Lawyers respond to U.'s reply

The plaintiff's attorneys in the Mayor's Scholarship dispute said they see a connection between the Veterinary School's failing to receive state funding and the University administration's response to the scholarship suit. "The University has certainly behaved as if there was a connection," said Thomas Gilhool, a Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia attorney. "All of their failed efforts to get Mayor [Ed Rendell] and City Council to amend the city ordinances seem to have been propelled by the elimination this year of the University's state dollars." The suit against the University, filed last October by labor unions, student groups and several individuals, claims that a 1977 city ordinance requires the University to award Philadelphia high school graduates 125 new scholarships each year for a total of 500 at a time. Gilhool said the University's recently-filed 68-page answer had "no surprises," and the answer "speaks for itself." He added that the University's actions with the city of Philadelphia and its legal actions appear to be coordinated with the Commonwealth's budget schedule. "All of their failed efforts in City Council just follow the Harrisburg legislative clock," he added. And PILCOP attorney Michael Churchill said that "many state representatives" have alleged that there is a connection between the two. "[State representatives] had in fact stood behind the University when it faced the problem [of state funding] a year ago, and told the University they weren't going to stand behind it until they addressed [the scholarship suit] this year," Churchill said. "I assume they mean what they say, and the University has chosen to blame the representatives rather than their own actions for creating the problem," he added. General Counsel Shelley Green denied PILCOP's allegations of a Veterinary School-Mayor's Scholarship connection, saying that state funding did not play a role in engendering the lawsuit. "The proposal, to amend the ordinance in order to clarify it, since some people are obviously confused by it, was initiated by [City Council President] John Street and his request to City Solicitor Judith Harris, so I don't know what they're talking about," Green said. Green said she does not believe Street was concerned with the University's state funding. In the University's response it states that it has lived up to its obligation to provide the required number of scholarships for needy Philadelphia high school students. In the answer, the University responds to charges that it has fallen short of its financial obligations, saying that it "provided over $11 million in undergraduate scholarships to Philadelphians from 1986 to 1990," and also stating that "the number of scholarships never was and is not currently tied to the number of high school students." "This is the first opportunity to respond to some of the specific allegations of the plaintiffs," Green said last week. The University, however, maintains that it is required by the disputed ordinance to provide a total of 125 scholarships at a time in return for rent-free city land. The plaintiffs insist the University must provide 125 four-year scholarships annually, for a total of 500 at a given time. Gilhool said the dispute over the word "annually" is indicative of the connection between the scholarship suit and the University's efforts to maintain state funding. "In all of their efforts to get the Council to take the word 'annually' out of the 1977 Ordinance . . . they have made those efforts whenever the issue of University funding is recurrent in Harrisburg," Gilhool said. Gilhool said that the University's filed answer "certainly does not" change PILCOP's position in the suit, and that "lots of discovery and other such preparation" would be required before the case goes to trial in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court on November 23. Churchill said that PILCOP would be filing a response to the University's answer next Monday.