When former University of Illinois College of Law Dean Heidi Hurd went before the Illinois Admissions Review Commission in Chicago on Wednesday to answer ethical concerns about an alleged political clout list used to get some students into the law school, she said she fought those pressures “at every turn” and was “incensed” by them.
Hurd was called to testify before the panel largely because of 2006 e-mail exchanges, disclosed by the Chicago Tribune, in which it appeared that she may have accepted unqualified students into the college and accepted the promise of jobs from some people backing those students in exchange for the admissions. Mainly, Hurd said that she felt she had no choice but to follow the orders of university superiors in admitting about 15 students from the list during the course of her five-year term.
