“I don’t want there to be any hatred towards her before she even comes in,” he said. “I think that’s just an unfair position to be put in.”

In a written statement, Hornstine said that being named a co-valedictorian would have “left unprotected the next disabled student.”

She wrote that the suit is “an act of necessity, aimed at saving others from apathy,” according to the Associated Press.

Hornstine could not be reached for comment last night.

D. Alexander Ewing ’03 called the petition to take back Hornstine’s acceptance to Harvard “a shame,” adding that it is particularly objectionable because Hornstine’s older brother Adam J. Hornstine ’03 is a senior in Pforzheimer House.

Adam Hornstine, who was the valedictorian at Moorestown High School as a senior there, also declined comment, noting he did so “out of respect for my family.” Hornstine will attend Harvard Law School next year, Ewing said.

Other Moorestown residents expressed skepticism with Hornstine’s discrimination claim.

“Nobody really knows what an ‘immune deficiency’ is,” said Ellison. “I guess she has a problem, but I still think you need to go to school to be valedictorian. And she’s saying that she’s tired all the time. But the student population is. We’re all tired because we’re working just as hard as she is.”

Hornstine’s lawyers last week defended their client’s case as a legitimate effort to protect the rights of disabled students.

Hornstine’s immune deficiency causes her to be chronically fatigued. She did most of her schoolwork at home with private tutors.

Jonah M. Knobler ’03, who began a lively discussion on the Winthrop House open e-mail list after forwarding a news story about Hornstine to the list, said he signed the petition to voice his “disapproval” of Hornstine’s lawsuit.

“Her actions are unbecoming of a Harvard student, and they make the rest of us look bad in association,” Knobler said. “Some of the comments on the petition have been, ‘This is typically what I expect of a Harvard student.’ It just fits in exactly with what we don’t want to look like in the media.”

According to Cyndy Wulfsberg, Moorestown’s school board president, the lawsuit poses a “real challenge” to Moorestown.

“It would be impossible for us to pay that kind of money and not have it affect the school district,” she said. “We’re trying to prepare for next year, and we’re preparing for legal issues instead.”

In what one online message-board poster sarcastically dubbed the “Blair Witch Project,” students of Moorestown High School and other web surfers have posted angry reactions to the case ranging from vulgar to violent to disgusted.