Posted on 03/15/2019 3:48:11 AM PDT by C19fan
Multiple lawsuits have been filed for more than $500 billion against elite universities and those implicated in the college admissions scandal that helped wealthy Americans cheat their children's way into school. Two Stanford students filed a $5 million class action suit on Wednesday claiming they were denied opportunities to get admitted to Yale and USC and have now had their degrees devalued in the wake of the recent charges.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
The "outrage" you describe is misdirected. This outrage should have motivated parents to stop playing the stupid game of pushing their kids into ridiculously expensive schools where the education was no better than what they'd get at a second-tier or even third-tier school.
What you're describing isn't the outrage of people who really have a legitimate complaint. It's the outrage of people who have been conned for a long time and still haven't figured it out.
“How does one provide any evidence to support a claim for damages in a case like this?”
Every student who applied and was denied can sue claiming their spot was taken by one of these risk jack holes.
They’ve damaged the value of all diplomas from their institution.
You don't hear a single report of a parent paying even a $1 bribe to get a child into Howard or Grambling.
Well, our entire educational system has been given over to the liberals... Has anyone ever seen anything being operated by the commies that was actually on the up and up..??? Probably not...
How does one provide any evidence to support a claim for damages in a case like this?
Make them produce all applications for the year you applied (retracting names).
Force them to provide the standards they use to select who gets in and who doesn’t.
The left have been using these tactics for years to claim discrimination when they have no proof other than the outcome.
It should prove educational if nothing more
Great. Now quantify the amount of the damages to support your $5 million claim. Good luck with that.
See Post #47.
The way to get it to trial is to refuse to settle for what they can afford. But that would mean that you are not really in it for the money.
Great. Now quantify the amount of the damages to support your $5 million claim. Good luck with that.
That’s all well and good, but see Post #47. If you’re suing for monetary damages you have to prove a monetary loss. Even if the plaintiffs are 100% right on the merits of the case, that doesn’t mean they’ll be successful in winning any money.
Wonder how much the bribe was/is for Harvard Law?
That may happen, But keep in mind that a jury decides matters related to facts in a case; it doesn’t decide matters of law. If the plaintiffs don’t produce evidence to support a $5 million claim, then they’re not going to get $5 million even if a jury thinks they should get $500 million.
I’m talking civil case, not criminal case. I was on the jury in two one month long civil cases. We got to decide if the plaintiff would prevail, based on the facts. Had the plaintiff prevailed (they didn’t) we would have then decided on a settlement amount.
And here is the fun part. A jury can award the plaintiff $50 in damages and $50,000,000 in punitive damages. That sort of thing happens all the time when the defendant has deep pockets. The whole point is to choose an amount that will sufficiently penalize the defendant so they don’t do it again, rather than give the plaintiff what they deserve.
Foreign students pay the full freight. Having a higher foreign student enrollment somehow is correlated with the status of the institution; related to brand name. My daughter went to a school with 20% foreign students. The school went out of its way to cater to their needs. The American students not so much.
I agree that the students I refer to were better off with scholarships to the schools they went to than they would’ve been with loans to somewhere else. The problem is that those elite diplomas can lead to unfair advantages for those who are handed them. A very good outcome of this would be that those diplomas from the “elite” schools are irrelevant and maybe even a disadvantage. The exception is, of course, the upper tier Engineering Schools. But you don’t hear of anyone cheating to get into MIT.
This will vary by state, and I’m not sure how it applies in Federal law, but punitive damages are not awarded universally in civil cases. California establishes them by statute, and state/Federal courts routinely scale back punitive damages that exceed compensatory damages by a wide margin. I was surprised to hear how low that margin is. Federal court decisions have set this bar at points ranging from 4:1 to 10:1 ... so your $50 million award for punitive damages in a case where the plaintiff proved $50 in compensatory damages is likely to be reduced to $200-$500.
If they’re accepting students (or have staff who are rigging the process) who are in the bottom 10% of the incoming class, and they’ve rejected students who would be in the upper quartile, how do they justify that?
Not all schools are like this. I’ve tutored excellent athletes who’ve had to get their Math SAT above 600 (preferably 650) to be considered.
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Agreed. Top students not accepted. USC had Crew scholarships averaging $30,000+, so there is a financial loss aspect.
Having had student athlete, at least in case of swim team, the athletes were very hard working STUDENTS as well as athletes...Had high GPA rankings among groups of students. The “dumb jock” stereotype did not apply.
I agree with this, but I highlighted two words that will completely undermine any lawsuits against a school over this. The word "can" means the plaintiff would have a hard time proving any financial loss, and "unfair" is so totally subjective that it is meaningless in a civil suit like this.
A very good outcome of this would be that those diplomas from the "elite" schools are irrelevant and maybe even a disadvantage.
I agree. They were already in this position years ago, as far as I'm concerned. When I was hiring staff in my STEM field I would routinely discard any resumes I received from Ivy League graduates.
The biggest harm this scandal has caused has been to the reputations of the schools, not the lives of rejected applicants. The schools won't be suing anybody, though -- for good reason.
Agreed. Top students not accepted. USC had Crew scholarships averaging $30,000+, so there is a financial loss aspect.
Having had student athlete, at least in case of swim team, the athletes were very hard working STUDENTS as well as athletes...Had high GPA rankings among groups of students. The “dumb jock” stereotype did not apply.
Apparently many schools do have lower standards for Crew, Soccer, Tennis, water polo etc. USC, Georgetown, Yale etc..were all implicated in the indictment. If they didn’t have lower standards then Singer would have lost half his business.
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