The lawsuit purports to represent two classes of plaintiffs:
Six plaintiffs joined [Stanford student] Kalea Woods ’20 in the class action lawsuit filed against Stanford and seven other universities implicated in the college admissions bribery scandal in an amended complaint filed hours after the original suit.
The lawsuit seeks reimbursement for student application fees paid by students who were ultimately rejected by an admissions process that the lawsuit deems to be fraudulent and unfair, according to lawyer John Medler.
Because student application fees typically range from $50 to $100 per student per application, and 30,000 to 40,000 students are rejected each year from each of the eight universities named as defendants, the amount in controversy will exceed $5 million, Medler told The Daily....
The case argues that “had Plaintiffs known that the system was warped and rigged by fraud, they would not have spent the money to apply to the school.” It maintains that applicants “did not receive what they paid for—a fair admissions consideration process.”
All new plaintiffs named in the lawsuit are students rejected by at least one of the eight universities or their parents....
The suit also includes in its class all students who between 2012 and 2018 were rejected from at least one of the eight universities in question after paying application fees.
The original version of the lawsuit included two Stanford students, who were also claiming the value of their degree was reduced by the scandal. I've not seen the amended complaint, so don't know if that claim is still there (I'm skeptical that claim would get anywhere). I'm also skeptical that the fact that some admissions decisions were tainted means that the process class members received wasn't fair. I also imagine that those who applied and were rejected would have to show that, but for the corrupt decisions, they might have gotten in. Some or all of these problems may mean that the courts will not certify that there is a "class" here: it may be that individual plaintiffs, who are similarly situated vis-a-vis the process and each other, might be able to sue. But I'm very far from an expert on class actions. Opening comments in case any of my law readers have insight into any of this. (Thanks to Ken Taylor for the pointer to the Stanford Daily article.)
