Re: Our pernicious legal system
From: Anna Meenan, MD (annam@uic.edu)
Wed Jul 20 12:03:07 2005
Yes, I know this is an old thread, but I stumbled across this story
again while reading the Edwatch page on the Common Good website and
thought you might be interested in hearing "the rest of the story".
Turns out this girl who collected 60 G's to compensate her for the
"trauma" of not being the only valedictorian, had been accepted by
Harvard, but they dumped her, not because of the lawsuit, but because
they discovered that she had PLAGIARIZED an article she wrote in her
local paper. If any of you want to read a really long but interesting
article about the whole valedictorian thing, check this out:
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/050606fa_fact
--
Anna Meenan, MD (It's pouring rain here in drought-stricken Illinois)
At Sat, 4 Jun 2005, David A. Rivera, MD wrote:
>
>For our foreign colleagues who express shock and horror at our legal
>system...
>
>Graduate who sued to be her school’s sole valedictorian has settled her
>lawsuit
>
>Tom Hutton
>Legal Clips, August 2003
>
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>The New Jersey high school graduate who sued to be her school’s sole
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>valedictorian has settled her lawsuit against Moorestown School
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>
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>District, for $60,000. She had sought $2.7 million. Because Blair
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>Hornstine suffers from chronic fatigue syndrome, the district allowed
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>her to skip gym classes and take more heavily weighted honors courses,
>at home. When she earned the highest grade point average, the
>superintendent wanted to name multiple valedictorians. Many questioned
>her disability and suspected her father, a judge, of manipulating the
>technicalities of special education law to give his daughter an edge. A
>federal court disagreed, finding that she earned her distinction “in
>spite of, not because of, her disability.” School board president Cyndy
>Wulfsberg said, “The board continues to maintain that [the district’s]
>actions were appropriate and in the best interests of all students,
>including Ms. Hornstine.” Officials and students expressed a desire to
>move on.
>
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>The only thing more surprising than the suit is the fact there was some
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>idiot lawyer willing to take it.
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>
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>--
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>DAR
>
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