Actresses and Business Leaders Charged in College Admissions Bribery Scandal
Federal prosecutors charged dozens of people on Tuesday in a major college admission scandal that involved wealthy parents, including Hollywood celebrities and prominent business leaders, paying bribes to get their children into elite American universities.
Thirty-three parents were charged in the case. Also implicated were top college coaches, who were accused of accepting millions of dollars to help admit students to Wake Forest, Yale, Stanford, the University of Southern California and other schools, regardless of their academic or sports ability, officials said. Along with the Hollywood stars Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman, those charged included prominent business leaders, a fashion designer and a top lawyer, officials said.
The case unveiled Tuesday was stunning in its breadth and audacity. It was the Justice Department's largest ever college admissions prosecution, a sprawling investigation that involved 200 agents nationwide and resulted in charges against 50 people in six states. The charges also underscored how college admissions have become so cutthroat and competitive that some have sought to break the rules. The authorities say the parents of some of the nation's wealthiest and most privileged students sought to buy spots for their children at top universities, not only cheating the system, but potentially cheating other hard-working students out of a chance at a college education.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 13 2019, @01:59PM (6 children)
If you gave a few millions, endow a few chairs, then you will have your kids welcomed into ivy league schools without the fed coming after your ass. Bottom feeding peasants have no class.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 13 2019, @02:32PM
Let's not forget about legacy admission either. Wouldn't want a good network go to waste on some outsider non-person.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 13 2019, @02:43PM
You mean they bought your way in and you didn't even have to go to class?
(Score: 1, Troll) by Tokolosh on Wednesday March 13 2019, @02:55PM (3 children)
You could also pick parents with more pigmentation...
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday March 13 2019, @03:02PM (2 children)
Parents with more pig? I'd rather go the canine route, thank you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 13 2019, @05:04PM (1 child)
better go with sheep; they do end up killing the others. but then, sadly, they become the dogs.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 13 2019, @08:39PM
You are thinking of law school. Everyone knows you can't bribe your way into law school! Or on to the supreme court! You have to pay dues instead, like trying to impeach a sitting president about sex and boofing.
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 13 2019, @02:07PM (13 children)
Are the defendants all from the democratic party side of the spectrum?
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday March 13 2019, @02:41PM (12 children)
Kinda looks like that might be the case. I'm going to assume so, unless and until someone offers proof otherwise.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 13 2019, @02:45PM (9 children)
Donald J. Trump. QED
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 13 2019, @02:47PM (3 children)
I await his twitter on the subject with baited breath. Pot, kettle, black.
(Score: 3, Informative) by aristarchus on Wednesday March 13 2019, @08:47PM (2 children)
"Bated"!, damn it all to hell! The word is "bated", as in, "withheld, held back, restrained". But then, you are referencing a Trumpet Tweet. Could be bait. What is that thing on his head, anyway? A lure? Does it conceal hooks?
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Wednesday March 13 2019, @09:06PM
ACs eat chum, so...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 18 2019, @12:14PM
Baited breath is a thing [wikipedia.org], though.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday March 13 2019, @02:56PM (4 children)
Is there a Trump involved? Citations?
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 13 2019, @04:09PM (3 children)
https://www.theroot.com/remember-that-time-when-jared-kushner-s-dad-donated-2-1833241931 [theroot.com]
Shocking no one at all
(Score: 3, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Wednesday March 13 2019, @04:59PM (2 children)
Funny, something Trump didn't do is Trump's fault. With respect to Kuchner, it sounds like there was a quid pro quo between a donation and an admission. That's slimy, but is it fraudulent like falsifying data and cheating on exams? I think that answers itself. The more interesting point though is how obvious the media is in trying to make every ugly situation about Trump. It's wearisome and worrisome to an old lefty like me, to have a media so transparently engage in pure propaganda even against a figure I don't like. What goes around comes around.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 13 2019, @08:13PM (1 child)
You're a partisan idiot, maybe your daddy should have bribed your way into college so you could become a Fox News "expert". It is OK to be stupid but only when you realize you are and stop spreading your stupidity around.
Maybe get a job? That might take up enough of your time so you don't diarrhea here nonstop.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Thursday March 14 2019, @01:36AM
^ Hillary supporter.
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 14 2019, @01:54AM (1 child)
Presidential campaign donations found to be from the people involved in the admissions scandal are as follows:
6 for Hillary Clinton
6 for Mitt Romney
5 for Barack Obama
1 for Marco Rubio
0 for Donald Trump
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 14 2019, @02:34AM
Nice researching, if you looked it up and it is true. Pity we can't rely on what once were respectable media to dig deeper.
