Not so "Lux et Veritas" after all: the Varsity Blues communicational nightmare

Jaëlle-Laurence Günther

It recently came to light that prominent families including actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin bribed college officials to get their children into the best universities of the United States. This college admissions scandal also called “Varsity Blues scandal” involved 50 people, as well as elite universities.

Authorities first became aware of the scandal in April 2018 when they were informed that the head coach of Yale’s female soccer team, Rudolph Meredith, had asked businessman Morrie Tobin for 450’000$, to push for Tobin’s daughter’s admission in exchange. In March 2019, federal prosecutors charged fifty people with “conspiracy to commit felony mail fraud and honest services mail fraud”. The accusations concerned either bribing exam administrators on entrance exams such as the SATs, bribing coaches to consider applicants as athletes even though they were unqualified, and concealing the laundered briberies by using a charitable organization.

Bribing their way into the Ivy League

Retrieved from https://flic.kr/p/6QTmtE

The defendants that were mainly hurt by this scandal are the universities and the prominent or “famous” parents, whose reputations have been stained. Some of these universities such as UCLA or Yale were considered elite universities with remarkable athletic programs and courses. 

Some coaches or members of university administration resigned or were placed on leave shortly after the scandal surfaced. The University of Southern California (USC) issued a press release in which they declared that they were conducting an internal investigation to determine whether there were indeed accused individuals amongst their staff, which would then “have gone to great lengths to conceal their illegal activities from the university”. Yale University published a frequently asked questions page on their website in which they address the scandal and the involvement of coach Meredith.

By quickly reacting and addressing the scandal, these universities were attempting to dissipate the public’s doubts about them being involved let alone aware of illegal activities occurring inside their walls.

On the other hand, UCLA’s Athletics Director released a statement online, promising to be transparent about the future actions to be undertaken in order to prevent something like this from happening ever again. The statement was written in the first person and acknowledged and shared the people’s outrage, which made it  come across as sincere and relatable. It also demonstrated active responsibility for the events that occurred and did not try to dodge the accusations, which is a good way to relieve the people’s anger (Lee & Chung, 2012). It was released with the hopes to restore the public’s trust in the institution by promising transparency and honesty and reached the people in a better way because, unlike USC and Yale, UCLA did not try to dissipate the public’s reluctance.

Retrieved from https://uclabruins.com/news/2019/3/22/bruin-athletics-message-from-director-of-athletics-dan-guerrero.aspx

Smile for the camera

Lori Loughlin, retrieved from

 https://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/lori-loughlin-signs-autographs-while-people-yell-a

Felicity Huffman apologized in a statement saying that there were no excuses for her actions and that she especially apologized to “students who work hard every day to get into college, and to their parents who make tremendous sacrifices supporting their children."

Loughlin on the other hand, was spotted all smiles and waving at fans, she even took the time to sign autographs shortly before her hearing.

Here again, there is a clear distinction between the actresses’ ways of communicating with the public. While Huffman sincerely apologized, Loughlin did not seem to care about the public’s feelings, but only about looking good on paparazzi pictures.

Lessons to learn

According to scholar Geumchan Hwang (2017), one of the most important things to keep in mind when a crisis evolves around famous or influential people is one’s openness to communication. Using personal disclosure when communicating can highly affect trust and credibility. Additionally, research has shown that people want sincere responses from celebrities in person. Furthermore, Schafraad, van Zoonen and Verhoeven (2016) have demonstrated that the more controversial and surprising a story is, the more likely it is to receive media attention. This attention increases even more if an elite organization is involved and if negative consequences are expected to follow. These factors were evidently all included in the Varsity blues scandal, and the responses from both celebrities and institutions did definitely not contribute to decreasing media attention.

Lori Loughlin should have, like Felicity Huffman did, presented a sincere apology in person. Instead, by signing autographs and taking pictures with fans, she came across as nonchalant and unconcerned.

This also applies to the universities involved in the scandal. An apology and promise of improvement and of further transparency should have been issued by all the establishments. Unlike the other institutions, UCLA was the only one to apologize to the public, not to mention that their athletics’ director issued this statement personally. By doing so, UCLA was hoping to restore the publics’ trust in the institution, something Yale and USC should have done as well, instead of providing a basic and impersonal FAQ.

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About the author: Jaëlle-Laurence Günther is a master student at the University of Amsterdam where she is pursuing studies in the field of Entertainment Communication. Having always been attracted to the artistic and creative field, she wishes to work as a manager or PR manager in the music industry.