Local law center files brief opposing U.

A local law center challenging the University's Mayor's Scholarship Program filed a brief in Common Pleas Court yesterday disputing several points in the University's request to throw out the suit. In documents filed in court, the Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia contends that the University's objections to the original lawsuit are inaccurate. PILCOP has spearheaded a class action lawsuit against the University alleging it has not complied with a 1977 city ordinance requiring the University to provide scholarships to needy Philadelphia high school students. The plantiffs -- including three University organizations, Philadelphia residents and local labor unions -- claim the University must provide 125 new four-year scholarships annually, for a total of 500 at any given time. The University has maintained that it should provide 125 scholarships total at any one time. University lawyers filed a brief last month quoting City Council testimony from 1977 which they say indicates that it was clear in City Council that the University was only going to provide a total of 125 scholarships. The brief supporting the University quoted Harold Manley, then the University treasurer, saying the University's total committment for the 1978 scholarships would be "slightly in excess of a half million dollars." PILCOP said in yesterday's brief that Manley's statement does not help the University's claim and may support the law center's claim since in 1978 -- the first year of scholarships after the 1977 ordinance -- the University would only be paying for one class's scholarships. PILCOP's brief states that the Ordinance provided for phasing in the ordinance over four years. "Thus, in the first year after the Ordinance, when 125 first-year students are to receive the first year of their four-year scholarships, the value of the scholarships (125 times the tuition of $4,000) is of course $500,000," yesterday's filing reads. "Mr. Manley's statement, therefore, is completely consistent with the Ordinance's clear language." Other refutations of the University's stance include: · The University's preliminary objections specified that the organizations could not sue. But PILCOP's filing states the University's lawyers must have misread the complaint since it states that the individuals are representatives of the class in a class-action suit while the organizations are only additional plantiffs. "This is clear on the face of the complaint," PILCOP's filing reads. "Unaccountably, [the University] misreads (or purports to misread) the plain language of the complaint itself." · PILCOP also refuted the University's contention that it would never have agreed to increasing their scholarship obligation four-fold. "[The University] says no sane predecessor would have 'quadrupled' their scholarship obligation to Philadelphia school children merely to secure an immediate cash infusion of $12 million," the filing reads. "But the most casual observer would remember that in August 1977, the University of Pennsylvania was in extremis financially." The filing notes that the state legislature adjourned without appropriating any money to the University that year, which added to the school's fiscal crises. · PILCOP also stated the University's contention that the ordinance is inconsistent and poorly drafted is not true. The University contended that the preamble contradicts the main body of the ordinance. "This is not true," PILCOP attorney Tom Gilhool said yesterday. "Our reading complies with the entire ordinance." University Associate General Counsel Debra Fickler said she could not comment on the filing since she had not read it yet.

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