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Inserted some citation changes to the page. I came across this article in my research of Education Law and the ADA. Some portions of the current page, where citations are requested seem to be speculative, but I can't say for certain because I only know whats in the case law. Perhaps Dickey is right on the others, I guess it is up to Century40 to back his edits up. Mealoat22 ( talk) 18:59, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
The phrase "other resume highlights" and the following bulleted list seem completely nonenyclopedic. If anything, a single sentence listing a few representative items should be plenty. These accomplishments are of interest only as an illustration of her academic reputation and success, which we can pretty well surmise from the story itself. Remove? emw 04:13, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
I think it sounds like cheerleading-occasional Wikipedia User
Why is this page so long? this person isnt important, its just one of the hundreds of cheaters who get rejected every year for cheating. Delete this stupid page I'd say RootBeerFanatic 21:07, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
There is a Blair Hornstine at St. Andrews, as a variety of recent editors have suggested without evidence. Her e-mail address is xxxxx@st-and.ac.uk. I would not feel comfortable including this claim of alma matter in the article without proof that this is the *same* Blair Hornstine. And I, frankly, do not incline to e-mail her and ask. Uucp 22:31, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
Currently the article includes a quote from a school superintendent claiming that Hornstine's father said "he was going to manipulate rules designed to protect disabled students for the purpose of allowing [Blair Hornstine] to win the valedictorian award". This of course is the sort of thing we need to source. The best reference that I found freely available online was http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,86469,00.html . I think we can improve the sourcing, however. The Fox News opinion piece begins its mention of the incident as:
So, the story appeared in the Times the week of May 9th, 2003 (but probably not after the 9th) after the judge issued the restraining order. Looking at the four articles that the Times archive returns as hits for "Hornstine" in the whole of 2003, one would probably be eliminated by appearing two days after the Fox News piece. Of the three others, all fall within the correct week; only one of the three, however, mentions in its title and preview the judge's order. So, the article we're looking for appears to be:
Hopefully someone either has a subscription to the Times archive or has access to a library with this volume in its holdings. -- Antaeus Feldspar 22:11, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
The quote comes from papers filed by Kadri in the lawsuit. Those papers are part of the public record but not easily accessible by the internet. The quote appeared in a few different publications, including the Fox column, a brief in the NY Post (HEIDI SINGER, $2.7M TIFF OVER TEEN'S TOP HONOR, 3 May 2003), a Weekly Standard article ( Jonathan V. Last, First in Her Class, 07/07/2003, Volume 008, Issue 42), and this LA Times article:
Kadri, local school officials and the Board of Education paint a far different picture.
They say that the student's father, New Jersey Superior Court Judge Louis Hornstine, told Kadri during a meeting that he would "use any advantage of the laws and regulations" to give his daughter "the best opportunity to be valedictorian."
"In the end, he flatly told the superintendent that he was going to manipulate rules designed to protect disabled students for the purpose of allowing plaintiff to win the valedictorian award," the papers said.
In light of the judge's statements and complaints from students that they were not able to "compete fairly on a level field," Kadri launched an investigation.
"What he found was a fundamental unfairness, a pattern which suggested that plaintiff had opportunities to gain an advantage no other students enjoyed in competing for the valedictorian/ salutatorian award," the papers said.
The superintendent concluded that while other students were limited in their class schedules, Hornstine could take as many honors courses as she wanted because she could schedule them with her home tutors, giving her the opportunity to earn higher weighted grades than her counterparts attending classes full time at school.
Court papers said Kadri also discovered occasions that when it appeared Hornstine would be unable to earn a high grade while enrolled in a difficult class in school, she withdrew and sought home instruction.