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by realDonaldTrump on Wednesday March 13 2019, @02:50PM (2 children)
Folks, this is what happens when I have an Attorney General. This is what it's like. The word is getting out that we have to stop college cheating. Very proud of my Justice Department. They're moving very strongly, getting very tough with these coastal elites.
People don't know this, I went to the Wharton School of Business. I’m like a really smart person. Look, having nuclear, my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at M.I.T. Who was known as the Albert Einstein of M.I.T. Good genes, very good genes, O.K. Very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart. You know, if you’re a conservative Republican, if I were a Liberal, if, like, O.K., if I ran as a Liberal Democrat, they would say I'm one of the smartest people anywhere in the world. It’s true. But when you're a conservative Republican they try, oh, do they do a number! That’s why I always start off, went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune -- you know, I have to give my, like, credentials all the time, because we’re a little disadvantaged. But you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me. It would have been so easy, and it’s not as important as these lives are. Nuclear is powerful. My uncle explained that to me many, many years ago. The power, and that was 35 years ago -- he would explain the power of what's going to happen and he was right. Who would have thought? But when you look at what's going on with the four prisoners -- now it used to be three, now it’s four -- but when it was three and even now, I would have said it's all in the messenger. Fellas, and it is fellas because, you know, they don't, they haven’t figured that the women are smarter right now than the men, so, you know, it’s gonna take them about another 150 years. But the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians are great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us. MAGA!
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday March 13 2019, @03:04PM (1 child)
"Little disadvantaged" seems to be an understatement.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by realDonaldTrump on Wednesday March 13 2019, @03:18PM
So true, my Uncle John was a very humble guy. A lot like me. I have more humility than you would think, believe me. We’re all the same. I mean, we’re all going to the same place, probably one of two places, you know. But we’re all the same. And I do have, actually, much more humility than a lot of people would think. But he didn't toot his horn a lot. Not a lot. But he's very famous at M.I.T., all the M.I.T. people know about him. And what he achieved there. And now I'm a famous guy, I'm putting the word out about him. I'll tell you, someday when folks talk about Einstein they're going to say, "oh, Albert Einstein was incredibly smart, he was the Dr. John Trump of Princeton!"
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday March 13 2019, @03:00PM (2 children)
We're becoming India!!
How long until we see parents scaling the walls, cell phone in hand, to help their bastard offspring cheat on the tests?
I TOLD YOU NOT TO DO H1B's!!11leventylevens
(Score: 1, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 13 2019, @03:58PM (1 child)
Sorry but those H1Bs are such an improvement over the existing jackasses like you that we don't mind if the program screws things up a bit.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday March 13 2019, @06:14PM
Hey, I made my deadline, okay ? Who cares whether four years from now two out of every 42000 takeoffs end up in a crash ?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by looorg on Wednesday March 13 2019, @03:23PM
So are the kids going to be expelled? After all they, or their parental units on their behest, did cheat to gain entry. It's clearly not the same as if they had made a large public donation, from the article it seems like there is clear cheating going on to get in.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 13 2019, @03:31PM
the sentence will have been shorter.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday March 13 2019, @05:03PM (6 children)
Do schools only think in the short term?
If they engage in admissions and graduation policies that are not based on academic merit, it ultimately devalues the meaning of their diploma.
Imagine a business school that graduates a future president. It makes them look good.
Imagine a business school that graduates a future president who cannot read, write, speak in coherent sentences, think through consequences of ideas, and cannot process ideas or concepts above an adolescent level at best. How does that make them look? Was daddy's money worth it?
Imagine this on a larger scale. At some point employers realize that that degree might not mean what it once meant. So they need elaborate puzzles and IQ tests to weed out the pozers (of which there are many) from the real candidates (of which there may be few, and with poor social skills).
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 13 2019, @05:58PM
You've actually got the history on this backwards. The "credential inflation" crisis can actually be laid at the foot of a 1970 Supreme Court decision against Duke Power Co.
Griggs v. Duke Power Co. [wikipedia.org]
What you're positing is what we used to have, before it was declared racist and exclusionary. So now every office job requires a Bachelor's Degree instead.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday March 13 2019, @06:21PM (3 children)
Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania [wikipedia.org]
endowment : 1.289 Billion dollars.
Looks like they may survive the shame of 45.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday March 13 2019, @06:35PM
Sad but true.
