A recent decision by a federal judge in Illinois—Frank Carbone, et al. v. Brown University, et al.—to allow a Section 1 Sherman Act conspiracy case to proceed to discovery will attract the attention of antitrust attorneys and colleges and universities and parents and college-bound students. Expect lively arguments in court, in classrooms and at water coolers.

In the case in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, nine plaintiffs have filed a putative antitrust class action lawsuit against 17 elite private universities—Brown, Cal Tech, University of Chicago, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, Emory, Georgetown, Johns Hopkins, MIT, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Penn, Rice, Vanderbilt and Yale.