How ridiculous!? I worked with UOP enrollment for 8 years, I converted to the LDS Church while working there, and I never saw any... and I repeat ANY preferential treatment or discrimination whatsoever. What I did see is some people struggle in a fast-paced performance-based environment. Sadly, some people would rather look out the window for their failures then in the mirror where accountability resides. It is easier (and perhaps more profitable in this case) to be a victim then an owner I guess. It is sad to see how a company has to take the "perceived blame" for something like this.

Yeah, too bad the hiring managers were asking candidates their choice of religion during the interviewing process, an obviously violation of EOA.

Thats funny I worked there during that period as well and I never was asked what religion I belonged to. I had many friends that worked there that were mormon and I noticed that they worked hard to support their families.
Yeah, I cant believe a boss would promote someone based on the fact that they worked harder and were honest!!!
The former councilors banded together just to make a quick buck by suing a company for a totally made up reason.
Its sad that now the mormons are going to be discriminated against because of 52 shady former councilors!

I have worked for UOP online for 6 years now as a top performer. I have witnessed the strong growth that has occured and the patterns of promotion over those years. For the most part, those that worked hard and excelled were given opportunities for promotion. It the "old" days, just being a top performer earned you the promotion, but it was quickly realized that enrolling many students didn't exactly mean someone was going to be a good manager. So, more "leadership" qualities were sought out with biases from current leaders on what that should be. Over time, there were noticeably more male managers than female (I'm guessing 15 or 20 to one) and you could say there were a good deal of mormons promoted as well. By the time the company realized they needed to correct the imbalance of demographics in management, the pendulum swung hard the other way to say the least. Many more females were promoted to managment than males (probably 3 or 4 to one) over the next few years. Also, on the "mormon" side, It didn't matter if someone was the obvious choice and best candidate.. If they were mormon and there was already one or more mormons on the senior management team, they couldn't/wouldn't promote them simply to avoid the appearance of favoritism. So, it has been unfair both ways.. Afirmative action is the best way of trying to make two wrongs make a right and it's not fair either direction. If there was favoritism over the years (and there sure has been - it still exists big time) it aligns itself more along the lines of kronyism than anything else. Senior management hire their friends rather than makeing professional and unbiased decisions. They simply choose who they want to work with as a big factor more than who would perform well in that particular position. If anything, mormons have been, and are still at a disadvantage for promotion because of the accusations that have been made in the past.

I worked at Apollo Group in the Human Resources Department and could go on all day about the concerns that would come in from staff regarding the "special treatment" given to members of the LDS church. Most of the Management for Online are members of the LDS church and would promote those and hires those that are of the same religion.

I was an enrollment counselor from 2005-2006, and went home in tears at least once a week because of all the favoritism. I was not allowed berevement when my grandmother passed, but my Mormon friend asked our boss to go camping. My 'numbers' were better- but guess who got time off? He did; our Mormon boss allowed it. I kept a journal, and have over 25 pages of instances. Never did anything with it but QUIT Univ. of Phoenix because these guys were friends of friends/people I grew up with in Mesa and they all had families to feed. Where else could a high school dropout (not even have a GED) become an Associate Degree Enrollment Manager and be paid $100k/year?

University of Phoenix is one of the largest perptrators of religous bias in the United States. It might sound strange that this takes place but so did the attacks on the twin towers 9/11. Trust me when I say that it is still alive and well and nothing has changed since that lawsuit was settled. Business as usual, non-Mormons beware you will not make as much as your Mormon counterparts. In fact, you will never become a manager despite your efforts. Listen to the people that work there and this will be obvious.