Should we condemn Jack Berghouse for being a good lawyer?

Should a parent defend a bad egg? A cheating bad egg?

Berghouse has intervened to keep his son, a sophomore at Sequoia High School in Redwood City, California, from being kicked out of the honors program for copying his homework assignment from the work of another student. He doesn’t dispute that his son cheated—-his son admits it, and was caught red-handed. Dad is suing the school because he says its policies are conflicting, and thus his son was deprived of due process. He may be right about that. He is also doing it because, as a father concerned about his son’s future, he worries that the blemish on his record will affect his ability to get into an Ivy League college. He’s probably right about that, too.

But is it right—that is to say, responsible and ethical— for parents to use lawyers and the court system to intimidate schools into whitewashing a student’s records? The vast majority say no, which is doubtlessly the reason why Berghouse reports that he is getting hate mail. Continue reading →