But some of that shame might also rub off.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 13 2019, @07:33PM (1 child)
~20 years back, an MBA seemed like the ticket to corporate advancement. I had considered going for an MBA to get out of the IT dungeons, but ended up getting a MS instead. Glad that I did, but I'm hearing that MBA graduates have a difficult time getting non-dead-end jobs; that the only jobs with prospects now demand real additional skill like accounting, or even IT experience.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday March 13 2019, @07:41PM
There are quite a few high-6 to 7-figure jobs that will not be open to you if you don't have an MBA on your resume.
It might not be right, but it's a fact.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 13 2019, @07:24PM
We all knew Baby Bush got into Yale and Harvard on his academic strengths...
But the reputation of those schools hasn't suffered. That's because it doesn't matter what you know, but whom you know. And you get to know a lot of powerful people if you go to ivy league schools.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday March 13 2019, @05:04PM
(Score: 2) by pipedwho on Wednesday March 13 2019, @06:38PM
Getting in used to be about paying up. If you couldn’t pay up, you got in on a scholarship of some sort so you didn’t have to pay. Nothing wrong with this. Here in Australia, you can pay full fare (which is what all the ‘foreign admissions’ pay), but if you want the course to be subsidised, then you need to get in on academic merit (and athletic ability is not in any way academic merit).
However, once in doesn’t mean you’ll graduate if you’re not smart enough to pass the exams (oral or written). Although with the quality of some graduates you might think otherwise.
So unless these ‘cheats’ were somehow defrauding the public or university to receive undeserved benefits, then I don’t see how this is remotely a problem. Definitely not one worth bringing in the goons.
The rich elites are also more like to afford private tutors and resources that assist the learning process. Some of this rubs off on their non-elite peers. I had a rich friend who I helped out a lot, but he also taught me quite a few interesting things. Not to mention that we a had a little group who worked well together and pushed each other to really understand the material. He graduated out of merit, because he enjoyed the subject.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 13 2019, @08:20PM (3 children)
From the NYT article:
Why not charge the universities? Too powerful and connected?
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Thursday March 14 2019, @03:35AM (2 children)
Umm, no. Because if the universities KNEW about this stuff, it wouldn't be admissions fraud. Kinda by definition here, the university admissions people and others who actually made the decisions couldn't know about this stuff for it to be legally fraudulent. (Excepting of course cheating on SAT etc., which was perpetrating fraud also against testing companies. But if university admissions people knew about such cheating, I'm sure they'd reject such candidates -- too risky to admit students involved in such illegal acts, even if there were bribes.)
Anyhow, when you pay money directly to a university to get in (e.g., large donation, new building, etc.), that's not fraud. That's a standard and traditional way to get into college for super rich people, and usually perfectly legal for private institutions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 14 2019, @04:31AM
Ignoring the test cheating part of the scheme, nobody at the universities audited the "female athletic recruits" actually doing female athletics at their institutions? Are there really no Title 9 / civil rights implications here?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by NotSanguine on Thursday March 14 2019, @12:07PM
Interestingly, there was a guy in my graduating class in high school who was pretty arrogant and obnoxious. And he bragged to anyone who would listen that he scored 1550 on his SATs (this is back before the essay portion was added, so 1600 was the max score) and was all excited about getting an appointment to the USAF Academy [wikipedia.org]. Then it came out that he (and a few others) had cheated on his SATs.
His appointment to the Air Force Academy was revoked and I haven't seen him since graduation. With any luck, that smug bastard is pumping gas somewhere. Good riddance to bad garbage.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday March 14 2019, @02:27AM
Isn't this just the American way?
You have money, you gets what you can!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by crafoo on Thursday March 14 2019, @03:51AM
Not surprised it happened, just surprised anyone bothered to do something about it. It's like sitting on the beach screaming at the tide as it comes in and gets your toes wet.
(Score: 2) by DavePolaschek on Thursday March 14 2019, @01:36PM
Just a comment a friend of mine made on Twitter which I thought was pretty darned accurate.
Note that the only real problem I see with the bribery is that it took money from the testing organizations (SAT/ACT) and college endowments and put it directly into the pockets of admissions and athletics staffers. Nor is it especially new. My high school had a course on gaming the SAT/ACT that everyone was required to take.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday March 14 2019, @07:41PM (2 children)
Felicity Huffman, Lori Loughlin mug shots: Department of Justice confirms they won't be made public [aol.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 14 2019, @07:48PM
Oh? How do you get booking photos if the fugitive hasn't been captured yet?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday March 14 2019, @09:24PM
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/lori-loughlin-felicity-huffmans-courtroom-sketches-talk-internet-173324310.html [yahoo.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]