Harvard creates $100 mn slavery reparation fund

Yahoo – AFP, April 26, 2022 

Harvard University has announced a $100 million fund to atone for its role
in slavery (AFP/Maddie Meyer) (Maddie Meyer)

America's prestigious Harvard University announced Tuesday it will commit $100 million to redress its role in slavery, as more US institutions move toward reparations for historical injustices. 

Harvard said it was putting the money into a fund to help tackle the educational and social gaps caused by the legacies of the slave trade and racism. 

The move follows a wide-ranging internal review of the university's role in slavery, the results of which were posted on its website. 

The 100-page report made several recommendations about how the money should be spent, including the improvement of educational opportunities for descendant communities, honoring enslaved people through memorials and research, and creating partnerships with Black colleges and universities. 

It also recommended identifying and supporting direct descendants of Black and Native American enslaved individuals who labored on Harvard's campus and who were enslaved by previous Harvard leaders. 

"Harvard benefited from and in some ways perpetuated practices that were profoundly immoral," Harvard president Lawrence Bacow wrote in a letter to students and staff posted on the institution's website. 

"Consequently, I believe we bear a moral responsibility to do what we can to address the persistent corrosive effects of those historical practices on individuals, on Harvard, and on our society," he added. 

Harvard was founded in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1636. 

The report found that Harvard staff, including four presidents, enslaved more than 70 individuals until slavery was outlawed in the state in 1783. 

The report also found that the university "benefited from extensive financial ties to slavery," including donations from slave traders. 

It said that from the mid-19th century well into the 20th century Harvard presidents and prominent professors promoted race science and eugenics and "conducted abusive 'research,' including the photographing of enslaved and subjugated human beings." 

Harvard's announcement comes as US institutions grapple with how to make amends for their role in slavery. 

Last year, the leaders of the Jesuit conference of priests vowed to raise $100 million to benefit the descendants of slaves it once owned. 

In 2019, students at Georgetown University approved a fund that would benefit the descendants of slaves sold by the elite Jesuit school in the 1800s.

US Supreme Court backs payments for student athletes

Yahoo – AFP, Paul HANDLEY, June 21, 2021 

US Universities sports governed by the NCAA ,including football, are ahugely lucrative
business but athletes themselves don't reap the financial benefits, the Supreme Court said. 

The US Supreme Court ruled Monday that America's top university athletics body cannot block student-athletes from getting extra benefits, eroding its power over the multi-billion-dollar college sports industry. 

The high court sided unanimously with student-athletes in a narrow case focused on whether they can receive limited cash or non-cash benefits from their schools related to their education, which the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) currently forbids. 

While it did not weigh in on whether student-athletes should be able to cash in completely on their performances, the Supreme Court made it clear it did not accept the NCAA's claim that its strict ban on their earning any money, to retain "amateur" status, was important to the business. 

The court called the NCAA an effective monopoly in its control over the lucrative industry of college sports. 

"Put simply, this suit involves admitted horizontal price fixing in a market where the defendants exercise monopoly control," Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in the opinion. 

"No one disputes that the NCAA's restrictions in fact decrease the compensation that student-athletes receive compared to what a competitive market would yield." 

The long-brewing case, NCAA v. Alston et al, did not address the hottest topic of college sports: whether athletes, like universities and the NCAA, should benefit from endorsements or monetization of their personal images, such as sales of shirts bearing their names. 

But the court said the NCAA could not prove that athletes keeping their amateur status was important to what Gorsuch called its "massive business." 

"Those who run this enterprise profit in a different way than the student-athletes whose activities they oversee," he said. 

"The president of the NCAA earns nearly $4 million per year. Commissioners of the top conferences take home between $2 to $5 million... And annual salaries for top Division I college football coaches approach $11 million." 

'Price-fixing labor' 

The ruling appeared to open the gate for a broader challenge to the NCAA's control on how student-athletes can earn money, or share in the profits the NCAA and universities rake in. 

"Price-fixing labor is price-fixing labor," Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in a concurring opinion. 

"The NCAA's business model would be flatly illegal in almost any other industry in America," he said. 

