Congress has legislation before it to increase the maximum Pell Grant by $550 for low-income students. But students would not be allowed to use the extra Pell dollars at for-profit colleges and universities. This has the for-profit higher education industry claiming discrimination against them in their lobbying campaign insisting that any federal laws and regulations for higher education should apply to "all" institutions, not just for-profit ones. While this may sound like a reasonable "equity" concern, it in fact is not. In reality, the history of federal regulation of for-profit colleges shows that differential regulation of the for-profit sector has happened repeatedly. And if differential regulation is not quite the norm, it is far from being the exception. This pattern ranges from federal student loan policy to several federal institutional aid programs. This report aims to distinguish between the myth and the reality of the faux equity campaign spreading among higher education policy thinkers. The author takes a deep dive both into the history of differentiated laws and regulations in higher education and debunks the myth that all institutions must compete on a "level playing field." Once the curtain is pulled away from the false idol of "institutional equity", it opens the door to exploring universal regulations that would better protect taxpayers and students.