I would prefer to not use the Fox source to support the quote; I'll add the LA Times article and the Weekly Standard article (which only includes part of the quote) as refs. Random Task ( T· C) 21:18, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
I found a picture of her here. I think it can get by with Fair Use, but I'm not sure. Opinions?-- Miguel Cervantes 22:04, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
Several statements in this seem to describe the general community feelings towards Blair. although sources are cited properly, words such as "some" and "most" are used often to describe what the author seems to imply is a straightforward attack on Blair. Regarding bias, all content has to respect WP:NPOV. -- Daniel ellis 03:14, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
I'm not saying claims are given reliable sources. I'm just saying the wording of certain parts of the article tend to sway the reader towards a sympathetic view of Blair instead of a neutral viewpoint. For example where it is stated that "the town's residents were disgusted at Horstine..." and that "Horstine was immediately isolated from her classmates." It's not the lack of sources, it's the diction that throws the reader to take a certain stance. -- Daniel ellis 02:25, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
I'm removing the NPOV tag - the POV is not glaringly obvious in this article. If you disagree, feel free to place the tag back on the article. Remember, if you feel that specific diction is biased, you are always free to edit it to remove the bias. I will try to address POV concerns myself in the meantime. Ali (t) (c) 06:08, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
The references section in this article should be merged into the article text, as in-line references. I have attempted to do this myself, but I do not have access to all the references mentioned in this section. Ali (t) (c) 02:41, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
I received a complaint from someone familiar with this matter saying that the article was biased and that recent attempts to add balance were summarily reverted. I reviewed the article per Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons (BLP) and found a number of problems which I have attempted to correct. Some of the problems are straightforward, such as use of POV terms like "supposedly" or unsourced sections that appear to be original research or statements that are not supported by the sources cited or the inclusion of a "trivia" section (not permitted under BLP).
There is a broader issue that is more problematic. There are two distinct narratives for this story. It received extensive press coverage which was mostly negative towards Ms. Hornstine, to put it mildly. The other version is told in the Federal District Court opinion. I've largely presented the valedictorian story as described in the court opinion. I believe this comes closest to WP:NPOV. Few facts are in dispute, rather it is which facts that get mentioned that seem to be the difference. For example, many press accounts (and the previous version of our article) dwell on the fact that Ms. Hornstine was not required to take gym, allowing her to take highly weighted AP and honors course instead, but none mention the fact that the runner-up was nonetheless able to take more AP courses than Ms. Hornstine.
I've trimmed the Courier-Journal section to the basic facts. The newspaper stated Hornstine failed to properly attribute sources. It did not use the word "plagiarism." I believe we should use their language, though many later press reports did use that word. The comparisons of text that was in our article are unsourced and I believe unnecessary. She admitted her failure to properly attribute material and apologized. Note that Ms. Hornstine was a minor when she submitted these stories.
I would urge anyone editing this article to carefully review WP:BLP. -- agr ( talk) 20:47, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
The given reference (and about 90% of google hits) give this spelling rather than "Marilyn" in the topic. Tedickey ( talk) 22:51, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
The article ought to mention the location of the story. Following a link, I find that Moorestown is in New Jersey. I cannot, however, find a way to insert this fact into the text without disrupting the flow of the article. Anybody want to do it? Ronstew ( talk) 03:44, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
That appears to be a self-published webpage (perhaps factual, but it was used by an anon-IP in apparent COI-based edits a while back). Perhaps there's a reliable source available Tedickey ( talk) 11:37, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
Per a parallel discussion at Talk:Kaavya Viswanathan, this article would seem to fall under WP:BLP1E and WP:BIO1E. It primarily deals with one event, the lawsuit over the valedictorian award at Moorestown High School in 2003. While Ms. Hornstine played a major role in that controversy as the one who filed the suit, she is not the only key player. The Superintendent of Schools played a major a role too, arguably at least as significant. Actions by parents and other students were also important. Wikipedia's approach in such cases, per WP:BIO1E, is to "cover the event, not the person." Further BLP1E applies: "If reliable sources cover the person only in the context of a particular event, and if that person otherwise remains, or is likely to remain, low profile, then a separate biography is unlikely to be warranted." Accordingly, a more appropriate name for the article would be Moorestown v. Hornstine, which would focus on the suit and the resulting precedent in disability law, the latter having perhaps the greatest long term significance.-- agr ( talk) 22:47, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
Most of the content of the Crimson source focuses on the reported plagiarism - the recent edits have removed all of that, leaving only the out-of-context comments relating to unpopularity. Tedickey ( talk) 22:42, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
As Arnold recalls, he removed all of the sources relating to this. It would be nice to see an accurate change summmary, rather than a misleading one. Tedickey ( talk) 23:15, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
I find the emphasis of this article to be pretty flawed. The lawsuit itself would not have been notable had it not been for the media coverage and public debate it provoked.
