College Cheating Scheme: Two Stanford Students File Lawsuit Claiming They Were 'Damaged' By Scandal

Two Stanford University students have filed a class-action lawsuit against the schools that were targeted in the college entrance exam cheating scandal, claiming their degrees are not worth as much as they once were. The cheating scandal has implicated 50 people, along with actresses Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman.

The students, Erica Olsen and Kalea Woods, are suing the alleged leader of the scheme William “Rick” Singer and his company Key Worldwide Foundation along with USC, UCLA, Stanford, University of San Diego, University of Texas, Wake Forest, Yale, and Georgetown.

Olsen and Woods are currently students at Stanford, and they contend that they have been “damaged” as a result of the cheating scandal and their enrollment at one of the schools that were connected to the scheme.

Both women claim that their “degree is now not worth as much as it was before, because prospective employers may now question” if they really were admitted to the school based on their academic merits or if they had “parents who were willing to bribe school officials.”

Olsen also argues that she applied to Yale but “was never informed that the process of admission was an unfair, rigged process, in which rich parents could buy their way into the university through bribery.” She claims that she did “not receive what she paid for—a fair admissions consideration process.”

Woods made the same claims about USC, where she applied for admittance to the school.

The women are looking for damages that could exceed $5 million, The Blast reported. The lawsuit was filed in the federal court in San Francisco on Wednesday.