Prosecutors called Chassin as a witness to prove that the defendants engaged in a scheme that harmed the schools. She testified that admissions officers had no idea the process had been corrupted.
At one point Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Frank referred to a Twitter post by a vice provost at another university that said “the admissions process favors wealthy students” and “people who actually do admissions for a living already know this.” Frank asked Chassin why she had re-tweeted the post.
“Do you believe that wealthy people have advantages in applying to college?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “The schools they attend, the type of curriculum they might have access to, perhaps having parents who may be more educated, having the ability to hire tutors or test prep—a lot of help in the application process.”
She added, “We don’t believe that most affluent students are misusing their advantages,” but if some are, “it’s a problem.”
The case is U.S. v. Colburn et al., 19-cr-10080, U.S. District Court, District of Massachusetts (Boston).
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.