C. Michael Kamps, a certified public accountant in Texas, filed a lawsuit against Baylor Law School alleging that the school fails to adjust grade point averages of applicants who received undergraduate degrees many years before today’s practice of grade inflation, which began in the late 1970s. Kamps argued that this bias displayed by Baylor Law School admissions was in violation of the Age Discrimination Act (ADA) of 1975 (42 U.S.C. 6101 et seq.).

Kamps, 57, graduated from Texas A&M University in 1979 with a GPA of 3.2, placing him in the top quarter of his class. He also earned a score of 169 on the Law School Admissions Test. According to the lawsuit, Kamps consistently submitted applications to Baylor Law School over the course of several years, with no success. He was eventually wait-listed for Fall 2010, and then offered a seat for his credentials in Summer 2010, Spring 2011, and Spring 2012 classes. However, Kamps wished only to matriculate during one of the more competitive Fall classes. Therefore, his age discrimination claim was based not on the fact that the law school had rejected him altogether, but that it did not admit him for his preferred terms. Kamps’ final complaint is that the University denied him the chance to receive the merit-based Nance Scholarship in 2011 because of his age.

After the Department of Education received Kamps’ first formal complaint on October 27, 2011, Kamps believed the University retaliated against him by outright rejecting his most recent attempt to apply for the Fall 2012 class. Thus, Kamps brought disparate treatment, disparate impact, and retaliation claims against the University and its administrators in July 2012. Yet the U.S. District Court of the Western District of Texas and the New Orleans-based Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals both dismissed his lawsuit on all counts.

According to the court documents, it was dismissed first on the grounds that because Kamps missed his 180-day window to file his knowledge of the alleged discrimination—his DOE claim was made more than a year after Baylor Law School denied his initial 2010 application on February 17, 2010—Kamps did not exhaust his administrative remedies. Second, Kamps’ claim of disparate treatment, a fancy legal term for intentional discrimination, fell short because there is no evidence to show that Baylor used applicants’ GPAs to discriminate against any older applicants including Kamps. Kamps alleged that,

[Baylor] knew, or should have known, the effect that grade inflation would have when comparing GPAs earned in different eras.

The magistrate judge determined that knowing that GPA grade inflation disadvantages older applicants is not the same thing as using applicants’ GPAs in order to intentionally disadvantage older applicants.

Finally, unlike the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) of 1967, the court decided that the ADA of 1975 does not prohibit either disparate impact policies or retaliation. The disparate impact theory is different from disparate treatment or intentional discrimination in that it prohibits employers from using policies that are facially neutral, but creates an unjustified adverse impact on members of any protected class (race, color, religion, gender, etc.). In other words, disparate impact is the name for unintentional discrimination. According to the decision,

The [ADEA] makes it unlawful to limit, segregate, or classify employees in any way which would deprive or tend to deprive any individual of employment opportunities or otherwise adversely affect his status as an employee, because of such individual’s age.

Nowhere in the ADA are the words “otherwise adversely affects,” nor is there a statutory prohibition against retaliation, meaning the ADA only prohibits against intentional discrimination. Title IX Education Amendments of 1972 state:

No person in the United States shall, on the basis of age, be excluded from participation, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under, any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.

On Monday, June 1, 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed with the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ 2014 decision to dismiss Kamps’ suit on all counts. Kamps told Texas Lawyer that while he thought he raised an interesting question for the Supreme Court, it is “the end of the road” for his journey to law school.

Although the Supreme Court seems to be justified in its decision regarding the legal language of the ADA, in practice, it does not seem justified that any law school should have the ability to  intentionally discriminate or unintentionally discriminate against older applicants. Only three words—“otherwise adversely affects”—are missing from the Age Discrimination Act of 1975 to place potentially hundreds or thousands of older applicants on a level playing field with younger applicants in the competition of law school admissions.

