Felicity Huffman: Pampered Prisoner
When news of Operation Varsity Blues broke, many assumed that the perpetrators’ heads would roll. But now that actress Felicity Huffman has received her criminal sentence—the first among the parents involved—we know that these heads really won’t be rolling. Instead, those who have been involved in one of the largest conspiracies to undermine the integrity of the college admissions system will likely receive sentences not entirely commensurate to the severity of their crimes.
Operation Varsity Blues, in which conspirator Rick Singer bribed college coaches, test proctors and others to help wealthy clients get into such schools as the University of Southern California and Stanford, was more than an attempt to get a few kids into college. It was not a so-called “victimless crime.” Operation Varsity Blues deprived hard-working, less privileged students the opportunity to attend an educational institution that would have accepted them. While universities do not maintain precise caps on the number of students they admit, the amount of fluctuation is—as many know—limited year-to-year. No matter how you spin it, there are people whose opportunities were taken because of this conspiracy. What’s worse, these people were denied a formative opportunity—an opportunity that does have significant implications in one’s later life.
This conspiracy also sullied the reputations of remarkable educational institutions and lessened the trust that applicants have in the college admissions process. The college admissions process is already an anxiety-inducing one, due to both its volatility and difficulty. While it is naive to believe that college entrance is an equitable process (it isn’t and will likely never be), the promise of a meritocracy gives many peace of mind. In depriving people of hope, Operation Varsity Blues may cause fewer individuals to apply to such institutions, preventing more people from receiving the kind of education that these institutions offer.
But the perpetrators' guiltless children are also victims, here. Their parents denied them the ability to truly thrive at an educational institution that would have fit their level of academic proficiency. They also denied their children the opportunity to be on par with their peers, giving them a disadvantage when they actually entered these prestigious institutions. Now that the news of Operation Varsity Blues has broken, these hapless youths are also being expelled from their educational institutions, having their offers rescinded and having their own integrity called into question—all for crimes they did not commit.
Hence, the sentences of those involved are more than punishments. They send a message. These sentences can tell the general populace that the judiciary will not stand for unethical, criminal intrusions by elites into the educational process. Or they can say that the rich will always get a free pass. Unfortunately, it seems to be that the latter message will prevail.
Now, Huffman’s situation has mitigating factors. She pled guilty early on and has cooperated with law enforcement since. Her affiliation with Rick Singer, the mastermind of the plot, was limited to one standardized examination, and her bribe was among the lowest-paid by the thirty-some charged parents. During her trial, she also expressed remorse repeatedly and stated that she would accept any sentence a judge levied upon her. A lenient sentence was expected, even justified, for her.
But 14 days? Really? Even such crimes as illicit gambling and shoplifting can carry harsher sentences. Given the severity of her crime, Huffman’s sentence—a far cry from the one year prosecutors asked for—seems more like a minor inconvenience than a legitimate punishment that pushes her to understand the impact she has had on the American educational system. Fourteen days isn’t enough for rehabilitation; it isn’t even enough to send her a message.
Huffman may also serve her sentence at a penitentiary Forbes listed as one of the “ten cushiest prisons” in the United States. There, she would have scheduled fitness sessions, board games and movies twice a day. I am not saying that Huffman should be put in a maximum-security prison, nor that prisons should mistreat convicts or deprive them of good living conditions. I simply wonder how much rehabilitation and critical thought this kind of space will provoke.
To those who believe that Felicity Huffman’s actions were within the scope of reason, the actions of a concerned mother, they were far more than that. Huffman knew this—she chose not to repeat her crime for her second daughter, and she confessed, “I thought to myself, ‘Turn around, turn around, turn around…To my eternal shame, I didn’t.”
In the end, I believe that the judiciary could have done better. The judiciary should have done better. While they did not need to impose a sentence even remotely close to one year, 14 days really does seem too lenient. As the prosecutor in this case, Erin Rosen said, “Most parents have the moral compass not to lie, but the defendant did not…This was intentional criminal conduct.” But the judiciary’s response seems to suggest that such concerns have no relevance, not in the slightest, and that those who already have a bigger share of everything can take even more than they have, all at the expense of the poor.