The Blair Hornstine Project
I've been sniffing about on the web for more stories about our favorite little plaintiff/lagiarist, Blair Hornstine. To start with, Metafilter has a huge thread entitled The Blair Hornstine Project. The links are the same as the ones that I've posted, and the comments are similar in nature (although perhaps a bit more deliciously nasty). The suggestion that Harvard should rescind her acceptance due to the plagiarized articles in the Courier-Post is bandied about here as well - the online petition urging Harvard to do so is still active, with over 2100 signatures, and yes, Harvard knows about the plagiarism, and the petition.
Turns out, too, that despite Blair's claim that she was unaware failing to footnote was wrong, she had signed a work agreement with the Courier-Post which stated that she would submit only original work. So, did she not pay attention to what she was signing, or did she earn a straight-A average without ever learning what the word "original" meant? While we all know that she paid close attention to the section of the Moorestown High School Handbook which states that, "The senior student with the highest seventh (7th) semester WGPA will be named the valedictorian," she seems to have missed this part altogether:
Academic Dishonesty / Cheating
Learning requires that students assume full and personal responsibility for their work. Unless otherwise directed, all assignments must be independently completed. Any student identified as having or using unauthorized aid, falsifying or providing false information and or copying other’s work will receive a grade of “O” for that assignment and/or may lose credit for the entire course at the discretion of the teacher and administration...
Students found to have cheated on any school exams, term papers, research assignments or class projects will face loss of credit for the assignment, out-of-school suspensions and/or loss of credit for the course...
Plagiarism, the failure to acknowledge the ideas of someone else, and submitting work that is not your own is considered cheating. It will not be tolerated in any school work...
Emphasis mine. Good thing for her that those Courier-Post articles weren't considered schoolwork, eh? Or were they?
In other Blair-related writings, Barry Lank wonders why we care who Moorestown's valedictorian is. DashSlot anticipates another lawsuit. And the BunkoSquad figures Blair's victory proves some people were born to be lawyers.
That last point is particularly interesting. After all, by attending Harvard, she's following in older brother Adam's footsteps. He graduated from there this past week, with a degree in history. (He's quite a cutie, isn't he?)
And, by declaring her major as pre-law, she's following in the footsteps of her father, New Jersey state Superior Court Judge Louis F. Hornstine. Right now, he's declining to comment on the plagiarism charges, which, considering that other people apparently lied about his previous statements, seems the wisest thing to do. Given his willingness to support his daughter's litiguous nature, I'd be surprised if Harvard refused to let Blair in. Harvard may be well-endowed, but I'm sure they're not willing to risk losing $2.7 million as well.
My comments appear to be down; as always, if you have any tips or info about this or any other education- and testing-related news, send it to number2pencilblog at yahoo dot com. Thanks!
Update: Blogger Adam Tow has created a spoof trailer of "The Blair Hornstine Project" for you to watch! It requires QuickTime, which I don't have on this computer, so I'll have to wait a while to watch it. You can also go here for his most excellent summary of Blair's legal and educational adventures, including a detailed table of GPA analysis and the telling observation that signatures for the online petition to rescind her Harvard application surged after the plagiarism story broke.
Update #2: Turns out that the inspiration for Blair's "non-apology" wasn't all that original either. Reader Cameron did some Googling and discovered a 1997 article about footnoting that closes with the same Isaac Newton quote that Blair uses to introduce her explanation:
Blair Hornstine (opening lines):
"If I see further," wrote scientist Isaac Newton to his colleague Robert Hooke, "it is because I stand on the shoulders of giants."
This statement, meant to suggest that Newton's achievement had been predicated upon the discoveries and findings of his predecessors, underscores a fundamental academic truism that remains true even in our time. All knowledge is constructed upon scholarship bequeathed to us by past generations. Newton's statement, therefore, captures the very essence of academia, and it simultaneously highlights an often-overlooked, sometimes invisible, but tremendously significant part of scholarly research: the footnote.
"The Decline and Fall of Footnotes" in Stanford Magazine (last two paragraphs):
Ideally, footnotes are also a graceful acknowledgement that today's community of scholars is linked to and dependent on yesterday's community.As Sir Isaac Newton modestly noted in a letter to Robert Hooke, "If I have seen further [than you and Descartes] it is by standing upon the shoulders of Giants." If Newton can be so generous, it should be easy for the modern scholar to acknowledge his or her intellectual debts.Posted by kswygert at June 9, 2003 02:43 PMThe very word "scholar" has its root in the Latin "schola" or "school" and bespeaks a community or network of people striving together for understanding. "Footnotes are reminders that scholarship is an intrinsically communal enterprise--building on, revising or replacing the work of predecessors," noted Kenneth L. Woodward in Newsweek. Scholars are not "Lone Rangers going it alone.”