Legal And Ethical Issues In College Admission

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the definition of legal is “…conforming to or permitted by law or established rules.” The definition of ethical is “…conforming to acceptable standards of conduct” (Ethical. (n.d.). “Ethical standards are based on the human principles of right and wrong. The differences between them are these: Legal standards are based on written law, while ethical standards are based on human rights and wrongs. Something can be legal but not ethical” (Yang Alcocer, Y. (n.d.). There are also similarities between legal and ethical standards and that is the fact that “…both laws and ethics are systems [that] maintain a set of moral values and prevent people from violating them” (Relationship Between Ethics and Laws, 2013). When it comes to getting into big named colleges there are a few ways you could go about getting accepted. Having a perfect high school career and graduate with a 5.0 GPA, or the most popular way; having your rich parents donate millions of dollars and cheating on admissions tests and bribing people not to say anything.

In recent news, Felicity Huffman, an Oscar-nominated actress, along with dozens of others, had paid $15,000.00, or even more to Mr. Rick Singer, the mastermind of the college admissions scandal, in order to get her daughter into a top university. Mrs. Huffman was told by Mr. Singer that her daughter’s grades alone would not have landed her into a preferred university. So, Mrs. Huffman attempted to get her a tutor to try and boost the scores up.

“The Justice Department in March charged 51 people, including 34 parents, for paying $25 million collectively to Rick Singer, the mastermind of the nationwide college admissions scheme, to either tag their children as fake athletic recruits to get them into college or to carry out the test scam. Twenty-three defendants have pleaded guilty” (Garrison, J., 2019).

Realizing further that this was not helping, she allowed herself to pay to boost the grades and untruthfully enter better scores than what her daughter actually had so that she could get into the preferred college. ‘I honestly didn’t and don’t care about my daughter going to a prestigious college. I just wanted to give her a shot at being considered for a program where her acting talent would be the deciding factor” (Sgueglia, K., & Yan, H., (2019). Mrs. Huffman was eventually caught and “U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani … sentenced Huffman to a $30,000 fine, supervised release for one year and 250 hours of community service…” (Garrison, J., 2019).

Some would argue that she just wanted the best for her daughter and wanted her to succeed, which is what all parents want for their children. A chance for them to be successful in what they love. But there are some who would be very upset that their child worked very hard to get into the exact same school without finances being the reason, because they believe that it should be earned. Others would say that Mrs. Huffman knew that what she was doing, which was using her wealth for personal gain, was dishonest and simply because she is rich felt as though it was something she could do, “just because”. For many reasons, these actions by all involved were fraudulent and unfair to many other students who could’ve had a spot in that school. However, this is where egoism becomes a problem. Not only did she commit a crime, but now she humiliated her daughter by putting her in the spotlight with poor grades and shame, as well. It’s one thing when a parent does something untruthful and dishonest in the public eye, but to involve their child(ren) with such embarrassment is very upsetting. Regarding this matter, it truly makes things tough for other college students and struggling parents to feel bad for these families because it was just lawfully and ethically the wrong thing to do, and it took away opportunities from others. A conversation between Mrs. Huffman and her daughter read, “…’I don’t know who you are anymore, Mom. Why didn’t you believe in me, Mom? Why didn’t you think I can do it on my own?’ I can only say, ‘I’m sorry Sophia. I was so stupid and I was so wrong’. … I have done more damage than I could have ever imagined’ (Garrison, J., 2019).

However, Mrs. Huffman apologized to her daughter, the judge, students and other parents remorsefully, knowing that what she did was wrong and it would be extremely questionable if no form of consequence was given. This situation was considered a conspiracy due to the fact that more than 2 individuals came together and decided that this was what they were going to do to get “around” the system and laws pertaining to honesty.

‘I don’t write this letter to you in any way to justify my wrongdoing, my guilt or to avoid conscious acceptance of the consequences,’…’In my desperation to be a good mother I talked myself into believing that all I was doing was giving my daughter a fair shot,’ …’I see the irony in that statement now because what I have done is the opposite of fair. I have broken the law, deceived the educational community, betrayed my daughter, and failed my family.’ (Sgueglia, K., & Yan, H., 2019).

The laws that had been broken in this situation were mail fraud and honest service fraud. Mail fraud is when the scheme includes mailing anything involved, like checks, contracts, etc. Mail fraud is punishable by a fine and up to 20 years in prison.

The most important of the two was Honest Service Fraud which “…is basically when you commit fraud depriving another of the right of honest services” (Hogan, J., 2019).

The concept of “honest services” is that a person or thing has the responsibility to give services honestly. Typically there is some type of service or duty to act for the benefit of someone else. Honest service fraud is punishable by a fine and a maximum prison sentence of 20 years as well.

It’s pretty evident that all colleges need to examine their admission process to ensure equal opportunity. ‘You start off assessing what internal controls you have,’ he said. ‘You make sure that who’s supposed to be doing what is documented. You need to make sure your personnel are honest because if your personnel aren’t honest, a lot of other mischief is possible.’

Some institutions said they were making changes to their athletic recruiting processes in light of the scandal. To protect against this pathway being exploited again, universities could task an official to check in with teams after the start of the year to ensure students admitted as recruited athletes are on the roster. Paying attention to ‘curious large donations’ is also important.