Her highschool stated she ranked third in her class, so she went to courtroom

Written by Rick Rojas
Dalee Sullivan regarded straight forward into her pc’s digital camera and began making her case to the decide. She referred to transcripts, emails and insurance policies she had pulled from the coed handbook at Alpine High School. The college, she contended, had made errors in tabulating grade-point averages: Classes and exams that ought to have been included have been not noted, and vice versa.
Sullivan had gained Lincoln-Douglas debate tournaments and, in her freshman 12 months, was a member of the mock trial crew. But she will not be a lawyer. She is eighteen, and she or he graduated from the lone public highschool within the small West Texas city of Alpine only a week in the past, which was the explanation she was in courtroom to start with.
“This serves to prove that no matter the outcome of the GPA contest, and no matter how many times we had the school recalculate the GPA,” Sullivan instructed the decide throughout a listening to on Friday, the Alpine Independent School District “was going to make certain I could never be valedictorian, even if I earned it.”

School officers stated she ranked third in her class. Sullivan disagreed.
She couldn’t discover a native lawyer who would comply with tackle her case. A agency in Dallas instructed her it could, she stated, however estimated the case might price her $75,000 — way over she might afford. Instead, she discovered tips on how to write a request for an injunction and represented herself within the 394th District Court of Texas.
She believed that her GPA might, in reality, have been larger than one or each of the scholars forward of her, making her worthy of the title salutatorian and even valedictorian. She and her mother and father had protested her rank for the previous month, and she or he claimed that the varsity deliberately didn’t invite her to an awards occasion the place prime college students have been honored.
The college district has stated that it calculated her grades repeatedly, and that every time Sullivan nonetheless ranked third.
In a press release on Friday, college officers declined to debate the allegations raised by Sullivan, saying the district was “not at liberty to discuss the individual student.”
“Although we respectfully disagree with the allegations in the lawsuit,” the assertion stated, “we take student and parent concerns very seriously and will continue to address the student’s concerns.”
It will not be completely unheard-of for disputes over prime spots in highschool graduating courses to escalate to litigation. The competitors over such accolades might be an intense, even ruthless, zero-sum recreation. And within the combat to be valedictorian, there may be extra at stake than simply bragging rights. In Texas, the highest-ranking highschool graduates can obtain free tuition for his or her first 12 months at in-state public establishments.
Sullivan and her mother and father have been impressed by a case final 12 months in Pecos, Texas, about 100 miles from Alpine, the place two college students claimed to be valedictorian amid confusion over a “glitch” within the college’s tabulations. One of the scholars — with skilled authorized illustration — filed for a restraining order and sought an injunction to dam Pecos High School from naming its valedictorian.
After Sullivan couldn’t get a lawyer, her mother and father have been disenchanted however keen to drop the matter. But she refused. She received recommendation and data from the household within the case in Pecos, utilizing the petition in that case as a information to start out writing her personal. Her mother and father — her father, a rancher; her mom, a forensic interviewer — learn it over and helped her tidy up the language.
“We aren’t even close to being lawyers,” Sullivan stated.
In Alpine, a city of roughly 6,000 folks in Texas’ Big Bend Country, some who know Sullivan stated they have been shocked she would take this on. There are different methods to spend one’s final summer time earlier than faculty. (She plans to attend the College of Charleston in South Carolina and main in biophysics with the intention of going into drugs.) But she had all the time been critical about college and a bit steely in her resolve.
“She’s already going to college, she already has scholarships,” stated Teresa Todd, a neighborhood authorities lawyer who’s a longtime pal of Sullivan’s mom and whose sons are shut in age to Sullivan. “She worked really hard for this, and I think all kids deserve to know where they fall in the pecking order.”
“Kids have to show their work,” Todd added. “Why doesn’t the school have to show their work?”
She stated she supplied some recommendation to Sullivan forward of her listening to: “Be herself. Be respectful. Don’t let the other side get you off your game.”

Sullivan conceded some nervousness earlier than the listening to, particularly after filings from the varsity district’s attorneys cited a slew of authorized precedents and have been peppered with terminology she didn’t know.
But general, she was assured. “I have all the evidence,” she stated. “I have all the facts. And no one knows it as well as I know it.”
All types of instances land within the 394th District Court, whose jurisdiction covers 5 counties roughly equal in dimension to the nation’s 9 smallest states mixed. The courtroom hears prison instances, divorce proceedings, and now a combat over highschool grading.
Judge Roy B. Ferguson has a fame for taking the judicial medley in stride.
His courtroom had a flash of viral fame in February when a video clip of a lawyer trapped behind a filter that made him seem like a fuzzy white kitten in a Zoom listening to boomeranged across the web. (“I’m not a cat,” the lawyer stated.)
Ferguson discovered the humor in it. He added a reference to the unlikely episode to the courtroom’s web site and accepted an invite to debate it at a symposium on distant judicial hearings in Poland. In a current prison continuing, when a lawyer apologized for audio issues, Ferguson replied, “You’re not a cat, so you’re one step ahead!”
With Sullivan, he was affected person and defined process in a means he wouldn’t must with an expert. When she requested a query that was too broad, he inspired her to slender the scope. (He typically presides over highschool mock trials, amongst them, the State of Texas v. Luke Skywalker.)
Kelley Kalchthaler, a lawyer representing the varsity district, argued that Sullivan had not exhausted the district’s grievance course of. “We don’t think the court has jurisdiction over this case,” she stated, “and all parties should be dismissed.”
She additionally raised objections to a lot of the proof Sullivan wished to incorporate, contending that it was rumour or questioning the relevance to the case. In a number of situations, Ferguson agreed.
“All right, Ms. Sullivan, are you ready to present evidence in support of your request?” Ferguson stated. “You bear the burden here for this temporary injunction.”
Sullivan laid out her case.
“It’s not an accurate reflection of my high school career,” she stated of her remaining transcript, “so it’s already done irreparable damage.”
She wished an unbiased audit of honor graduates’ grades. She didn’t get that on Friday. Ferguson dominated that the dispute wanted to undergo the varsity district’s grievance course of. Still, the case was not closed. If she was not happy with the result, the decide instructed her, she might come again to courtroom.