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<p>They have the right to do as they please. But that does not exempt them from being shamed for doing something that is both completely ineffective at deterring or punishing unethical behavior (since the penalties do not affect the ED cheater), applies penalties to innocent students who just happen to be in the same high school, and could cause the school to auto-reject applicants it would otherwise find very desirable (i.e. the college is punishing itself as well as innocent other students while not punishing the ED cheater at all).</p>
<p>There is no constituency at a private college which would find putting the ED cheater’s high school on an auto-reject list to be the optimal action. If such a private college really cared about punishing and deterring ED cheating, it would have policies that attach the penalties to the ED cheater, not other innocent students. Examples have been described previously, such as requiring the enrollment deposit with the ED application (refunded if not admitted ED). If they believe, as you apparently do, that the GC must strictly police ED applications (although even then, a student applying to one ED college and backing out later would not be completely preventable), then the college should publish a list of errant GCs whose students will not be admitted ED (i.e. auto-defer to RD unless a clear reject) based it not trusting those GCs to police ED applications.</p>