Whiny Bitch Sues for and Wins Valedictorian Title

[december]

July 12, 2003 – A Harvard-bound New Jersey teenager who successfully sued her high school because she wanted to be the sole valedictorian at graduation has been dumped by the Ivy League university, apparently for plagiarism.

http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/37740.htm

Sounds like just desserts.

[Sock_Munkey]

Heh.
If this is schadenfrude, then schadenfrude me up baby!

[lucwarm]

By the way, does anyone have a link to the actual (allegedly) plagiarized material?

[Dewey_Cheatem_Undhow]

luc: Here’s an article that includes side-by-side comparisons of Horstine’s essays with the works they were plagarized from.

[Aristarchus]

Blatant plagiarism.

High school students should examine these passages carefully for comparison as a form of cautionary tale, and high school English teachers (and other high school teachers) should show students how easy it is to track down plagiarized passages much shorter than these that are shown in the site Dewey Cheatem Undhow has linked us to. Even more culpable, in my opinion, is Blair’s slightly changing a phrase or substituting a word. She has no concept of intellectual property–or perhaps she has no confidence in her own ability to assimilate material and develop orginal perspective.

[Dogface]

Let’s all do the “Sometimes Schadenfreude is a Good Thing” dance. At least the folks at Harvard were less moronic than the idiot jury and judge in this situation.

[december]

Next step may be Horstine suing Harvard, under either contract law or tort law. Surely she was damaged by having her admission withdrawn long after other top schools have filled their student bodies.

If I were a lawyer, I’d be chasing her ambulance right now. She has demanded millions of dollars for only being a co-validictorian. On that standard, tortious non-Harvardization ought to worth billions.

I wonder if I’m joking.

[Guinastasia]

Sue a LAW SCHOOL?

snort Sadly, december, it wouldn’t surprise me at this point.

[lezlers]

Oh, I FULLY expect a lawsuit. Isn’t that the answer to all of your petty problems like gasp not being the sole valedictorian? Suing?

Besides, Ms. Hornstien can’t let her fans down, now can she?

[Dewey_Cheatem_Undhow]

*Originally posted by Guinastasia *
**Sue a LAW SCHOOL? **

No, she’d be suing Harvard University proper. She is a high school grad seeking admission as an undergraduate, not a college grad seeking admission to the law school.

[istara]

WOW. I’m almost slightly sorry for her. It’s a fucking hard lesson to learn at the age of 18. I just hope to god she learns it, and doesn’t continue the litigation.

Whether or not her parents encouraged her is not certain. What they should have done though was DIScourage her from her self destructive course of action.

The thing is, even if she sues Harvard and manages to go there, she will be under such a cloud it will be hardly worth it.

[istara]

Incidentally - why US$2.7 million? How does one arrive at a number like that? Why not 50k, or 50 million? I find that number so absurd and alarming.

[lucwarm]

*Originally posted by Dewey Cheatem Undhow *
**luc: Here’s an article that includes side-by-side comparisons of Horstine’s essays with the works they were plagarized from. **

Thanks so much.

And for what it’s worth, my feeling is that her parents are mostly to blame for this. I suspect that they put incredible pressure on her to get A’s, to publish, etc.

It’s also ironic that this quest for credentials (apparently) blinded them to another basic ingredient of success - political savvy. From that standpoint, the correct thing to do would have been to accept her co-valedictorian and emphasize in her speech what an honor and a privilege it was to share the title with him.

Anyway, I feel bad for her. It’s an incredible amount of humiliation to go through at any age.

[lucwarm]

*Originally posted by istara *
**WOW. I’m almost slightly sorry for her. It’s a fucking hard lesson to learn at the age of 18. I just hope to god she learns it, and doesn’t continue the litigation.

Whether or not her parents encouraged her is not certain. What they should have done though was DIScourage her from her self destructive course of action.

The thing is, even if she sues Harvard and manages to go there, she will be under such a cloud it will be hardly worth it. **

Agree. Blair, if you’re out there, take a year off, go to Rutgers, and study and do what interests you without worrying about how it will look on your resume. Spend a lot of your free time hanging out with your friends and dating boys.

In 10 or 15 years, nobody will care where you went to college or whether you were valedictorian. You probably won’t even remember your grades.

[SisterCoyote]

I have not yet found a reputable citation for this (perhaps someone more skilled than I with a news search engine could help?) but I understand that the father is on record as saying that he was the school salutatorian, and that no child of his was going to endure that humiliation. (emphasis mine.)

WTF? How is it humiliating to be one of the top two students in one’s class?

[Dewey_Cheatem_Undhow]

*Originally posted by SisterCoyote *
**I have not yet found a reputable citation for this (perhaps someone more skilled than I with a news search engine could help?) but I understand that the father is on record as saying that he was the school salutatorian, and that no child of his was going to endure that humiliation. **

Try this article in the Weekly Standard:

Because he was new on the job, Kadri began looking at the district’s home instruction programs, and on September 19, he met with Judge Hornstine. There are conflicting accounts of the discussion. In court documents responding to Blair’s lawsuit, Kadri claimed that Hornstine “told me that he had been salutatorian in school, and that he did not want his children to face ‘the same embarrassment.’” Therefore, “he would ‘use any advantage of the laws and regulations to give [Blair] the best opportunity to be valedictorian.’” According to Kadri, Judge Hornstine “told me that he was going to manipulate rules designed to protect disabled students” and said, “All I’m interested in is what is best for my daughter.”

It’s a really good article on the whole deal to boot; well worth a read.

