This NYT article may inspire some lawyers to bring the case.
Georgy Maksimovich pointed me to this article in Russian: https://novayagazeta.ru/articles/2026/05/25/antisovetskie-filosofskie-kontratseptsii
One response to “Caltech (and other schools) are asking to be sued for consumer fraud”
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I work in a community college system and I feel like the systemic weakness is similar to that described in the NYT article. Somewhat out in the open, but also, something nobody talks about, is the fact that in the world of online course delivery, faculty routinely use the textbook publisher's online modules as the entire course. Pearson, McGraw-Hill, et al, have all figured out that academic programs will adopt their textbooks if the textbook content replicates a course and integrates with Canvas/Blackboard or other learning management systems. Outside of having to answer emails from students, the instructor in this instance can be largely absent. Data audits of faculty logins to the LMS demonstrate that faculty absenteeism from online courses is a regular thing.
Overall, this arrangement suits faculty because it enables them to teach many overloads and increase their income a bit. Whereas, to teach a 5/5 course plus all of those overloads through in-person delivery would be impossible.
Where this arrangement is not so good is, of course, the areas of instructional quality and student engagement. In addition, it potentially runs afoul of accreditation policy. Our accreditor is SACSCOC, and they consider a course with little or no instructor interaction to be a "correspondence" course. But, my institution and state system would never give online courses that label.
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