While Westside was out for the much anticipated and appreciated Spring Break, a major scandal erupted in America, it was covered across all news platforms, and media outlets. It also created a rare moment of unity between warring factions of opposing political parties.  The FBI released a report on a widespread investigation into college admission cheating, fraud, bribery and outright lying about qualifications for admission to Tier 1 colleges coast to coast.

Dubbed “Operation Varsity Blues”, the FBI laid out their case naming names. According to the report, Fuller House star and Hallmark movie regular, Lori Loughlin, paid $500,000 in bribes to a USC coach to claim her daughter, Olivia Jade Giannulli, was a talented recruit for University of Southern California,  crew team.  Despite never rowing in her life, Ms. Guannulli was admitted as a student to USC, with athletic credentials to crew for a Division 1 school.

A celebrity in her own right, Olivia Jade, is well known through her Instagram, and enjoys multiple endorsements as a “social media influencer”.  It’s well documented that Olivia Jade had no interest in school. A video of her stating that she was interested in “game days, and parties”, but didn’t care about school.

As Westside seniors are stressing about their college opportunities, news of these privileged and by all accounts unqualified students, taking spots in UTAustin, SMU, USC, UCLA, Stanford, Georgetown, Princton, just to name a few, hit hard.  The staff of Howler News, tackled all aspects of this scandal, giving student and teacher perspective.  Titled “Why Aunt Becky, why” , we hope you enjoy this series.