The story provides detailed account of what happens to students of for-profit colleges when they find themselves stuck in arbitration. Particularly revealing about the arbitrariness of the system was this side-by-side comparison of two plaintiffs with the same evidence and the same lawyer before two different arbitrators:
Eventually, Jacob and a classmate both hired the same lawyer, Harry Shulman, and used the same evidence to present their case — they recounted identical experiences, showed the same documents, questioned the same witnesses. The only difference was the arbitrators, who were given sole discretion in deciding the case: One, Shulman said, was a seasoned former judge, but the other, the arbitrator who oversaw Jacob’s case, was a lifelong corporate defense attorney. The former judge decided in favor of Jacob’s classmate. But with his case in front of the defense attorney, Jacob lost.
Read the story here.
As we've previously discussed, Public Citizen has proposed that the federal Department of Education deny funding to schools using forced arbitration.
