Supreme Court Declines Appeal by CPA Law School Applicant

The Supreme Court has turned away a request for judicial review from a 55-year-old CPA who sued Baylor Law School for age discrimination after the school rejected his application.

The high court denied Monday a petition for a writ of certiorari from C. Michael Kamps, who hoped the court would overturn a Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decision last year that rejected the CPA’s age discrimination lawsuit against the Waco, Texas-based law school.

The school had denied admission to Kamps despite his 169 score on the Law School Admission Test. Kamps claimed that his 3.2 grade point average from Texas A&M, Class of 1979, should have been adjusted for the grade inflation that has taken place since that era.

Kamps’ age discrimination claim relies not on the fact that the law school rejected him, but that it did not admit him for his preferred terms, according to the Fifth Circuit.

Kamps wanted to matriculate in the fall of 2010. The law school waitlisted him for the fall, but offered him a seat in the summer 2010 or spring 2011 class, which Kamps declined. He applied again for the fall 2011 term and was again wait-listed, but offered a seat in the spring 2011 class. He declined again.

According to Kamps, Baylor should have known about grade inflation, and “the effect that grade inflation would have when comparing GPAs earned in different eras.”

However, the Fifth Circuit said knowing that GPA disadvantages older applicants does not mean that Baylor used the GPA in order to disadvantage older applicants. Moreover, the appeals court pointed out, “Kamps was not excluded from Baylor Law. Baylor admitted him for the Spring 2012 term and he declined to attend.”