The Supreme Court has ruled against the legality of racial preferences in college admissions, but many of the colleges and universities that practiced it are unwilling to stop and have not yet adopted the principle of choosing students solely based on academic merit. They obviously figure that they will get away with it or at least suffer only mild rebuke.
But in this Legal Insurrection post, attorney Louis Bonham points out that such universities could face severe financial penalties for violating the claim they must legally make that they are not guilty of racial discrimination. The False Claims Act allows either the government or private parties to sue and collect damages against parties that make false claims.
Bonham writes:
While the government can bring such claims itself, the FCA has another important component: the ability for whistleblowers (i.e., people with inside information of the fraud) to bring FCA suits in the government’s name, and receive a reward of up to 30% the funds recovered. Such private prosecutions are known as qui tam actions, and the vast majority of the billions recovered annually under the FCA arise from them.
He notes that lots of big law firms have raised cautionary flags for their university clients about prospective FCA claims. This isn’t merely a dreamy conjecture.
Bonham concludes:
Were the Justice Department to give a full-throated public endorsement that it supports FCA qui tam suits against schools who collect federal funds but are...
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