The Hornstein Incident is an iconic parable about the perils of contemporary achiev-o-tron values, and this article in my opinion utterly fails to convey what was reported on and how the story was told in the media. That's important.-- Atlantictire ( talk) 05:04, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
I believe the two sentences regarding Ms. Hornstine and Harvard fail WP:BLPGOSSIP. That policy says says "Be wary of sources that use weasel words and that attribute material to anonymous sources." The source cited for the two sentences, an article in the Harvard Crimson, a student newspaper, attributes the information to "a source involved with the decision." The New York Times, in a local color piece, picked up the Crimson article but could provide no independent confirmation. [1]
The second sentence in question, which was helpfully clarified, none-the-less suggests an indirect confirmation of the incident by Harvard. We define weasel words as "equivocating words and phrases aimed at creating an impression that something specific and meaningful has been said, when in fact only a vague or ambiguous claim, or even a refutation has been communicated." That perfectly fits the the second sentence and the portion of the Crimson article on which it is based.
More importantly, in my view, BLPGOSSIP also says we should ask if material being presented "is relevant to a disinterested article about the subject." The subject of this article is a law suit, not Ms. Hornstine. The alleged Harvard incident happened after the suit was filed and had no bearing on its outcome.
I would also call attention to WP:AVOIDVICTIM. Ms. Hornstine was the subject of a massive media hate storm for filing this case, but was vindicated in court. Our BLP policy says "Wikipedia editors must not act, intentionally or otherwise, in a way that amounts to participating in or prolonging the victimization." The best course is to leave this material out of the article and let the legal case speak for itself.-- agr ( talk) 20:31, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
and then, most damning,
Similar text appears in many other significant publications. Hornstine's apparent lack of ethics was evidently relevant to the case in the eyes of the world in 2003, as was Harvard's withdrawal of admission. The family's spokesman treats the Crimson's story as accurate. This isn't "blaming the victim," it's just providing context. Uucp ( talk) 12:35, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
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Inserted some citation changes to the page. I came across this article in my research of Education Law and the ADA. Some portions of the current page, where citations are requested seem to be speculative, but I can't say for certain because I only know whats in the case law. Perhaps Dickey is right on the others, I guess it is up to Century40 to back his edits up. Mealoat22 ( talk) 18:59, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
The phrase "other resume highlights" and the following bulleted list seem completely nonenyclopedic. If anything, a single sentence listing a few representative items should be plenty. These accomplishments are of interest only as an illustration of her academic reputation and success, which we can pretty well surmise from the story itself. Remove? emw 04:13, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
I think it sounds like cheerleading-occasional Wikipedia User
Why is this page so long? this person isnt important, its just one of the hundreds of cheaters who get rejected every year for cheating. Delete this stupid page I'd say RootBeerFanatic 21:07, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
There is a Blair Hornstine at St. Andrews, as a variety of recent editors have suggested without evidence. Her e-mail address is xxxxx@st-and.ac.uk. I would not feel comfortable including this claim of alma matter in the article without proof that this is the *same* Blair Hornstine. And I, frankly, do not incline to e-mail her and ask. Uucp 22:31, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
Currently the article includes a quote from a school superintendent claiming that Hornstine's father said "he was going to manipulate rules designed to protect disabled students for the purpose of allowing [Blair Hornstine] to win the valedictorian award". This of course is the sort of thing we need to source. The best reference that I found freely available online was http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,86469,00.html . I think we can improve the sourcing, however. The Fox News opinion piece begins its mention of the incident as:
So, the story appeared in the Times the week of May 9th, 2003 (but probably not after the 9th) after the judge issued the restraining order. Looking at the four articles that the Times archive returns as hits for "Hornstine" in the whole of 2003, one would probably be eliminated by appearing two days after the Fox News piece. Of the three others, all fall within the correct week; only one of the three, however, mentions in its title and preview the judge's order. So, the article we're looking for appears to be:
Hopefully someone either has a subscription to the Times archive or has access to a library with this volume in its holdings. -- Antaeus Feldspar 22:11, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
The quote comes from papers filed by Kadri in the lawsuit. Those papers are part of the public record but not easily accessible by the internet. The quote appeared in a few different publications, including the Fox column, a brief in the NY Post (HEIDI SINGER, $2.7M TIFF OVER TEEN'S TOP HONOR, 3 May 2003), a Weekly Standard article ( Jonathan V. Last, First in Her Class, 07/07/2003, Volume 008, Issue 42), and this LA Times article:
Kadri, local school officials and the Board of Education paint a far different picture.
