Judge Throws Out Suit Against Accreditor That Shut Down For-Profit Venture

A federal judge in California has dismissed a lawsuit that the company behind the for-profit Ivy Bridge College filed against the accreditor that shut down the institution. According to the ruling, by Judge Samuel Conti of the U.S. District Court in San Francisco, Ivy Bridge filed the suit in the wrong jurisdiction, as the company is based in California but the accreditor, the Higher Learning Commission, is not.

Paul Freedman, who founded the company that created Ivy Bridge, said in an email that the company planned to refile the lawsuit in a court with jurisdiction in Ohio, where Ivy Bridge’s partner, Tiffin University, is based. Or, he said, the company could file in Illinois, where the commission is based.

The company filed suit against the accreditor in May, seeking $100 million in damages and alleging that the commission had acted to close the online campus under “political pressure to punish any nontraditional form of higher education.”