Civil Rights Groups Sue Facebook and Instagram For Targeting Predatory College Ads at Black Users (David Halperin)

A nonprofit advocacy group sued Meta this week, contending that the tech giant’s Facebook and Instagram platforms facilitate the targeting of ads for for-profit colleges to Black users, while disproportionately steering ads for public and non-profit colleges to white users. 

The lawsuit, filed in the District of Columbia Superior Court on behalf of the non-profit Equal Rights Center (ERC), alleges that Meta thus “provides separate and unequal services to Black users in its places of public accommodations.”

In a statement, ERC’s lead lawyers, from the non-profit Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, call Meta’s practices “modern-day digital redlining.” 

Redlining refers to unlawful practices that deny or restrict financial and other services — such as consumer loans and home mortgages — to people based on their race, ethnicity, or other protected characteristic. 

ERC’s lawyers allege that Meta’s conduct violates the District of Columbia’s Human Rights Act and Consumer Protection Procedures Act.

As the lawyers note, many for-profit colleges have histories of using deceptive advertising and recruiting to draw people into high-priced, low-quality programs that leave many students worse off than when they enroll — deep in debt and without the careers they sought. As a result, ERC’s complaint argues, Black users are disadvantaged by Meta’s alleged practice of pushing them to for-profit schools and denying them communications from higher quality, more affordable schools.

For-profit schools with records of poor student outcomes have frequently been accused of targeting their marketing and recruiting at Black people.

The new complaint accuses Meta of promising to deliver users a “valuable and relevant personalized” ad experience when it has instead “[made] ad delivery decisions based on race.” 

The complaint alleges that Meta collates data that Facebook and Instagram directly collect from users with data from various apps and websites, including, on at least one occasion, reported ethnicity information from the ACT college entrance exam website, and employs the collective data to target individual users.

The complaint references a July 2024  academic paper, describing how researchers submitted to Facebook pairs of ads, one for a for-profit college and the other for a nonprofit school. They found, according the complaint, that Black Facebook and Instagram users “were more likely to get ads for the for-profit colleges, while white Facebook and Instagram users were more likely to get the ads for the public nonprofit schools.” The complaint does not identify the academic study, but the description suggests the lawyers are referencing a report from researchers at Princeton and the University of South California. 

A 2016 report by Pro Publica revealed that Facebook was permitting advertisers on its site to exclude users from their ad campaigns based on race. Facebook ultimately removed that option for advertisers, but further research suggests that Meta’s algorithms still effectively skew ads based on the race of the user.  

Damon T. Hewitt, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee, the legal group that filed the case, said in a statement, “Separate and unequal services should be remnants of the past, but they are still a present-day reality for Black users on Meta’s platforms.” He added, “Digital redlining, especially in today’s higher education market, sends the unmistakable signal that Black people belong in some institutions but not others. This lawsuit aims to make it clear that no corporation—not even a Big Tech company as powerful as Meta—should be allowed to profit from the discriminatory treatment of Black students and consumers.”

Meta has not responded to our request for comment on the lawsuit.

ERC is also represented in the case by the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, and the law firm Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel LLP.

[Editor's note: This article originally appeared on Republic Report.] 

Education Department Needs Stronger Rules for Accreditors (David Halperin, Republic Report)

 [Editor's note: This article originally appeared on Republic Report.] 

I’m scheduled to offer a brief public comment at today’s session of the Department of Education’s negotiating rulemaking meetings, where representatives of various higher education constituencies have come together to debate new proposed regulations governing issues including distance education, state government authorization of schools, and standards for the private accrediting bodies that oversee schools.  My comment will address accreditation, and this is what I plan to say:

Many students say a school’s status as accredited, and resulting seal of approval and aid from the Department, are the reason they enrolled. Because accreditors are gatekeepers for federal aid, their oversight is critical to prevent students and taxpayers from getting ripped off by poor quality, overpriced schools.

So it’s good that the Department has started to incorporate concerns about bad behaving schools in its reviews of accreditors, starting with ACICS, which accredited some of the worst.

But ACCSC also has tolerated years of abuses – at CEHE, Vatterot, and elsewhere. Data shows many ACCSC schools have left students worse off than when they started.  

SACS has permitted blatant abuses at Keiser University. WASC has allowed misconduct at Ashford. COE at Florida Career College.

The Department has started to ask those accreditors questions. But, under current rules, it hasn’t taken firm action, and predatory behavior is ongoing.

The rules also have done little to address rampant abuses at schools overseen by Higher Learning Commission.

HLC has long tolerated predatory conduct at Walden, DeVry, EDMC, Kaplan, Ashford, Grand Canyon, University of Phoenix, and the Perdoceo schools. 

Perdoceo in recent years paid 500 million dollars to settle with 48 states and 30 million to settle with the FTC over deceptive practices. Numerous Perdoceo employees have told the Department that company recruiters continue to make misleading sales pitches. 

As to the University of Phoenix, in 2015 the Pentagon briefly banned it from recruiting service members based on evidence of violations. In 2019, Phoenix agreed to pay 191 million to resolve FTC charges it ran ads falsely suggesting ties to major employers. Last year Phoenix was again running deceptive ads, this time falsely implying it is a state school.

If Phoenix tells such brazen falsehoods in the open, imagine what its recruiters tell students one on one.  The school’s graduation rate is 14 percent. 

Many victims are low income. These schools should not be accredited. They should not get taxpayer dollars. But under current rules, the abuses continue. 

Last year HLC renewed accreditations of the University of Phoenix and Perdoceo’s Colorado Tech, each for a full 10 years.  

And the Department in turn renewed HLC for a full five years. 

The system isn’t working.

Accreditors have often failed as gatekeepers of integrity and quality. The proposed regulations are a start to fixing the problem.