Kickbacks aren't the fundamental issue here. If this was a single-employee startup with no other investors or shareholders, this would be perfectly legal. Or if Netflix, Inc. had a policy that authorized individual executives to personally receive cash and stock from vendors as perks, then this would have been perfectly legal. However, as the article says, Netflix had an internal policy that he blatantly violated:
> Netflix policies prohibited conflicts of interest by its employees by its Code of Ethics and its “Culture Deck,” which required the disclosure of actual or apparent conflicts of interest and the reporting of gifts from entities seeking to sell products or services to the company.
They're not illegal because they're unfair or immoral, they're illegal because the administrator is selling the spot that the college owns; it's not his/her spot to sell.
If the company wanted to be used by Netflix in exchange for equity, then they could make a deal with Netflix itself. This executive was essentially selling the rights to contracts (akin to spots) that he didn't have the right to sell.
I don't see an example of how the university is losing revenue and being defrauded in that scenario.
It's telling that you were more willing to make sure the university wasn't being defrauded but I guess the student can kick rocks right?
Similarly, in the case of college admissions scandals, it is the college being defrauded.
Now here, to make a parallel as you were intending, we'd have to see how the university is being defrauded.
Leaving aside the legal issues (I'm not a law expert, so I don't know if it is illegal), don't you think it is incredibly immoral for a professor to require a specific book for their class on the basis that the publisher is going to hand a check to the professor?