They say that the student's father, New Jersey Superior Court Judge Louis Hornstine, told Kadri during a meeting that he would "use any advantage of the laws and regulations" to give his daughter "the best opportunity to be valedictorian."
"In the end, he flatly told the superintendent that he was going to manipulate rules designed to protect disabled students for the purpose of allowing plaintiff to win the valedictorian award," the papers said.
In light of the judge's statements and complaints from students that they were not able to "compete fairly on a level field," Kadri launched an investigation.
"What he found was a fundamental unfairness, a pattern which suggested that plaintiff had opportunities to gain an advantage no other students enjoyed in competing for the valedictorian/ salutatorian award," the papers said.
The superintendent concluded that while other students were limited in their class schedules, Hornstine could take as many honors courses as she wanted because she could schedule them with her home tutors, giving her the opportunity to earn higher weighted grades than her counterparts attending classes full time at school.
Court papers said Kadri also discovered occasions that when it appeared Hornstine would be unable to earn a high grade while enrolled in a difficult class in school, she withdrew and sought home instruction.
I would prefer to not use the Fox source to support the quote; I'll add the LA Times article and the Weekly Standard article (which only includes part of the quote) as refs. Random Task ( T· C) 21:18, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
I found a picture of her here. I think it can get by with Fair Use, but I'm not sure. Opinions?-- Miguel Cervantes 22:04, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
Several statements in this seem to describe the general community feelings towards Blair. although sources are cited properly, words such as "some" and "most" are used often to describe what the author seems to imply is a straightforward attack on Blair. Regarding bias, all content has to respect WP:NPOV. -- Daniel ellis 03:14, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
I'm not saying claims are given reliable sources. I'm just saying the wording of certain parts of the article tend to sway the reader towards a sympathetic view of Blair instead of a neutral viewpoint. For example where it is stated that "the town's residents were disgusted at Horstine..." and that "Horstine was immediately isolated from her classmates." It's not the lack of sources, it's the diction that throws the reader to take a certain stance. -- Daniel ellis 02:25, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
I'm removing the NPOV tag - the POV is not glaringly obvious in this article. If you disagree, feel free to place the tag back on the article. Remember, if you feel that specific diction is biased, you are always free to edit it to remove the bias. I will try to address POV concerns myself in the meantime. Ali (t) (c) 06:08, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
The references section in this article should be merged into the article text, as in-line references. I have attempted to do this myself, but I do not have access to all the references mentioned in this section. Ali (t) (c) 02:41, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
I received a complaint from someone familiar with this matter saying that the article was biased and that recent attempts to add balance were summarily reverted. I reviewed the article per Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons (BLP) and found a number of problems which I have attempted to correct. Some of the problems are straightforward, such as use of POV terms like "supposedly" or unsourced sections that appear to be original research or statements that are not supported by the sources cited or the inclusion of a "trivia" section (not permitted under BLP).
There is a broader issue that is more problematic. There are two distinct narratives for this story. It received extensive press coverage which was mostly negative towards Ms. Hornstine, to put it mildly. The other version is told in the Federal District Court opinion. I've largely presented the valedictorian story as described in the court opinion. I believe this comes closest to WP:NPOV. Few facts are in dispute, rather it is which facts that get mentioned that seem to be the difference. For example, many press accounts (and the previous version of our article) dwell on the fact that Ms. Hornstine was not required to take gym, allowing her to take highly weighted AP and honors course instead, but none mention the fact that the runner-up was nonetheless able to take more AP courses than Ms. Hornstine.
I've trimmed the Courier-Journal section to the basic facts. The newspaper stated Hornstine failed to properly attribute sources. It did not use the word "plagiarism." I believe we should use their language, though many later press reports did use that word. The comparisons of text that was in our article are unsourced and I believe unnecessary. She admitted her failure to properly attribute material and apologized. Note that Ms. Hornstine was a minor when she submitted these stories.
