Amid the recently discovered college bribing scandal in which wealthy parents paid top universities to accept their children, another legal battle is arising in which students who were not accepted to these universities claim they were personally wronged.
According to a report by U.S. News, students who were not accepted to some of the universities accused of accepting bribes are suing, claiming they were victimized while wealthier students were given admittance, thus taking spots that should have been given to individuals who had earned a place.
Ingrid Evans, founder of The Evans Law Firm, recently spoke with the Northern California Record and said she believes that students suing the universities are taking the right course in seeking legal action.
"I would say that the students are absolutely in their right to file a lawsuit," Evans said. "This scandal diminishes everyone’s efforts for people to be cheating and getting around the hard work of the students to try to get their kids in. There should be no place for bribery or nepotism for allowing young adults into colleges."
Evans said she also believes that the students' request to have their application fees returned should be fulfilled, saying that if the students were never going to be accepted, the application fee was truly a waste of money.
"I think that students are also absolutely within their right to request their application fees back," Evans said. "During the time period that we know that bribes and nepotism and other ways of people getting their kids into college was being used, these students’ money was being wasted because spots were being taken up by people that should not have been allowed in and so if that is the case, definite spots were taken away from the students and they may have had a chance at getting into those schools.”
The student class action lawsuit was filed March 13 in federal court in San Francisco.
Evans said she is optimistic about the potential for the lawsuit to bring about lasting change, which she believes is gravely needed at this time.
"I would hope that the universities would make some systemic changes to make sure that all kids are given a fair chance and that nobody is given preferential treatment and that bribes are not accepted, which diminishes the academic performance and goals of the kids who actually earn their right in," Evans said.