"All of the restaurants in a region cannot come together to cut cooks' wages on the theory that 'customers prefer' to eat food from low-paid cooks." 

The White House applauded the ruling, while the NCAA said the court had reaffirmed its authority to adopt "reasonable rules" and that it remained free to judge what constitutes "truly educational benefits." 

Individual states will implement new laws on July 1 that give student-athletes the right to profit from endorsements, so-called "name, image and likeness" (NIL) benefits. 

Currently the NCAA bans them from profiting from social media, sales of shirts bearing their names, video games using their likenesses and apparel deals arranged by their schools. 

But the much smaller National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, authorized NIL benefits last year. 

The NCAA has stalled on the issue, leading to Congress now debating legislation. 

The council for NCAA's powerful Division I, representing the largest and richest schools, will meet on Tuesday and Wednesday and could discuss the issue. 

"The NCAA remains committed to supporting NIL benefits for student-athletes," NCAA President Mark Emmert said in a statement. 

"Additionally, we remain committed to working with Congress to chart a path forward, which is a point the Supreme Court expressly stated in its ruling."

Head of US Christian college steps aside in flap over photo

Yahoo – AFP, Brendan Smialowski, August 8, 2020

President of Liberty University Jerry Falwell, Jr, shown here with US President Donald
Trump during the shool's commencement ceremony in 2017, posted a controversial
photo of himself with a woman on Instagram

Jerry Falwell Jr. has taken an indefinite leave of absence as president of a prominent US evangelical university amid a furor over an Instagram picture of him and a young woman, both with pants partly unzipped.

The 58-year-old Falwell, whose father was one of the country's best-known televangelists and who founded Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, is stepping aside at the request of the school's trustees.

He himself had posted the controversial picture showing him standing on a private yacht with one hand around the waist of a young woman -- later said to be his wife's assistant -- and the other holding an unidentified dark beverage.

Both sport broad smiles and have their zippers a few inches down, baring their midriffs.

A terse statement Friday from the Christian university said the trustees' executive committee had asked Falwell to "take an indefinite leave of absence from his roles as President and Chancellor of Liberty University, to which he has agreed, effective immediately."

It offered no explanation.

Falwell previously told radio station WLNI that he and the woman were at a costume party and "it was just in good fun."

He said he should never have posted the photo, adding, "I've apologized to everybody and I promised my kids I'm going to try to be a good boy from here on out."

The university has a strict code of conduct for students, who are told they must "dress modestly and appropriately at all times" while on campus and "avoid the appearance of impropriety."

One Republican member of Congress who is on a Liberty advisory board, Mark Walker of North Carolina, has called on Falwell to resign.

"I just think there's a code that leaders have to live by, especially when you're leading the largest Christian evangelical university in the country," he told CNN.

Falwell has been a vocal supporter of President Donald Trump, who appeared on the campus twice before his 2016 election.

In one appearance, Falwell introduced him as "one of the greatest visionaries of our time."

UK historian quits Cambridge over slavery claim

Yahoo – AFP, Dmitry ZAKS, July 5, 2020

David Starkey (R) seen here in 2007 with Britain's Prince Charles, Prince of Wales,
has resigned from his position at Cambridge University (AFP Photo/IAN JONES)

London (AFP) - A British royal historian who said slavery was not genocide has quit his honorary position at Cambridge University and been dropped by his publisher HarperCollins.

The comments from Professor David Starkey came during a period of soul searching in Britain over its colonial past.

The Black Lives Matter movement that gained momentum after the death of George Floyd in US police custody in May saw the statue of a major slave trader dumped in an English harbour as protests hit cities across the UK.

Starkey is an expert on Britain's Tudor period -- a time in the 1500s when the slave trade was growing as European colonies across the Caribbean and the Americas expanded.

He said in a June 30 online interview with the right-wing UK commentator Darren Grimes that the BLM movement represented "the worst side of American black culture".

"Slavery was not genocide. Otherwise, there wouldn't be so many damn blacks in Africa or in Britain, would there? An awful lot of them survived," Starkey said.

"We had Catholic emancipation at pretty much exactly the same time that we got rid of slavery in the 1830s. We don't go on about that because it's part of history, it's a question that's settled," he added.

