A class-action lawsuit has been filed against an online university, claiming it has predatory practices that target Blacks and women. Plaintiffs claim the school targets certain communities and then forces students to take double the amount of hours of classes to earn the degree.
According to a lawsuit obtained by the Atlanta Black Star, the National Student Legal Defense Network (NSLDN) filed the complaint on behalf of plaintiffs, Aljanal Carroll, Claudia Provost Charles, and Tiffany Fair, in Maryland’s federal court on Jan. 7 against Walden University, LLC, and Walden e- Learning, LLC.
Carroll is a 49-year-old Black woman from North Carolina who attended the school from September 2017 until her graduation in October 2020.
Her co-plaintiff, Charles, a Black 51-year-old Louisianian, matriculated between July 2017 and May 2021. Joining the two in the lawsuit that says the university violated consumer protection laws, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, is Fair.
Fair was the first to attend the school, enrolling in June 2016 and graduating in January 2021. The Virginia resident is 43 years of age and is of mixed race, living in a Black household.
Charles brings her Equal Credit Opportunity Act claims on behalf of the ECOA Black Student Class, a collective made up of all Black students who enrolled in and/or began classes for Walden’s DBA program in the ten-year period.
The North Carolinian and Fair bring their Equal Credit Opportunity Act claims on behalf of the ECOA Female Student Class, consisting of all female students who enrolled in and/or began classes during the same time.
At the crux of the argument, the women claim Walden, a private, online, for-profit higher education institution headquartered in Minneapolis, Minneapolis, misrepresented the amount of courses to earn a Doctorate of Business Administration (DBA) and the compnay especially targeted Black and female students in its recruitment for the degree.
In the 66-page legal document, the three plaintiffs claim they “had been and continue to be injured by a multi-part discriminatory, fraudulent, deceptive, and dishonest scheme perpetrated” by the school.
The school allegedly used recruitment tactics to exploit Black and female students interested in the doctorate program by distinctly targeting advertisements in predominately African-American communities, promising them swift matriculation through the program, and “arbitrarily requiring them to complete additional credits at a cost of close to $1,000 each.”
“Walden lured in potential DBA students by advertising a doctoral degree that could be earned at a reasonable cost, on a reasonable schedule, when in fact the school knew and intended that degree to be much more expensive in order to line its own pockets,” the lawsuit says.
It further stated, “Walden’s top six markets for local TV advertising between 2010 and 2020 were Washington, D.C., Dallas, Atlanta, Houston, Charlotte, and Baltimore. In 2015, Walden directed 99.8% of its local advertising budget to areas with an above-median percentage of Black residents.”
The lawyers call this in the lawsuit, “reverse redlining” as the online higher-ed model targeted “minority communities with its advertising and tailoring it to appeal to women.”
As enrollees worked to earn their doctorate, the claim states, the women and other students in the program from Aug. 1, 2008, to Jan. 31, 2018, started to notice additional classes being tacked on at the end of their studies, during the capstone phase of the program.
Enrollment advisors sold the “sixty credit hours” to interested students by telling them it would only take three and a half years to complete the program and cost them between $43,000 to $60,000 in tuition and fees. The further promised “reduced costs and time for students transferring credits from a prior degree or program.”
“Walden knew that these representations were false,” the three claim. “And that the average student who completed the DBA degree had, by the time of graduation, been required to complete far more than sixty credits and pay tuition significantly exceeding the stated amount—sometimes by as much as a factor of three and on average an additional $34,300 per graduate.”
The New York Times reports Aaron Ament, the president of the National Student Legal Defense Network, said, “Walden lured in students with the promise of an affordable degree, then strung them along to increase profits.”
“As if that’s not bad enough, Walden specifically targeted Black students and women for this predatory program, masking its discrimination as a focus on diversity.”
The filing calls the practice a “scheme” and alleges the school “overcharged members of the proposed classes more than $28.5 million.”
The document shows how Walden enrolls a substantial amount of African-Americans and women in their program is exponentially greater than the national average.
“Walden’s doctoral student population is 41% Black, which is more than seven times the percentage of doctoral recipients nationwide who are Black,” the lawsuit reads. “Likewise, across all programs, Walden’s doctoral student population is 77% female, which is 1.7 times the percentage of doctoral recipients nationwide who are female.”
Between the ten years in question, plaintiffs’ proposed class of Black and/or female graduates enrolled an estimated 830 people.
A spokesperson for the school said in a statement, that they will “continue to work to ensure that those groups of people that have been typically underrepresented in higher education know that attaining an education and expanding their access to opportunities is possible at Walden University.”
The website boasts that the school has done the work to reach underserved groups in education, proclaiming it is ranked “number one among 380 accredited institutions for awarding doctorates to African American students” and is the top-ranked “for awarding graduate degrees in multiple disciplines to African American students.”
The three women are suing for compensatory and punitive damages, asking for an award determined by a jury that would fully compensate them for the financial injuries they have incurred as students at this institution, including their tuition. There is a request for their legal fees (within reason) to be met by the defense.
