Valedictorian Dispute Caused by GPA Weighting
The Claim
Two Black students were named valedictorians, prompting racist calls for a recount.
News posted on
Emerging story
On June 11, 2021, the New York Times published an article titled “Two Black Students Won School Honors. Then Came the Calls for a Recount,” which details a controversial academic dispute in Mississippi. Some social media users were outraged.
Misbar’s Analysis
While this article’s title makes it seem like a community was outraged because two Black students topped the academic ladder, the actual incident is much more nuanced.
For context, in the American school system, not all classes are graded equally. Some advanced classes count higher towards GPA than others. Since these are top-tier students, they are taking these classes, leading to a more complicated GPA than most students. People who have taken AP classes have “weighted GPAs,” while those who did not have “unweighted GPAs.”
As the article says, two families were confused when their children – who had higher GPAs than the valedictorians – didn’t win. The school’s handbook says that whoever has the highest unweighted GPA is given the honors. However, the valedictorians had a higher weighted GPA. This prompted a dispute among the school, so the school decided to add two new honors instead of taking them away from the valedictorians.