The remarks prompted Sajid Javid -- a former finance and interior minister who has talked about how his Pakistani father faced discrimination after coming to Britain -- to call Starkey a racist.

"We are the most successful multi-racial democracy in the world and have much to be proud of," Javid tweeted on Thursday.

"But David Starkey's racist comments ('so many damn blacks') are a reminder of the appalling views that still exist."

Javid's tweet was picked up by British media, and Cambridge University's Fitzwilliam College accepted Starkey's resignation the next day.

'Not engaged enough'

Canterbury Christ Church University in southeastern England also terminated Starkey's contract as a visiting professor.

"His comments are completely unacceptable and totally go against our university and community values," the university said in a tweet.

HarperCollins UK called Starkey's views "abhorrent".

"Our last book with the author was in 2010, and we will not be publishing further books with him," it said.

"We are reviewing his existing backlist in light of his comments and views."

Starkey could not be reached for comment and did not respond to other UK media interview requests.

But the right-wing commentator who conducted the historian's interview disassociated himself from Starkey's remarks.

"Hand on heart, I wasn't engaged enough in this interview as I should have been," Grimes said in a statement.

"I should have robustly questioned Dr Starkey about his comments."

Elite UK school Eton to apologise to ex-pupil for racist abuse

Yahoo – AFP, 23 June 2020

The head of Britain's Eton College said Tuesday he will invite back a black former student to apologise in person for racism he experienced at the top fee-paying school in the 1960s.

England's Eton College has become a byword for elitism and the class divide

Simon Henderson said he wanted Dillibe Onyeama to feel welcome after he was previously banned from visiting Eton for writing a book about the racist abuse he faced there.

"We have made significant strides since Mr Onyeama was at Eton but... we have to have the institutional and personal humility to acknowledge that we still have more to do," Henderson said in a statement.

"We must all speak out and commit to doing better -- permanently -- and I am determined that we seize this moment as a catalyst for real and sustained change for the better.

"I will be inviting Mr Onyeama to meet so as to apologise to him in person, on behalf of the school, and to make clear that he will always be welcome at Eton."

The school's move follows anti-racism protests across Britain, sparked by the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, during a police arrest in the United States.

The demonstrations have focused renewed attention on racism in Britain, as well as the toxic legacy of its colonial past, including calls for it to be taught in schools.

Nigerian writer Onyeama, who graduated from Eton in 1969, wrote a book about his experiences at the exclusive private boys' school, near Windsor, west of London.

The school has become a byword for elitism and Britain's class divide.

Annual fees cost more than £42,000 ($52,000, 46,000 euros) per year. Old boys include Prime minister Boris Johnson, and princes William and Harry.

Onyeama told the BBC he had been taunted on a daily basis by fellow students, and asked questions like "why are you black?" and "how many maggots are there in your hair?"

When he struggled in academics or flourished in sports, the students attributed it to his race, while when he excelled in exams he was accused of cheating, the broadcaster said.

After detailing his experiences in a 1972 memoir, he received an official letter informing him that he was banned from visiting Eton.

Onyeama said although the apology now was not necessary, it "compels the recognition that prejudice on the grounds of colour or race dehumanises its victims in a way that ordinary forms of prejudice do not".

He added that his overall experience at Eton was "positive".

Henderson said he was "appalled" to learn of the racist abuse Onyeama faced, and his "absolute priority" was to make Eton an "inclusive, compassionate and supportive community for all".

"Racism has no place in civilised society, then or now," he added.

Actress Huffman gets two weeks jail in US college admissions scandal

Yahoo – AFP, Joseph Prezioso with Peter Hutchison in New York, September 14, 2019

Fans wait for actress Felicity Huffman to leave the John Joseph Moakley
United States Courthouse in Boston, where she was sentenced for her role
in the college admissions scandal (AFP Photo/Joseph Prezioso)

Boston (AFP) - Actress Felicity Huffman was given two weeks jail time Friday for paying bribes to help her daughter gain admission to a prestigious American university, the first high-profile figure to be sentenced in a cheating scandal that rocked America.

