Class Action: School Sent Incessant Text Messages Despite Multiple ‘Stop’ Requests

Western Governors University, a private nonprofit online college based in Millcreek, Utah, repeatedly sent text messages after Tiernan Hughes and her putative class members “expressly requested” through their “stop” requests that the messaging should cease, alleged Hughes’ Telephone Consumer Protection Act class action Monday (docket 4:24-cv-00193) in U.S. District Court for Western Oklahoma in Tulsa. The Oklahoma resident alleges that the school sent her at least five telemarketing text messages promoting its online degree programs, and that the contacts continued after multiple attempts to get them to stop. The university’s conduct “violated the privacy rights of Hughes and the putative class members, as they were subjected to annoying and harassing text messages,” said the complaint. The school’s text messages “intruded upon the rights of Hughes and the putative class members to be free from invasion of their interest in seclusion,” it said.