University facing class-action over COVID campus lockdown

By RANDALL CHASE
Associated Press

DOVER, Del. (AP) — A federal judge has granted class-action status in a lawsuit over the University of Delaware’s decision to halt in-person classes and shut down the campus in 2020 because of coronavirus. The judge ruled Friday that the case can proceed as a class action on behalf of people who were enrolled as undergraduates and paid tuition in spring 2020.  The ruling notes that more than 17,000 undergraduates were enrolled at the time, and the university collected more than $160 million in tuition. The plaintiffs say that before the pandemic, the school treated in-person and online classes as separate offerings and charged more for some in-person programs than for similar online classes. They are seeking partial refunds of their spring 2020 tuition.