In my freshman Expos class today, my preceptor said that in his opinion, whoever KV's Expos preceptor was will be unlikely to scan her old essays for plagiarism, as she is in a world of pain already. However direct a hint this was, it is reflective of a sentiment on Harvard's campus (and shared by pretty much everyone I have spoken to) that there is no point in the ad board's beating a dead horse. The Crimson's op-ed was ridiculous to suggest that anything is beyond the ad board's purview, as it is their job to protect Harvard's reputation, and they are allowed to do whatever the heck they want (the ad board's regulations read like a treatise on fascist jurisprudence). However, what Harvard gains in academic credibility by prosecuting KV it loses double in appearing needlessly harsh to its student body, to future applicants, and to the general public by exacerbating a situtation for KV that everyone in the world knows is already pretty awful.
 

Can we separate the past from the present here? I'm in agreement that searching KV's past work for plagiarism is over the top; I think that the Bergen Record, for example, is wrong to do it. But I'm not sure that that argument applies to How Opal Mehta....