The "Desperate Housewives" actress, wearing a navy blue dress and cardigan, looked ashen-faced as she left the federal courthouse in Boston, Massachusetts, clutching the hand of her husband, actor William H. Macy.

Huffman, 56, was the first parent to be sentenced among 50 people indicted in an elaborate and wide-ranging scam to help children of the elite secure places in top US colleges.

The Oscar nominee pleaded guilty in May during a tearful court appearance to paying $15,000 to boost her daughter's SAT college entrance exam score.

Judge Indira Talwani told Huffman it was important to send a message to other parents that they can't use their wealth to cheat more deserving students.

"I think without this sentence you would be looking at a future with the community around you asking why you had gotten away with this," she said, according to media outlets in the courtroom.

The judge said Huffman can rebuild her life after serving the sentence, which also includes a fine of $30,000 and 250 hours of community service.

"After this, you've paid your dues," she said.

Huffman must report for prison on October 25.

The actress apologized to students and parents and said she accepted the judge's decision.

"I broke the law. There are no excuses or justifications for my actions. Period," the actress said in a statement.

"My hope now is that my family, my friends and my community will forgive me for my actions," Huffman added.

Federal prosecutors had asked that Huffman be given a month in jail.

Her defense team recommended a sentence of a year's probation and a $20,000 fine.

Her guilty plea avoided what would have been a well-publicized trial and potentially lengthier jail sentence.

The crime is punishable by up to 20 years in prison and a fine of as much as $250,000.

Huffman announced her intention to plead guilty in April, saying she was "ashamed" of what she had done.

Lori Loughlin

The scandal erupted in March when the ringleader behind the scam, William "Rick" Singer, admitted running the elaborate system which ranged from cheating in entrance exams to bribing coaches to help non-athletic students get scholarships.

Authorities say he was paid about $25 million to bribe coaches and university administrators. He has pleaded guilty and is cooperating with authorities.

His sentencing will take place on September 19.

In June, a former Stanford University sailing coach was the first to be sentenced, receiving two years of supervised release.

John Vandemoer, 41, had pleaded guilty in March for accepting payments to the program totaling $610,000 "in exchange for corrupting the admissions process of a major university," prosecutors said.

A Chinese family admitted to paying Singer $6.5 million to guarantee their daughter admission to Stanford, with Vandemoer's help, though the mother said she was duped into believing the sum was a charitable donation.

Besides Stanford, some of the universities targeted in the elaborate cheating scam include University of Southern California, Yale, Georgetown and UCLA. None of the schools or the students have been charged in the case.

Actress Lori Loughlin from 1980s-90s sitcom "Full House" has also been accused. She and her husband have pleaded not guilty and are awaiting trial.

MIT professor quits in protest over lab links to Epstein

Yahoo – AFP, August 22, 2019

Disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein portrayed himself as a 'science philanthropist'
and was friendly with several renowned scientists (AFP Photo/STEPHANIE KEITH)

New York (AFP) - The head of a research center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has said he will quit in protest after the revelation of financial ties between the institution and disgraced hedge fund manager Jeffrey Epstein.

Ethan Zuckerman, director of the Center for Civic Media at the MIT Media Lab, said he would leave at the end of the 2019-2020 academic year after finding out that lab director Joi Ito took money from Epstein, who committed suicide in prison on August 10 as he awaited trial on sex trafficking charges.

"My logic was simple: the work my group does focuses on social justice and on the inclusion of marginalized individuals and points of view," Zuckerman wrote in a message posted on the Medium forum Tuesday and added to Wednesday.

"It's hard to do that work with a straight face in a place that violated its own values so clearly in working with Epstein and in disguising that relationship."

Zuckerman said he had apologized to the three recipients of the Media Lab's 2018 "Disobedience Prize" who were recognized for their fight against sexual harassment in the science world.

"For me, the deep involvement of Epstein in the life of the Media Lab is something that makes my work impossible to carry forward there," Zuckerman said.

Researcher J. Nathan Matias, a visiting scholar at the lab, said he was also resigning following the revelations about Ito's ties with Epstein.

