jeffy124's Journal: Booted From Harvard?

Has anyone been following or at least heard about the story where a high school student sued her school in order to be the sole valedictorian?

Here's the background: Blair Hornstine is a disabled student whose condition required home schooling. Because she was at home, she could take extra AP/honors courses that other students could not take otherwise (being home schooled allowed her to get around scheduling conflicts regular students had), and did not have to take classes like gym. As a result, she was able to get a higher GPA than was possible(*), and did so. So the school district, aware of this, wanted to award two valedictorians at graduation.

Hornstine, whose father is a state superior court judge and will be going to Harvard with plans of being a lawyer, sued the Moorestown School District in federal court, claiming it amounted to discrimination. She won, making her the sole valedictorian at her graduation.

Naturally, the students who actually attend class at Moorestown were pissed, as was the rest of the community. They started getting threatening phone calls, letters, vandalism to their home, etc. So Hornstine skipped the ceremony. And I think the school district executives couldn't have been happier, knowing all the jeering that would happen if she were there. They didn't even raise her name the entire night.

It turns out that Hornstine had written some articles in the Teen section of the Courier Post newspaper, and had plagiarized some parts of them. The plagiarism was found after the court ruling, but (IIRC) before the graduation.

The whole thing made national news, and students at Harvard shared opinions of those as people in Moorestown. Editorials of protest appeared in the Harvard Crimson student paper, along with petitions getting passed around both at Harvard and Moorestown wanting the university to drop her, make her share the valedictorian crown, etc.

The news: It appears now that Harvard has indeed dropped Hornstine from admission, though it is unconfirmed officially. The story appears in the Crimson, and locally as well (Courier Post, Philadelphia Inquirer).

My take on all this is that Hornstine should be proud. She is now the last high school student in the United States to reap the advantages and privileges she had being a home schooled student.

(*) - In many schools in NJ, a perfect GPA is not possible, as classes like gym are weighted less than honors or college prep courses. NJ requires four years of gym in high school, and Hornstine was exempted from that requirement, so she got a jump on other students.

GPA

[norwoodites]

GPA should measure how you did on all your subjects, not weighted average; have something else to measure that say honors average but do not award students because they take the low classes. But then again I have heard being the valedictorian is not every thing now a days any way. So why did she sue in the first place, she was going to go to Harvard no matter what, why did she care?

She cared because America court system is messed up, that is why and she wanted a head start on suing people.

Re:GPA

[jeffy124]

GPA (in High school anyways) is weighted because honors classes require more work to get an A than does a college prep course. Hence, the reason why courses are weighted when calculating GPA. Gym (or more pc, Phys Ed) is a course that at my HS (also NJ) is considered "Standard" level, one step below College Prep. Other schools in NJ do similar.

You are right - She would have been better off keeping her trap shut and taking a shared award. The courier post would have not noticed her plagarism had it not

Ohter linkage

[heliocentric]

I found this page to be interesting: http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/26212 [metafilter.com] on the subject. To quote from it (with out plagerism):

Her Chronic Fatigue problem meant that she just couldn't get up the energy to do her own writing...

...she used her illness as an excuse to not be in the courtroom when she won her judgement.

...it should be possible for the high school to go back and review her academic work, possibly changing her GPA in classes where she plagiarized her work. Plagiarizing an assignment in

More linkage

[heliocentric]

This time with better spelling in the Subject

Discover gave her some money for college [studentrewards.com].

And geez, even if you couldn't foot note I was always taught it's good to work in your source with your regular writing so the reader sees the credibility. This may not be the best for lesser known sources but in a made up quote from Supreme Court Justice Heliocentric, "Tis' always good to cite as it shows you are humbled to those of greater minds." See, no foot notes even need. Or as a President of the USA FloamMan

Re:Ohter linkage

[jeffy124]

The "only 17" argument should be a non-factor. I learned about citing sources and how to properly lift text from another source starting in 8th grade english, and got it reinforced each year following. My 11th grade english teacher (11th grade is about age 16-17) required us to follow an MLA guide in a strict manner on a research paper. (And I took CP English, not Honors)

I think I read in the Courier that Moorestown is still investigating whether she plagarized during HS. I dont think they're gonna fin

Discrimination isn't so bad.

[eugene ts wong]

People should just realize that discrimination is a good thing. It is misused when the final decision is based on irrelevant factors, such as:

wealth & salvation

skin color & job pay

skin color & grades
There are probably more examples, & we'll definitely disagree on them, but in general, the theory is sound.

The girl should have been discriminated against, regarding the valedictorian decision, because she had that GPA advantage.