Students Score a Victory Against USC as Court Allows Discrimination Claim in Class Action Lawsuit to Move Forward
Graduate social work students are suing USC for allegedly misleading students about its expensive online MSW degree program and operating a “diploma mill”
BOSTON (September 18, 2024) – The Los Angeles Superior Court issued an order on September 17, 2024, in the class action lawsuit Luna v. USC, allowing the plaintiffs’ claims of discrimination to move forward and rejecting USC’s attempt to have these claims dismissed from the case.
Graduates of USC’s online Master of Social Work program, which they allege was largely outsourced to the for-profit online program manager 2U, Inc., filed the lawsuit against USC in May 2023. The complaint in that lawsuit states that USC deliberately deceives students by claiming that its online MSW program is the “same” academic program as USC’s long-standing on-campus program other than in format, and hides that its online MSW program is outsourced to 2U and provides a fundamentally different and inferior program experience. Worse, the students allege that USC uses aggressive and predatory tactics to enroll students of color in this unequal program, including by using racial profiling and targeting.
This latest order rules in the students’ favor, denying USC’s request to dismiss plaintiffs’ claim for racial discrimination under California’s Unruh Act. The court found that the plaintiffs had sufficiently alleged that USC specifically targeted “hard sell” recruitment tactics toward prospective students of color to convince them to enroll in an inferior online program, in a process that plaintiffs allege constitutes “reverse redlining” or predatory inclusion.
"This ruling is a big win for these students who bravely spoke up and fought back against USC’s predatory and misleading tactics,” said Eileen Connor, President and Executive Director of the Project on Predatory Student Lending. “We look forward to moving ahead with discovery and reviewing documents that we're confident will further expose USC’s wrongdoing and validate our clients’ claims.”
In the lawsuit, the plaintiff students are seeking a return of money they overpaid and to prevent USC from deceiving online MSW students moving forward and otherwise correct its unlawful business practices.
The complaint alleges that in its partnership with 2U, USC turned its online MSW program into a large-scale diploma mill. As explained in the complaint, USC’s MSW program has grown from enrolling 300 total students per cohort prior to 2010, to currently enrolling more than 3,000 students, almost entirely through online growth, creating tremendous revenue for USC. The filing details several ways in which USC allegedly targeted and misled students about its online MSW program. Subsequent to the filing of this lawsuit, USC announced it was ending its contractual relationship with 2U, and 2U recently filed for bankruptcy.
The plaintiff students are represented by attorneys from The Project on Predatory Student Lending and the San Francisco-based public interest law firm Altshuler Berzon LLP. The putative false advertising class includes all California citizens who are or have been USC online MSW students at any time from four years before the filing of the complaint up through when final judgment is entered in the case.
To learn more about the case, visit the Case Page.
About the Project on Predatory Student Lending
The Project on Predatory Student Lending (PPSL) is the leading legal organization representing student borrowers against predatory for-profit colleges and the policies that enable institutions to exploit and cheat students. PPSL uses bold, strategic litigation and advocacy to demand accountability in the higher education space and influence policy solutions to create a more just and affordable education system. PPSL represents more than one million student borrowers and its work has resulted in cancellation of more than $22 billion of fraudulent student loan debt.
Altshuler Berzon LLP is a San Francisco law firm dedicated to providing the highest quality representation in the service of economic justice and the public interest.