Matias was working on a project conducting research on protecting women and other vulnerable people from online abuse and harassment.

"I cannot with integrity do that from a place with the kind of relationship that the Media Lab has had with Epstein. It's that simple," he said in a post on Medium announcing his resignation.

Earlier this month, Ito apologized in an open letter for his links with Epstein, who was accused of trafficking girls as young as 14 for sex.

Ito said he met the businessman in 2013, five years after Epstein's first conviction in Florida for paying young girls for sexual massages.

He admitted to visiting residences owned by the multimillionaire and having accepted financial assistance for the Media Lab and for his own investment fund.

While taking "full responsibility for my error in judgment," Ito said "that in all of my interactions with Epstein, I was never involved in, never heard him talk about, and never saw any evidence of the horrific acts that he was accused of."

Other scientists, including Harvard genetics professor George Church, have apologized for having contacts with Epstein.

The hedge fund manager had portrayed himself as a "science philanthropist" and was friendly with several renowned scientists.

According to recently released court documents quoted by US media, one of Epstein's alleged victims, Virginia Giuffre, said as a teenager she was forced to have sex at one of Epstein's residences with Marvin Minsky, a co-founder of the MIT Media Lab who died in early 2016.

Chinese family say they were scammed over $6.5mn Stanford payment

Yahoo – AFP, 3 May 2019

Stanford was among the prestigious universities targeted in the elaborate
cheating scheme

The mother of a Chinese student admitted Friday she paid $6.5 million to the man at the heart of a US college admission scandal but said she was duped into believing the sum was a charitable donation.

American academia has been rocked by a colossal bribery scandal run by William "Rick" Singer who has pleaded guilty to working with corrupt coaches, university administrators and exam monitors to get the children of wealthy families into prestigious colleges.

The $25 million scam, which was revealed by US prosecutors earlier this year, has seen some 50 people charged including Hollywood actors and industry CEOs.

Most of the cases that have come to light through indictments or guilty pleas have involved parents paying anywhere between $15,000 and $600,000 to ensure their children got into college.

But earlier this week US media reported that Singer received a huge payment of $6.5 million from a wealthy Chinese family whose daughter Yusi Zhao got into Stanford in 2017.

On Friday, Hong Kong-based lawyers for Zhao's mother released a statement on her behalf in which she said the payment was made but that Singer had led her to believe it was a legitimate donation that would go towards Stanford's staff salaries and scholarship programme.

"The donation is in the same nature as those that many affluent parents have been doing openly to prestigious universities," the statement read, adding they had made it a month after their daughter was accepted into Stanford.

"Since the matters concerning Mr Singer and his foundation have been widely reported, Mrs Zhao has come to realise she has been misled, her generosity has been taken advantage of, and her daughter has fallen victim to the scam," it added.

Law firm Mayer Brown declined to give the mother's full name or say whether Yusi Zhao is still at the prestigious Ivy League college.

The New York Times said her father is a wealthy businessman who made his fortune in traditional Chinese medicine and health supplements.

A reporter from the paper who visited the family's home in an ultra-wealthy district on the outskirts of Beijing this week said a Ferrari, a Tesla, a Bentley and a Land Rover could be seen parked outside a California-style mansion.

Prosecutors in the US have not filed any charges against the Zhao family.

American colleges are highly sought after among Chinese families and a booming industry has flourished offering consulting and test preparation advice. Chinese students have also become a hugely lucrative demographic for those colleges.

US media have reported only one other family paid Singer a seven figure sum -- a Chinese family who allegedly paid $1.2 million to get their daughter into Yale.

Related Articles:

Behind the bribery: US university admissions favor the rich

Hollywood stars among dozens charged over college entrance scam

"Desperate Housewives" star Felicity Huffman (L) and fellow Hollywood actress

Lori Loughlin are among 50 people indicted in a nationwide university admissions

scam, court records showed (AFP Photo/LISA O'CONNOR, Tommaso Boddi)

Behind the bribery: US university admissions favor the rich

Yahoo – AFP, Thomas URBAIN, March 14, 2019

Some American parents will pay heavily to better their children's chances of entering
schools like Washington's Georgetown University (AFP Photo/WIN MCNAMEE)

New York (AFP) - The scandal of parents paying to cheat their children's way into elite US universities has put a harsh spotlight on the ultra-competitive college admissions process, in which the haves hold a massive advantage over the have-nots.