[Guinastasia]

I hope this isn’t quoting too much-if it is, I appologize:

…Blair took Latin 1 in middle school, over the course of 7th and 8th grades. Unusually, she then retook Latin 1 as a freshman–and got an A+. During her sophomore year, Blair was enrolled in AP U.S. History and was taking it at the school with a teacher whose policy is to never give A+ marks. But she dropped the course and finished it the following year at home, with a different instructor. She got an A+. Blair was enrolled in gym class in 9th and 10th grades (receiving an A and A+, respectively). Just weeks before the end of her junior year, she received a doctor’s note waiving her from gym altogether. Still, an A+ for the class showed up on her transcript. Her father wanted the grade removed, and since she shouldn’t have been graded for a waived class, it was. As Kadri explained to the court, an A+ in gym is worth only 4.3, and thus would have lowered her cumulative GPA, which was well above 4.3 by that point.

Wait-I thought she wasn’t able to take gym…hmmmmm

At Moorestown High, the calculations for valedictorian are made at the end of the first semester senior year. Just a few weeks before that semester ended, Blair dropped AP European History–one of the two courses she was taking at the school–citing exhaustion. “The papers are killing her,” Judge Hornstine told the child study team while trying to withdraw Blair from the class. At the time, Blair had an A- in the class. It would have been one of the lowest grades of her high school career.

Yet she had all that time for extracurricular activities, it seems-read on:

And while she was on home instruction, Blair’s experience was markedly different from that of other students. At the most basic level, she had about half as much class time as school-bound students, freeing her up for extracurricular activities. (When asked by the Discover Card scholarship how she got everything on her résumé done, she replied, “There’s plenty of time in the day!”) Her education plan stipulated that she would be allowed “more time to take tests and quizzes,” and “will not be required to take more than one test or examination per day.” What’s more, “When absent or significantly fatigued, teachers will make appropriate accommodations to due dates for assignments. The parents will advise teachers when Blair has been too fatigued or otherwise unable to complete or to submit work in timely fashion.”

Oh yeah, sounds like she was milking it for all it was worth. Disabilities are one thing-but it seems like her’s comes and goes.

And how come she can’t come to school but she can RUN WITH THE OLYMPIC TORCH??? Isn’t that, what-a mile? I don’t have a disability, and even I had a terrible time with the annual mile run we had to do at school.

And oh yeah, I DEFINITELY blame Daddy Dearest for who’s REALLY at fault.

[Aristarchus]

The school system is definitely between a rock and a hard place. Special education teachers are almost at the point that they need a law degree. What happens is this:

After a rather drawn-out process, students with disabilities are identified. Once identified, plans of action to help those students function successfully in school are drawn up by teachers–and parents are involved in the process.

These plans (IEP’s) are regularly reviewed and modified. If a special education teacher can be proven not to be following through on any of the accommodations spelled out in the IEP, well, the school can be taken to court. The hand of the law is clearly understood to be holding the scales over special education students from the moment that first IEP has been drawn up and signed.

I’m mentioning this here to set the stage for what occurred in Blair’s case. Hers was a legal agreement from the get-go. I am sure with her father’s attitude toward anything below valedictorian level being ‘humiliating,’ Blair’s educational experience developed into one of becoming expert in GPA averaging and fortified by the sense that the courtroom was always there, metaphorically speaking, just outside her front door. It’s obvious the family was milking the system. I wonder, for sake of argument, whether the other candidate–the one who lost the co-valedictorian status–also milked the system? It would be an interesting report to read how that student went through the high school years, whether courses were dropped, and so on.

[istara]

Do you know what I find really disgusting? I get the impression that all this “community work” she carried out in such vast amounts (though certain newspaper articles say much of it was over the phone, and much of the time her father did it on behalf) was done solely for the purpose of accolades and better grades, than any sense of caring or community spirit.

**Those other papers include the Philadelphia Inquirer, which in late May reported that Blair’s volunteer work is often helped along by her father. “Most of her volunteer work is done by phone now,” Jennifer Moroz and Toni Callas reported. “And Louis Hornstine often is the one on the other end of the line,” said Kristin Valente, volunteer coordinator for the Food Bank of South Jersey. “I have dealt a lot with her father because we’re open during school hours,” Valente told the Inquirer. “A lot of times it would be their father delivering [the food donations],” Betty Mendez, the executive director of the Food Bank told me. “He would come in his car. . . . That’s the one thing I admired, he would bend over backwards for his children.” **

It’s almost like it was just another class to her, just a way to score points. Maybe I’m being ungenerous.

And on another matter:

**In June 2001, Blair was given the Congressional Award Gold Medal. To qualify for this honor, students must complete and document 400 hours of voluntary public service, 200 hours of personal development, 200 hours of physical fitness, and a 4-day exploration. Kelly Fanning, from the Congressional Awards office, says, “For her physical fitness she did jogging, power-walking, and dance.” Moorestown High School students, it should be noted, take roughly 75 hours of Phys. Ed. class per year. **

People making false insurance claims over injuries or sickness are treated as criminals if they are caught. Which is why insurance companies hire private detectives to photograph car accident victims with faked chronic back problems merrily carrying fridges into their homes, etc.

I wonder how much extra cash came out of the school’s or local goverment’s budget to fund her hundreds of hours and days of private tuition? Education like that would not have been cheap. If I was them, I would be having the family prosecuted for making fraudulent claims. Kids go to school all the time with broken limbs in plaster, or in wheelchairs, etc. Anyone that can fucking dance and jog can certainly manage to sit on their arse in a classroom for a few hours.