A single mother in San Francisco filed a $500 billion class-action lawsuit against rich parents involved in the nationwide college admissions scandal that allegedly robbed more deserving Asian or Asian American applicants.
Jennifer Kay Toy, a former teacher in the Oakland Unified School District, accused 45 people of using bribery to get their children into the nation’s top schools — including actresses Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman.
“I’m not a wealthy person, but even if I were wealthy I would not have engaged in the heinous and despicable actions of defendants,” Toy wrote in the suit.
Her son Joshua, who was also named as a plaintiff, failed to get into the schools where bribing allegedly took place even with a 4.2 grade point average.
“I’m outraged and hurt because I feel that my son, my only child, was denied access to a college not because he failed to work and study hard enough, but because wealthy individuals felt that it was OK to lie, cheat, steal and bribe their children’s way into a good college.”
The ongoing scandal is the largest one yet in U.S. college admissions history. On Tuesday, federal prosecutors claimed that a company in California made $25 million in charging parents for their children’s spots at universities such as Yale, Stanford and Georgetown, according to Reuters.
William Rick Singer, the alleged mastermind of the scheme, runs a company called Edge College & Career Network — better known as the Key — which brands itself as a referral-based college counseling service for “the world’s most respected families.” He pleaded guilty to racketeering charges on Tuesday, the Los Angeles Times reported.
As a teacher, Toy said that she always taught her students that study and hard work are the best routes to a good college, and that cheating is wrong.
She said that she and other plaintiffs “simply wanted a fair chance for themselves or their children to go to a good college and that opportunity for a fair chance was stolen by the actions of Defendants … who feel that because they are wealthy they are allowed to lie, cheat and steal from others.”