Thirty-three wealthy parents -- financiers, lawyers, and two famous actresses among them -- were arrested Tuesday as part of an operation that charged from $15,000 to millions of dollars to help them get their children into renowned schools like Yale, Georgetown, Stanford and the University of Southern California.

But as outraged as many Americans were at the illegality, even within the law, the rich have a huge, unfair advantage when it comes to gaming the intensely stressful annual college admissions battle.

The competition is clear in the numbers. Just 4.6 percent of over 40,000 students applying to Harvard University get in.

The figure is 4.3 percent at Stanford and 5.5 percent and Columbia, two other top universities.

Many who are qualified grade-wise are rejected, intensifying the competition to stand out.

The process favors the wealthy. They can apply to more schools and invest heavily in preparing for tests and essays.

The richest, too, can beat the competition by donating to universities. ProPublica editor Daniel Golden documented how President Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner gained admission to Harvard University in 1998 after his father made a legal $2.5 million donation to the school.

"There's a limited number of spots for those with enormous means," said Hafeez Lakhani, whose Lakhani Coaching company helps prepare students.

"I understand that there is a disparity out there and that not everyone is able to afford the best help or any help at all."

Planning and spending

Many parents spend their kids' lives planning their university career.

"In the United States, families are obsessed with the entrance into university," said Sylvie Bigar, a New Yorker whose daughter just entered the respected Smith College in Massachusetts.

Some American parents will pay heavily to better their children's chances of entering 

schools like Washington's Georgetown University (AFP Photo/WIN MCNAMEE)

"It seems like these things are decided almost in kindergarten, that admission to a prestigious university leads to a prestigious career and happiness."

"It's an extremely stressful process, especially for kids whose parents aren't the most affluent," said Angela Perez, a student at the highly competitive Georgetown University in Washington.

"While I considered myself academically strong, getting in was one thing, and paying for it was another."

Perez, from a working class, immigrant Filipino family, said that to maximize her chances at both acceptance and financial aid, she applied to 18 different universities.

Adding together the application fees, test fees, training for the tests, and other, she said, "it was honestly quite costly."

$40,000 to prepare

The process begins in earnest in tenth grade, three years before graduating from high school. Students prepare for and take multiple times the ACT and SAT entrance examinations -- the ones the parents arrested Tuesday paid to have fixed for their children.

There are essays to write, interviews, tutorials, preparation tests, and for the families with access and connections, direct lobbying.

And, notes Bigar, "at every stage of this process, there are firms that help families who can afford it."

According to the Independent Educational Consultants Association, parents pay on average $200 an hour to consult experts on the applications process. But that price, in some situations, can run into the thousands of dollars per hour.

The parents of children who are shepherded by Lakhani pay on average $40,000.

"The reason families are interested in working with my firm is that they see an opportunity to climb higher than they would have climbed potentially on their own," he said.

To critics of the system, the issue illustrates the deep economic and social inequality in the country.

"It's obviously a scandal when rich people are accused of breaking the law to get their kids into top schools," wrote journalist Rainesford Stauffer in an op-ed in the New York Times.

"But the bigger outrage should be that a legal version of purchasing an advantage happens every college application season and that there's an entire industry supporting it."

"Desperate Housewives" star Felicity Huffman (L) and fellow Hollywood actress

Lori Loughlin are among 50 people indicted in a nationwide university admissions

scam, court records showed (AFP Photo/LISA O'CONNOR, Tommaso Boddi)

Related Article:

Hollywood stars among dozens charged over college entrance scam

Hollywood stars among dozens charged over college entrance scam

Yahoo – AFP, Thomas URBAIN, March 12, 2019

"Desperate Housewives" star Felicity Huffman (L) and fellow Hollywood actress
Lori Loughlin are among 50 people indicted in a nationwide university admissions
scam, court records showed (AFP Photo/LISA O'CONNOR, Tommaso Boddi)

New York (AFP) - "Desperate Housewives" star Felicity Huffman and fellow Hollywood actress Lori Loughlin were among 50 people indicted Tuesday in a multi-million dollar scam to help children of the American elite cheat their way into top universities.

