When Adults Become Hypocrites

Articles

When Adults Become Hypocrites

By Jack Lepiarz
July 26, 2005

On June 23rd, I went to the class of 2005's graduation, hoping to wish my graduating friends good luck, since, chances are, I'll never see a lot of them ever again. I sat through a number of long, boring speeches, but I'd like to cite two in particular. The first, given by the superintendent, telling us not to cheat, and how cheaters cause nothing but hardship for others in life. Good message. Can't say I really enjoyed the speech, but it was still a good message. After his speech however, the school board president stood up and told us not to try and be perfect. She said that we should leave our "backpacks full of bricks" behind. Again, a good message--telling us to work hard, but not to the point where we exhaust ourselves.

I agree wholeheartedly.

However, there was one problem with her speech: it was plagiarized. The speech was plagiarized off of Newsweek columnist Anna Quindlen's speech at Mt. Holyoke College in Massachusetts in 1999. The board president adamantly denied stealing the speech, saying that it was only ideas that she had taken from the speech, not the words. Unfortunately, I looked up Ms. Quindlen's speech and found that the first two paragraphs of their speeches were exactly the same.

I cannot stress the gall of this woman to steal someone else's speech after the superintendent of the district just told the students not to plagiarize. Once again, we see that adults waste no time in breaking their own standards and acting like complete hypocrites.

In the last three weeks of school, I was part of a committee to create a punishment policy for those caught cheating or plagiarizing. We went through a number of ideas--suspension, detention, lowered grades, etc., but we never imagined that we would have to use this policy towards the head of the school board.

How can you, the adults of this world, expect us, the adults of tomorrow to be any better than you, when those with the most power seem to be the least-suited to have it?

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About the author: Jack Lepiarz is a student at Madison High School in Madison, New Jersey. He has written an unpublished novel, Spencer, which he hopes to publish soon.

Email: Jackwuzhere42@aol.com

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