In a plot move torn straight from the script pages of a Freeform drama, Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin were among more than 40 people charged today in a massive scam to manipulate the college-admissions system. Suspects paid anywhere from a few thousand dollars to upward of $6 million to get their kids into elite colleges by faking test scores, paying off SAT and ACT administrators, lying about sports records, and even making up physical descriptions of some kids to present them as more viable collegiate athletes. (One boy who is five-five was listed as six-one in profiles sent to basketball coaches, others had their faces Photoshopped onto images of strangers playing sports.) It’s a bizarre scandal, and playwright David Mamet, for one, will not stand by as his dear friends Huffman and her husband William H. Macy have their names dragged through the social-media mud. Huffman was arrested today and subsequently posted bail, but Mamet would like us all to just sweep this whole messy business under the rug.
In a letter sent to The Hollywood Reporter, Mamet wrote, “I worked for very many years in and around our Elite Universities. I am able to report that their admissions policies are an unfortunate and corrupt joke.” He then called out the legal yet shady practice of purchasing admission into a school by giving money to a college for construction projects (you can never have too many fountains!) before making his direct defense of Macy and Huffman.
I’m crazy about them both.
That a parent’s zeal for her children’s future may have overcome her better judgment for a moment is not only unfortunate, it is, I know we parents would agree, a universal phenomenon.
If ever there were a use for the Texas Verdict, this is it. For the uninitiated, the Texas Verdict is: “Not Guilty, but Don’t do it Again.”
Whether or not this was a momentary lapse in judgment on the part of the Huffman-Macy household or a prolonged campaign of manipulation is a distinction that matters not to Mamet, apparently. But this drama needs even more characters so hopefully Loughlin and Huffman have more friends in the mood to write letters. May the fires of this scandal continue to burn bright.
