A brand new movement filed Monday in a lawsuit spanning again two years accuses elite schools of secretly favoring the rich within the admissions course of and demanding $685 million in damages.
The brand new submitting says the faculties — together with the College of Pennsylvania, Georgetown College, the Massachusetts Institute of Know-how (MIT), Cornell College and others — participated in a “price-fixing cartel.”
The lawsuit was filed by former college students in opposition to greater than a dozen elite faculties again in 2022, most of which have settled with the plaintiffs.
However 5 faculties are going through accusations they had been letting in sure college students primarily based on wealth and donations of their households.
One instance within the movement accused a former president of Georgetown College of placing 80 college students on a particular record resulting from their household’s wealth or donations, saying most of them obtained in.
The plaintiffs say universities had been presupposed to take part in “need-blind” admissions and that utilizing wealth as an element violated the regulation.
The faculties deny the allegations and argue they’ve spent tons of of tens of millions on scholarships for low-income households.
“In short, MIT has no history of wealth favoritism in its admissions; quite the opposite. After years of discovery in which millions of documents were produced that provide an overwhelming record of independence in our admissions process, plaintiffs could cite just a single instance in which the recommendation of a board member helped sway the decisions for two undergraduate applicants,” MIT stated in a press release.
The College of Pennsylvania is accused of designating some college students as individuals of curiosity, with their admission fee drastically rising underneath that label.
Legal professionals for the protection are additionally arguing the $685 million in damages was decided by “junk science.”
The Hill has reached out to the plaintiffs’ attorneys, together with the College of Pennsylvania and Cornell College, for remark.