I would urge anyone editing this article to carefully review WP:BLP. -- agr ( talk) 20:47, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
The given reference (and about 90% of google hits) give this spelling rather than "Marilyn" in the topic. Tedickey ( talk) 22:51, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
The article ought to mention the location of the story. Following a link, I find that Moorestown is in New Jersey. I cannot, however, find a way to insert this fact into the text without disrupting the flow of the article. Anybody want to do it? Ronstew ( talk) 03:44, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
That appears to be a self-published webpage (perhaps factual, but it was used by an anon-IP in apparent COI-based edits a while back). Perhaps there's a reliable source available Tedickey ( talk) 11:37, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
Per a parallel discussion at Talk:Kaavya Viswanathan, this article would seem to fall under WP:BLP1E and WP:BIO1E. It primarily deals with one event, the lawsuit over the valedictorian award at Moorestown High School in 2003. While Ms. Hornstine played a major role in that controversy as the one who filed the suit, she is not the only key player. The Superintendent of Schools played a major a role too, arguably at least as significant. Actions by parents and other students were also important. Wikipedia's approach in such cases, per WP:BIO1E, is to "cover the event, not the person." Further BLP1E applies: "If reliable sources cover the person only in the context of a particular event, and if that person otherwise remains, or is likely to remain, low profile, then a separate biography is unlikely to be warranted." Accordingly, a more appropriate name for the article would be Moorestown v. Hornstine, which would focus on the suit and the resulting precedent in disability law, the latter having perhaps the greatest long term significance.-- agr ( talk) 22:47, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
Most of the content of the Crimson source focuses on the reported plagiarism - the recent edits have removed all of that, leaving only the out-of-context comments relating to unpopularity. Tedickey ( talk) 22:42, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
As Arnold recalls, he removed all of the sources relating to this. It would be nice to see an accurate change summmary, rather than a misleading one. Tedickey ( talk) 23:15, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
I find the emphasis of this article to be pretty flawed. The lawsuit itself would not have been notable had it not been for the media coverage and public debate it provoked.
The Hornstein Incident is an iconic parable about the perils of contemporary achiev-o-tron values, and this article in my opinion utterly fails to convey what was reported on and how the story was told in the media. That's important.-- Atlantictire ( talk) 05:04, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
I believe the two sentences regarding Ms. Hornstine and Harvard fail WP:BLPGOSSIP. That policy says says "Be wary of sources that use weasel words and that attribute material to anonymous sources." The source cited for the two sentences, an article in the Harvard Crimson, a student newspaper, attributes the information to "a source involved with the decision." The New York Times, in a local color piece, picked up the Crimson article but could provide no independent confirmation. [1]
The second sentence in question, which was helpfully clarified, none-the-less suggests an indirect confirmation of the incident by Harvard. We define weasel words as "equivocating words and phrases aimed at creating an impression that something specific and meaningful has been said, when in fact only a vague or ambiguous claim, or even a refutation has been communicated." That perfectly fits the the second sentence and the portion of the Crimson article on which it is based.
More importantly, in my view, BLPGOSSIP also says we should ask if material being presented "is relevant to a disinterested article about the subject." The subject of this article is a law suit, not Ms. Hornstine. The alleged Harvard incident happened after the suit was filed and had no bearing on its outcome.
I would also call attention to WP:AVOIDVICTIM. Ms. Hornstine was the subject of a massive media hate storm for filing this case, but was vindicated in court. Our BLP policy says "Wikipedia editors must not act, intentionally or otherwise, in a way that amounts to participating in or prolonging the victimization." The best course is to leave this material out of the article and let the legal case speak for itself.-- agr ( talk) 20:31, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
and then, most damning,
Similar text appears in many other significant publications. Hornstine's apparent lack of ethics was evidently relevant to the case in the eyes of the world in 2003, as was Harvard's withdrawal of admission. The family's spokesman treats the Crimson's story as accurate. This isn't "blaming the victim," it's just providing context. Uucp ( talk) 12:35, 4 September 2013 (UTC)