Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development Volume 21 Issue 1 Volume 21, Fall 2006, Issue 1 Article 1 Ivy League Price-Fixing: Conflict from the Intersection of Education and Commerce Arthur Austin Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.stjohns.edu/jcred This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at St. John's Law Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development by an authorized editor of St. John's Law Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. ARTICLES IVY LEAGUE PRICE-FIXING: CONFLICT FROM THE INTERSECTION OF EDUCATION AND COMMERCE ARTHUR AUSTIN* INTRODUCTION "No one attending the [price-fixing] gatherings was so stupid that he didn't know the meetings were in violation of the law. But it is the only way a business can be run. It is free enterprise."1 Price-fixing is universally acknowledged as the most pernicious antitrust offense. 2 To Adam Smith price-fixing was evidence of a * Edgar A. Hahn Professor of Jurisprudence, Case Western Reserve University School of Law, Cleveland, Ohio. 1 JOHN G. FULLER, THE GENTLEMEN CONSPIRATORS 191 (1962). 2 See A.D. NEALE, THE ANTITRUST LAWS OF THE U.S.A 444 (3d ed., Cambridge University Press 1980) (1960) (stating "Price-fixing agreements come first in importance among these offenses and nobody in the United States now expects to get away with overt price agreements or any of the obvious variants such as agreements for level tendering, formula pricing, and so on").