Posted by
JON RUNGE on Thursday, June 21, 2007 12:21:33 PM
In 2004 I filed a pro se lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Greenville, SC with about 30 complaints. See civil action number 7:04-2503-13AK. This lawsuit was dismissed because of a technicality (a missed filing date). The substance of the complaints remains valid. These complaints are based on simple legal principles. Here are two illustrations of these complaints.
Illustration One: College students are adults. An adult is legally defined as someone who is 18 years old, or older. Adults are not legally responsible for each other's behavior. It is illegal for the government to punish Mr. Smith for something that Mr. Jones did. If a 20 year old college student decides to go to a particular college, an adult parent is not legally responsible that decision. An adult parent is not required to submit information to a college financial aid office (specifically, a government form known as the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA) so that another adult can get student loans, etc. This means that:
(1) the government cannot punish the 20 year old college student by withholding aid because of the parent's behavior. The 20 year old student is not responsible for the parent's behavior.
(2) the government cannot punish the parent (by withholding aid from his adult child) because parents are not legally responsible for the decisions that their adult children make.
The government is vulnerable to lawsuits in this area in other ways. (1) Requiring parents to submit financial aid information also interferes with a parent's fundamental (substantive due process) right to direct his children's upbringing and education as he sees fit. This includes the fundamental right to decide when and when not to participate in an adult child's educational program. This is none of the government's business. (2) Furthermore, when the government challenges parental complaints about financial aid practices, the government becomes liable to lawsuits with respect to wrongful acts (or torts) such as "false light". The elements of a complaint about "false light" are publicity (a government charge of unacceptable behavior) which places the parent in a false light (not cooperating with reasonable government expectations) that is highly offensive to a reasonable person (parents who fail to cooperate with college financial aid offices are "bad" parents who are failing to fulfill an essential parental function).
Illustration Two: Government laws and regulations have to be "rational". Billions of dollars in government financial aid have been awarded according to irrational regulations. For example, it is irrational to award state funded, college scholarship on the basis of grade point average calculations which are (to use an extreme illustration) carried out to 10 places after the decimal point. For example, 3.2689494711. Clearly, many of the numbers in this grade point "average" are meaningless. In fact, it can easily be shown that they all are. This means that tax-funded, state scholarships are being awarded on the basis of irrational criteria, which is illegal. The government can do many things, but it cannot legislate that one plus one equals three. It cannot give a speeding ticket to someone who is going 30.1 mph in a 30 mph speed limit zone. It cannot restrict scholarships to students with social security numbers ending in numbers from 30 to 40. Requirements like this are silly and ridiculous. They are unenforceable.
Conclusion: Why should anyone bother with lawsuits like these? Many government educational regulations violate simple principles like the ones above because they are designed primarily for the benefit of government employees. Government educators and educational bureaucrats benefit from the flood of money that is raised through government regulations that violate simple legal principles. These regulations are used to distribute over $100 billion every year to colleges and universities. Colleges and universities soak up this money, and then raise their tuitions and room and board, which just leads to another round in a vicious cycle of increasing expenses for college. Next, students and families are expected to borrow still more money to pay for the higher cost of a college's tuition, room and board. The government is also expected to raises taxes to pay for larger state funded scholarships. Then this money gets soaked up by new increases in tuition etc., and so the cycle repeats itself.