The Jewish World Review has a fairly sympathetic description of Blair Hornstine, and the public's reaction to her exploits:
Growing up, most of us knew a Blair Hornstine — a girl or boy who seemed to do everything right, who was always at the top of the class in high school. You know the type — that someone who combines straight A's with relentless do-gooding on the road to Harvard, Yale or some other school most of us didn't get into.
We're all supposed to admire people like that, but the truth is, the vast majority of us can't stand them...
Nobody seems sorry for Blair or for her father, the Honorable Louis Hornstine, the New Jersey superior court judge many blame for the whole mess. Blair deserves to live her life in peace. Whatever her faults or those of her family, she hasn't murdered anyone that I'm aware of, and has already been punished far more severely for her transgressions than some other type-A overachievers who've done far worse...
Blair and her father have come to represent some of the worst aspects of our society — the desire for empty honors and meaningless school grades, along with a willingness to hurt anyone who comes in the way of such goals.
Blair is undoubtedly a brilliant girl whose charitable work does not merit our contempt. Her plagiarism was a serious offense. But this is a youthful indiscretion that ought not to hang around her head for the rest of her life (as it probably will)...
There are those who doubt her "brilliance" and the sincerity of her charitable work. But author Jonathan Tobin is correct in surmising that students like Blair may be better pitied than envied, thanks to the pressure-cooker environment in which she was most likely reared.