The accused, who also include chief executives, financiers, a winemaker and fashion designer, allegedly cheated in admissions tests or arranged for bribes to get their children into prestigious schools including Yale, Stanford, Georgetown and the University of Southern California, federal prosecutors said.

They paid a bogus charity run by Californian William Singer millions both to arrange for people to fix SAT and ACT entrance exams for their children, and also to bribe university sports coaches to recruit their children, even when the children were not qualified to play at that level of sports.

Huffman, 56, and Loughlin, the 54-year-old star of "Full House," were among 33 parents accused of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud in joining the scheme.

Loughlin's fashion designer husband Mossimo Giannulli was also on the list, while Huffman's husband William Macy, the star of Showtime's "Shameless," was not, despite the indictment making clear he was partly involved in talks with Singer's operations.

A Justice Department official in Los Angeles said 13 of those indicted were taken into custody Tuesday morning; according to reports Huffman was among them.

Loughlin was reportedly in Canada.

The scheme aimed to take advantage of the two years of stress parents across the United States often endure as they put high school-age children through the standardized SAT and ACT tests needed to gain entry into heavily competitive colleges and universities.

Many parents pay handsomely for test preparation and have their children take the tests two or three times to better their scores.

In this case, however, the scheme either had someone take the test for the students, or someone fixed their tests to ensure high scores that would get them into highly desireable universities.

"Wealthy parents paid Singer about 25 million dollars in total," said Andrew Lelling, the US attorney in Boston, Massachusetts where the case was filed.

"These parents are a catalogue of wealth and privilege. They include, for example, CEOs of private and public companies, successful securities and real estate investors, two well-known actresses, a famous fashion designer and the co-chairman of a global law firm," he said.

Four people accused of running the scam over seven years, and 13 officials associated with university sports and the testing system were also charged.

Wealthy parents paid to have the college entrance exam scores of their children 

fixed to gain admission to elite universities like Georgetown U. in Washington

(AFP Photo/Daniel SLIM)

Fixing test scores

Over the one-year investigation, investigators supported by informants recorded conversations between parents and Singer's people discussing just how high to elevate the scores and how to prevent the students from discovering the reason behind their test results.

The scheme had two levels: fixing the test scores, and gaining bogus admission into universities by paying coaches to "recruit" them onto their teams.

In Huffman's case, she "donated" $15,000 to Singer's fake charity Key Worldwide Foundation in 2017 for someone to set up a special testing site and date for her oldest daughter and then to fix the answers on the daughter's test.

She then had discussions about doing the same for her younger daughter, but never followed through.

Fake athletes

In the second "side door" scheme, Singer's operation would create bogus athletic profiles for the students and manage payoffs to coaches in minor sports like soccer, tennis and sailing at universities so that the student could be accepted on that basis.

"What is going to happen when they see his application, he'll be flagged as an athlete," one of Singer's people told William McGlashan, an executive at the huge investment group TPG Capital, who wanted to get his son in a certain school.

"But once he gets here, he just goes, he doesn't go to athletic orientation, He goes to the regular orientation like all my other kids just did ... and everything's fine."

McGlashan, who paid $50,000 for testing help for one son, was told he would have to pay $250,000 to use the athletics "side door" to enter University of Southern California.

Lelling said Singer's clients paid up to $6.5 million for both services.

Loughlin and Giannuli paid $500,000 to get their two daughters into the University of Southern California.

Coaches, including the women's soccer coach at Yale University and the sailing coach at Stanford University, took between $200,000 and $400,000 to accept the students onto their teams.

"Some simply never showed up" to play, Lelling said of the students. "Some pretended an injury and some played and then quit," he said.

None of the students were charged and most remain at the universities, he said.

"The parents and other defendants are clearly the prime movers in this fraud."

Lelling added that none of the universities were charged in the scheme, and were not seen as co-conspirators.