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Illinois Law Dean Announces New Admission Policy in Wake of Scandal
The National Law Journal
July 13, 2009
University of Illinois College of Law Dean Bruce Smith, in an effort to counter a scandal that indicated that some applicants to the college were admitted with the help of influential people, said on Thursday that no applicant will get special treatment under a new policy.
In a letter to staff, faculty, students and alumni, Smith said the new policy will also require the college to respond only to inquiries on the status of an application if the inquiry is made by the applicant. In addition, the school will now accept only formal letters of recommendation that are made to the admissions office and placed in the applicant's file.
"Under my deanship, the college will give no 'special' consideration, treatment, or procedure to any application," Smith said in the letter. "All applicants will be treated equally."
In addition to the existence of the so-called clout list on which the special applicants were named, at least one of the school's trustees, Frances Carroll, testified at an Illinois Admissions Review Commission hearing last week that she would sometimes make inquiries about the status of particular applications directly to the school's top officials.
The letter follows a series of Chicago Tribune stories that revealed that the university kept a list of applicants, including those to the college of law, who were backed by influential state officials, university officials or large donors. Applicants on the list were given special consideration and in some cases admitted to the university despite subpar qualifications. Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn last month set up the special admissions review commission to investigate the matter and has called on various officials to testify.
Smith and former College of Law Dean Heidi Hurd testified at the commission's hearing last week. Hurd said that when she became dean in 2002, there was a "machine" in place through which her superiors required certain applicants to be admitted to the college. She estimated that about 15 students were accepted in that manner over her five-year term, though some would have been admitted in any case and there weren't any in her last year.
