Applicant files $5 million suit against UI
URBANA – A University of Illinois applicant has sued the university for $5 million over its now-discontinued "Category I" admissions system, a move administrators say they expected to happen.
Jonathon Yard of Taylorville, who was denied admission to the UI's Urbana campus, filed the class-action lawsuit Tuesday.
Neither he nor his lawyers could be reached for comment by The News-Gazette.
The suit against "the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana" alleges that Yard and others applying from 1999 to this year were denied admissions so that politically connected applicants could get in.
In the suit, Yard said he was a top-ranked student with a 29 ACT score, within standards published by the UI and appended to the suit.
The UI's top spokesman, Tom Hardy, said the suit was not unexpected.
The UI has been under scrutiny by the press since May, and Gov. Pat Quinn created the Admissions Review Commission this summer to investigate how politically well-connected students won admittance over better-qualified applicants.
Most UI trustees resigned after the commission submitted its report in August, and President B. Joseph White and Chancellor Richard Herman have tendered their resignations.
"Our attorneys haven't had a chance to review it yet, but we anticipated the possibility of such lawsuits based on comments made by some disgruntled members of the public," Hardy said Wednesday. "We are prepared and intend to vigorously defend the university against this suit and any similar actions."
Also on this date
- Carle Foundation Hospital offers to buy Carle Clinic
- Shots fired early Thursday in Rantoul apartment building
- Tricks and treats for all ages: How ghoul is that?
- Man sentenced to 10 years in burglary
- Woman injured in wreck on I-74
- Champaign County Nursing Home rates will rise
- Jogger dies after collapsing in front of UI police station
- Orthodontist again offers cash for Halloween candy
- Donations sought for care packages to Iraq
- Obituaries