank you to Jan Kemp.

"Nothing fires up the (NCAA) Committee on Infraction like academic fraud because that runs to the heart of the institution," said Thomas Yeager, chair of the Division I committee, which hands out penalties for rules violations. "The problem is that 'academic fraud' is a moving target. Sometimes there are very liberal policies on campuses.

"If a certain institution permits grade changes for students up through and even after the final exam, how do you hold athletes to a different standard?"

Academic freedom extends as well to professors, who create their own course guidelines and are generally given room set them aside if they feel that's what a certain student needs in order to learn. And only the professor knows if the special treatment was given for educational or athletic reasons.

In the Nebraska case, whistleblower Mary Jane Visser found that football players were being reinstated to play although they technically should have been dismissed from school for failing course work. A university letter written to some players stated, "I want you to be aware that we are giving you more opportunities than are afforded to the general student body." Still, the university insisted no special treatment was given, and NCAA investigators backed off.

Where academic fraud scandals have led to NCAA penalties -- like at Minnesota in 1999 -- it has usually been a case of the school telling the NCAA that its rules have been broken. Yeager concedes being frustrated at times by schools that are less forthcoming.

"You'll have some (athlete) who is allowed to drop his course late in the semester and the university will insist that was in compliance with its policy," he said. "That's when you roll back in your chair and say, 'What?' But then the faculty reps on the (infractions) committee will say, 'They can do that.' "

In those cases, a whistleblower is left to hope for institutional changes, not bowl bans and scholarship cuts.

Tom Farrey is a senior writer at ESPN.com. He can be reached at tom.farrey@espn3.com.