For years, Georgetown University’s longtime president, John J. DeGioia, flagged 80 students to be added to a special admissions list — but not, apparently, for their academic or athletic prowess, documents in a lawsuit claim.
Those on DeGioia’s president’s list were virtually assured of admissions simply because of their family’s wealth and donation potential, according to a motion filed Monday in a long-running lawsuit against a set of 17 selective universities, including the University of Pennsylvania, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Notre Dame, Cornell University, Johns Hopkins University and the California Institute of Technology.
The new motion argues that the universities were supposed to be “need blind” and not take into account a family’s income when they decided who to admit and how much financial aid to offer. The plaintiffs argue that the schools gave preference to wealthy students in a way that violated provisions of a now-expired law permitting them to agree on financial aid formulas…