Practical Socialism - Student Wins Valedictorian Lawsuit In Moorestown:

U.S. District Judge Freda Wolfson ordered the Moorestown district to name Blair L. Hornstine the valedictorian for the class of 2003.

Hornstine, who completed many of her courses over the last two years with tutors because of an immune deficiency, argued that since she has the highest grades at Moorestown High School, she should be valedictorian.

Her school district looks at the disagreement another way: Because of the immune deficiency, Hornstine is classified as a disabled student and has taken a class load that doesn't include physical education and involves her spending part of her school day studying at home.

The two other Moorestown High School seniors with nearly perfect grades could not match her grade-point average, officials said, because classes like gym receive less weight in calculating the grade-point average, or GPA.

On Thursday, Wolfson said that to appoint two valedictorians "would send the message that we have two valedictorians this year, a disabled one and a nondisabled one," the Courier-Post of Cherry Hill reported.

In a written statement, Hornstine said sharing the valedictorian title would have "left unprotected the next disabled student."

A classic case of the effects of socialism. No point is too petty to fight about when you are fighting for not just the imprimateur of a small institution, but all of Society. If this school was private, what do you think would happen? They would have chosen their covaledictorians, and that would be that. It is the public ownership of the school that causes the problem; for the state does guarantee privileges to the disabled, which necessarily extend even to such trivialities as the computation of GPAs in public schools. To the extent that a society has social norms, it may be able to handle socialism without continual, massive conflict. We have norms against using the legal system to fight trivial, meaningless actions like this. But clearly those are breaking down; and it is every man for himself. And every whiny, self-righteous, "handicapped" protolawyer, as well.