The court found as follows based on a review of the facts…
“Plaintiffs have cited no evidence that Sidwell made negative comments about Dayo or otherwise interfered with her college admissions process, beyond plaintiffs’ own speculation. The Court has reviewed plaintiffs’ lengthy Statement of Disputed Material Facts, and notes that the record citations that plaintiffs offer to support their general allegations of foul play by Sidwell are to the Verified Amended Complaint and to plaintiffs’ own interrogatories and deposition tes- timony, all of which merely state plaintiffs’ opinions.”
Here is the type of nonsense that was alleged. This specific portion below is the parents outrage that in the counselors LOR the words “powered through” were used instead of the term “gifted”.
"Plaintiffs complain that (1) “Scattergood described Dayo’s ability to handle complex math problems as ‘powering’ her way through a math problem, as opposed to describing her skillset as ‘gifted;’” and (“Why does she have to power through anything? Why doesn’t—why is she not gifted to simply understand math problems. Why does it have to be that she has to use brutal force to just power through. That—what that is suggesting here is that this student—student is not actually gifted, she’s not talented, but she is hard working. I disagree.”
The parents apparently felt entitled to dictate and demand specific verbiage in LOR, were litigious and general pita. No doubt that the school likely didn’t go out of their way to sing this kids praises to colleges they have spent years building relationships with. To do so would have been to pass on a problem and damage Sidwells credibility and reputation.
DIdn’t Sidwell have their students sign a release so that the teachers/counselors woudl not have to share the LOR with the student/family? Most every school doesn’t that. If so, how did the student/family get it? Would the school be compelled to release it in the face of litigation and a motion to produce documents?
@jym626 The LOR was likely obtained as part of “discovery”…,
“Discovery, in the law of common law jurisdictions, is a pre-trial procedure in a lawsuit in which each party, through the law of civil procedure, can obtain evidence from the other party or parties by means of discovery devices such as interrogatories, requests for production of documents,”
Who sues a school - repeatedly! - over things like grades and then leaves their child in the school to deal with the fallout? The daughter may be lovely and wonderful, but she obviously wasn’t lovely enough for the school to forgive her her parents. I don’t doubt there was discrimination against her, but more likely personal rather than based on her gender, race, or ethnicity. Despite the professionalism and good intentions of most teachers, most parents know to tread lightly and respectfully in dealings with schools, so as not to cause any bias - however unintentional - against their children. And the parents obviously ignored recommendations from the daughter’s college counselor in deciding where the girl should apply to college.
@Nocreativity1 - I am familiar with discovery. But the students signed a release at the outset waiving their right to get/see the LORs. So now the family wants a copy of the letters. Couldn’t the school have grounds to quash any subpoena? The letters belong to the school, not the student, and the student waived their right to see it. So the school might have been within their right to refuse to release it without a court order.
@jym626 Sorry wasn’t trying to talk down to you regarding legal discovery. I enjoy your posts and shouldn’t have taken it literally.
My best guess is either or some combo of the following…
Plaintiffs argued that you can’t shield bad acts that violate prior court order of non retaliation by virtue of an agreement (not contractual given nothing of value exchanged). Also likely point to doctrine of adhesion given the inbalance of power in a LOR agreement. Any ambiguity or misunderstanding would benefit the required signator.
Lastly given the content I suspect Sidwell wanted it produced (keeping in mind they knew contents and the parents habit of litigation) as it was clearly crafted as a positive with limitations which is well within their discretion and obligation under the prior court finding. In some ways “Trojan horse” as I suspect it had passed legal review when initially authored in contemplation of one day seeing light of day but that is my cynical side.
I am highly confident that no action was ever undertaken by the school after the first settlement that didn’t anticipate a likelihood of future litigation.
I agree that Sidwell might feel they have nothing to lose by releasing it, if it helps their case by showing no negative comments in the letter(s). But this case seems without merit. Perhaps should have been thrown out on summary judgment.
I must be missing something big. Where is the damage to this student? She took a gap year when she presumably did things to make her applications more favorable. She was admitted to Williams and Penn…chose Penn and graduated.
Damages because she didn’t start college right out of high school? I’m just not sure I totally understand this lawsuit and why it was filed.
They are probably claiming pain and stress. And I believe they are claiming discrimination and retaliation. Maybe they are claiming intentional infliction of emotional distress?
The attempt to wordsmith “powered through” seems like they are grasping at straws.
Her claims that SAT scores were not submitted or not submitted in time by Sidwell Friends have no merit, as most of the schools to which she applied, require only self-reporting of these scores on the applications. Some of these schools state clearly, that as a measure to help with reducing costs to applicants, they do not require submission of test scores through College Board, until upon admission. The responsibility to submit these scores lies with the applicants, not with the high school.
While true now, that was not the case in 2014. Most, if not all, of the colleges to which she applied required an official score report at the time of application.
Correct, which I said in an earlier post. It’s the student’s responsibility today, and it was the student’s responsibility in 2014.
@skieurope beat me to it. The self reporting of standardized test scores is new in the past few years. Not so for when she was initially in the applicant pool.
There’s a teency weency part of me that feels an itty bit bad for their attorney. This family must be a nightmare. Wonder if he/she tries to withdraw from the case if they’ll sue him/her for inadequate representation. Well they could do that anyway. What a train wreck.
I am apparently almost the only person on the thread who has sympathy for the student, and I do. I acknowledge that the facts are not all on the table.
There are subtleties in the letters of recommendation that go to top colleges. A student who is described as “powering through” math problems might indeed be receiving a less-than-desirable characterization, even though it looks fine to people on the outside. MIT used to ask whether a student succeeded through natural gifts or hard work. I think the best answer would have been both. They might be skeptical of a student who succeeded through hard work–which “powering through” suggests–because they could take the view that a student who needed to work hard to handle high school material might be swamped at MIT. At the same time, they would not like someone who just coasted along on natural gifts–also unlikely to be a good strategy at MIT. Quite a while ago, curmudgeon produced a sample letter from a guidance counselor that was intended as a positive, but was clearly crushing. I am not sure about the intent of the guidance counselors in this case.
Ms. Scattergood’s reference to Brown “dropping [the student] like a hot potato,” does not sound like the kind of comment that would be made by a guidance counselor who supported the student–of course, assuming that the remark was actually made, which I do not have a way of knowing.
A person who is discriminated against on grounds of race, or whose settlement agreement has been violated, has already suffered a harm. It does not matter (legally, I believe) that the student went on to find a good substitute route.