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Felicity Huffman tells judge she wanted her daughter to 'have a FAIR SHOT' at college acceptance,..
Daily Mal ^ | 9/6/19 | Leah Simpson

Posted on 09/06/2019 10:42:50 PM PDT by Impala64ssa

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To: Alberta's Child

Like it or not the colleges do still have knowledge that people need, so it’s not like you can just say a pox on all their houses and hit the library. My problem is that between work, school, family, there’s pretty much no time to hit the library or for side projects. The biggest benefit is the professors themselves, fellow students, and the textbooks. I’ll be honest and say that the “too socially desirable to fail” athletes and others that I got stuck with in group projects seem very unlikely to fall into the asset category later. They just take your work and move on without a backward glance, like they are entitled to it.


61 posted on 09/07/2019 9:44:51 AM PDT by BlackAdderess (Free the Russia investigation documents)
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To: Impala64ssa

Believe me, any vaguely deserving kids from the ghetto get their choice of Ivy League college.

She’s taking the opportunity from some white Joe-close-to-Average.

But lots of parents of kids in wealthy communities actually feel this way, because colleges will only take so many from their zip codes or high schools, and they have more smart and prepared kids to compete against there than if the kids had grown up elsewhere.


62 posted on 09/07/2019 9:48:10 AM PDT by 9YearLurker (.)
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To: Alberta's Child

The problem is threefold here:

1) the taxpayers dish over massive funding to most colleges,
2) others in the private sector aren’t allowed to discriminate in hiring or in serving the public, and
3) too many of those Chinese “students” are actually spies.


63 posted on 09/07/2019 9:50:30 AM PDT by 9YearLurker (.)
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To: BlackAdderess

Actually pretty much all the knowledge colleges have can be found in libraries.

What they have and many need is a credential for a particular professional field.


64 posted on 09/07/2019 9:52:34 AM PDT by 9YearLurker (.)
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To: BlackAdderess
She broke laws? LOL.

She pleaded guilty to one count of "conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud."

I'll bet most Americans have never even heard of such a thing.

For what it's worth, the term "honest services mail fraud" is a "crime" that occurs when someone engages in some kind of dishonesty where the victim can't even demonstrate any kind of tangible loss. This was one of the charges brought against the various "Russian hackers" by Robert Mueller's team of prosecutors ... which ought to tell you exactly how idiotic the "crime" is.

For what it's worth ... all of us who post on Free Republic using a screen name instead of our real names could probably be charged with this same "crime."

65 posted on 09/07/2019 10:27:29 AM PDT by Alberta's Child ("Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave." -- Frederick Douglass)
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To: 9YearLurker

I agree with all of your points ... which is exactly why nobody should ever face any legal consequences for engaging in blatant misrepresentations to get into those schools.


66 posted on 09/07/2019 10:28:36 AM PDT by Alberta's Child ("Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave." -- Frederick Douglass)
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To: Alberta's Child

I’m not sure I’m with you on that conclusion. If people sign to something at risk of prosecution for fraud, I don’t see why they shouldn’t be held to it.

“The system” altogether of course should be changed.


67 posted on 09/07/2019 10:57:47 AM PDT by 9YearLurker (.)
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To: Impala64ssa

Does she not get the irony in that statement? Cheating = fair. OMG.


68 posted on 09/07/2019 11:17:36 AM PDT by MayflowerMadam ("The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly." A. Lincoln)
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To: 9YearLurker
Who was actually defrauded here? The university, which already demonstrates that SAT scores for certain applicants are not relevant to the admissions process?

The university could never make a legal case that it was defrauded, since the "undeserving" student actually paid the full cost of attending the school.

69 posted on 09/07/2019 12:02:22 PM PDT by Alberta's Child ("Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave." -- Frederick Douglass)
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To: Alberta's Child

No, fraud isn’t based on a promise that you will be admitted according to your idea of fair criteria; it is based on vouching for something that isn’t so. Colleges don’t actually make promises along the lines you describe. But they have their applicants vouch for the information they provide in their applications.

The law is pretty straightforward here.


70 posted on 09/07/2019 12:45:15 PM PDT by 9YearLurker (.)
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To: ClearBlueSky

So preferring sports is a disability,as is laziness? That tells me stupid lazy kids are getting into college and learning nothing.This is buying diplomas and putting incompetent people into the workplace. And its been going on for a long time. Hope your doctor didnt buy his MD.


71 posted on 09/07/2019 1:36:56 PM PDT by ClearBlueSky (ISLAM is the problem. ISLAM is the enemy of civilization.)
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To: 9YearLurker
I never even heard of the term "honest services fraud" until I saw it reported among the various counts included in the criminal charges brought by Robert Mueller's team in the "Russian hackers" cases that seem to have disappeared from the news these days. I did some research and came across some very interesting information.

The first thing I did was determine was exactly constitutes "fraud" in legal terms. If you do this, you'll likely find some variation of this definition (from USLegal.com):

Fraud is generally defined in the law as an intentional misrepresentation of material existing fact made by one person to another with knowledge of its falsity and for the purpose of inducing the other person to act, and upon which the other person relies with resulting injury or damage.

The highlighted item in that definition is mine. I highlighted it because it undermines many of the cases that are prosecuted for "honest services fraud." In the case of a person who willfully provides misleading information to a college on an application for admissions, this begs the question: Who, exactly, has suffered some kind of injury or damage?