Jenifer Carter

Jenifer Carter is a member of the University of Virginia Class of 2016. Contact Jenifer at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post How Old is Too Old For Law School? appeared first on Law Street.

Recently re-elected FIFA president Joseph S. Blatter, known to the world as Swiss Sepp Blatter, announced Tuesday he will step down from his post as president of the international football association’s governing body, following criticism over a corruption scandal.

While 14 of his colleagues were recently indicted on charges of bribery, money laundering, and racketeering, Blatter was left unscathed and re-elected for his fifth consecutive term as FIFA president on Friday, May 29^th. During his reelection speech, Blatter rejoiced in his continued reign with the words,

I thank you, you have accepted me for the next four years. I will be in command of this boat called FIFA.

 

However, Blatter has not escaped blame from the global public over the years, having been labeled a dictator, among other names, and accused of sexism and racism reaching far beyond claims of corrupt laundering practices. According to BBC News, the global citizens’ movement Avaaz was responsible for starting the #BlatterOut campaign, which began trending on Twitter just days before the election. Gary Linekar, the former English footballer and current sports broadcaster, is one of the many to join the campaign against Blatter, who seems to have been at the head of FIFA corruption since 1991.

FIFA members should vote for the good of football, and get rid of a man who’s reigned over a corrupt organisation for too long. #BlatterOut

— Gary Lineker (@GaryLineker) May 28, 2015

So what on earth was keeping Blatter in power if so much of the world wanted #BlatterOut? The answer, unlike what most commonly believe, is not so much about the power of the dollar—or the supposed tens of millions of dollars involved in the corruption since 1991—as it is the power of a single vote in any given FIFA presidential election. Each of the 209 national member associations that make up FIFA’s Congress receives exactly one equal vote no matter how much land area the nation possesses or how much of the world’s population lives in each nation. According to the Washington Post, this means the tiny Caribbean island of Montserrat has as much a say as World Cup powerhouses Brazil or Germany in the election. After totaling the member nations counted in the presidential election, here is the breakdown by regional confederation:

So, what Blatter needed to do to get reelected was not to convince the world that he is not as corrupt as his colleagues, but to cater to the areas of the world that would ensure his victory, and he did. Blatter has made what was once a largely European organization a globalized organization, by bringing what he calls “developmental programs” to underprivileged parts of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Despite where the money came from to start these programs, in doing so, Blatter spoke for most of the 54 votes of the Confederation of African Football (CAF)—the largest number of votes held by any of the six continental confederations above. Amaju Pinnick, the current president of the Nigerian Football Federation, has expressed that,

Without Blatter we wouldn’t enjoy all the benefits we enjoy today from FIFA. What Blatter pushes is equity, fairness and equality among the nations. We don’t want to experiment.

It was not Blatter’s years of experience or money that got him reelected; it was his ability to systematically accommodate the parts of the world that hold the most votes.

The sole person who opposed Blatter in the election for president was Qatari Mohammed bin Hammam, but he withdrew from the race after suspension by FIFA’s ethics committee due to allegations that he offered financial incentives to Caribbean Football Union members. The response to corruption by England’s Football Association and its chairman David Bernstein was to postpone the election, to instill credibility back into the process, and to appoint an independent external committee to make recommendations about future election processes. Yet, the FA’s proposal was again put up to the votes of 206 member nations equally and the election moved forward without delay.

Are Blatter’s or any other FIFA administrator’s corrupt practices inevitable in this day and age of soccer as yet another means of politics? Or is Blatter’s attempt to globalize the world by bringing soccer and developmental programs to countries outside of Europe a kind of affirmative action policy that permits or even necessitates some corruption behind the scenes? Whether you answer yes or no to these questions, FIFA’s Executive Committee might consider an election reform of proportional representation by member nations in order to assure that the next FIFA president elected is preferred in power by all parts of the world instead of only by the continent with the most votes.

Jenifer Carter

Jenifer Carter is a member of the University of Virginia Class of 2016. Contact Jenifer at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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