This is not an inconsequential point I raise. In fact, the lack of any "injury or damage" was the legal basis for the U.S. Supreme Court decision in United States v. Alvarez, which overturned a key provision of the Stolen Valor Act of 2005. In effect, the court ruled that absent any fraud, the First Amendment protects outright lies and false claims as "speech."

As a result of this decision, the Stolen Valor Act of 2013 was passed which included a provision that stated the Act was only applicable in cases where the defendant gained something of value by fraud. The 2013 law was effectively meaningless because these cases could already be prosecuted under existing fraud statutes.

Now let's move on to "honest services fraud," which apparently involves cases where no damages of any kind actually occur.

The American Bar Association published an interesting article outlining some serious concerns about the Federal law as it is written:

Honest Services Fraud: You May Already Be Guilty!

The crux of the problem for the ABA is that the applicable Federal statute is so broad and vague that it can be used to prosecute just about anyone. They even cite a number of cases where Justice Antonin Scalia wrote at length about the dangers this statute present to Americans. The law as it is written could turn a person who lies about his birthday just to get a piece of cake and a "Happy Birthday!" serenade from the staff at a local restaurant into a felon.

This is the provision of the Federal statute that the ABA found so problematic:

For the purposes of this chapter, the term "scheme or artifice to defraud" includes a scheme or artifice to deprive another of the intangible right of honest services.

The ABA is right. What the hell is an "intangible right of honest services?"

72 posted on 09/07/2019 2:33:07 PM PDT by Alberta's Child ("Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave." -- Frederick Douglass)
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To: Alberta's Child

If you sign a contract with an agreed penulty for misrepresentation you can be liable for that—which is nothing akin to your birthday cake example.

And there are all kinds of ways a college can claim harm for signing, say, a team athlete who can’t play the sport or just any student who brings down the quality of the student body or doesn’t diversify it in some way they are seeking. A whole lot of damage from that? Probably not.

But don’t the charges in these college cases include commercial bribery that via wire communications or otherwise crossing state lines falls under federal purview? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_bribery


73 posted on 09/07/2019 2:49:22 PM PDT by 9YearLurker (.)
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To: Alberta's Child

I might add, however, that given all the Deep State, massive crime in DC itself, I see no reason for the Feds to go trawling to this kind of backwater to prosecute, however.

It is akin to the prosecution back in the day of Martha Stewart—while the Bushes, Clinton, Obama, Mueller, Barr, etc., still all go free.


74 posted on 09/07/2019 2:52:01 PM PDT by 9YearLurker (.)
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To: 9YearLurker
If you sign a contract with an agreed penalty for misrepresentation you can be liable for that—which is nothing akin to your birthday cake example.

In the case of a college application, the penalty is what? The college cannot unilaterally declare that a misrepresentation is a criminal act ... so this would have to be a civil matter, not a criminal one. But keep in mind that the applicant pays a fee to the college, so there is no "duty of care" relationship that would apply like you would see in a customer-business transaction. If anything, the college has a duty to the applicants that is not clearly reciprocated by the applicants (as I read it).

And there are all kinds of ways a college can claim harm for signing, say, a team athlete who can’t play the sport or just any student who brings down the quality of the student body or doesn’t diversify it in some way they are seeking.

You can throw "diversity" out the window because it's impossible to quantify it, or (more importantly) to quantify the financial benefits of it. And the case of a student who misrepresented his or her athletic skills would never hold up in a court of law, since this would be a classic example of a plaintiff failing to take steps to protect its own interests by scouting the student before signing a commitment letter.

The commercial bribery angle might be more applicable than any other, but the link you posted seems to undermine it: "There is no federal statute that by its terms expressly prohibits commercial bribery generally."

75 posted on 09/07/2019 2:59:53 PM PDT by Alberta's Child ("Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave." -- Frederick Douglass)
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To: Alberta's Child

You needed to keep reading. From the link:

“However, the federal mail and wire fraud statutes [9] can be used to prosecute commercial bribery as a “scheme or artifice to defraud” if the mail or interstate wire facilities are used. In addition, use of the mails or interstate travel or communication in furtherance of a violation of state commercial bribery laws may be prosecutable in Federal court under the Travel Act.[10] As the penalties under the federal statutes may exceed the state penalties, and the federal investigative and enforcement agencies may have superior resources, often federal prosecution is favored.”


76 posted on 09/07/2019 3:17:07 PM PDT by 9YearLurker (.)
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To: Alberta's Child

I disagree. There are only so many slots in colleges for students to take, especially in the medical field. The US Government has a hand in this as well. It may not matter to you who gets that slot, but it does to Americans whose taxes have paid into that system for decades.


77 posted on 09/07/2019 4:08:14 PM PDT by Amberdawn (Want To Honor Our Troops? Then Be A Citizen Worth Fighting For.)
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To: bgill

If you look at Harvard’s incoming class, it’s clear Harvard has preferences. The incoming class is:

30% minority
25% Asian
16% first generation to go to college
They didn’t give data on how many whites were accepted

Where do they come from:
22% mid Atlantic
20% south
2% central
3% mountain
13% international

If you’re a white kid from a flyover state you’re not what they’re looking for - even with perfect SAT scores

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/03/harvard-college-admits-1950-to-class-of-23/

https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/admissions-statistics


78 posted on 09/07/2019 6:07:48 PM PDT by ladyjane
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