AITA for telling the judge of a scholarship competition that if she already knew who she wanted to win, to cut the crap and just let us all go home?

A Reddit user shared a story about speaking out during a high school scholarship competition when they noticed a judge showing obvious favoritism to one of the participants.

The user, frustrated by the judge’s behavior, called them out during their own presentation, accusing them of already deciding the winner and disrespecting the efforts of others.

This led to the user being sent to the principal’s office, receiving detention, and ultimately not giving their presentation. Read the full story below to see if the user’s actions were justified.

‘ AITA for telling the judge of a scholarship competition that if she already knew who she wanted to win, to cut the crap and just let us all go home?’

I’m in high school, we had a final presentation before winter break, and we had judges from the community come in to reward the best presentations. Like not actual court room judges, just people who were involved in stuff locally. The prize was some scholarship money for college.

Our classrooms judge was a mom who in the school board and when we were doing the presentations she was showing really obvious favoritism to her daughter’s best friend who i know is tight with that family. I know her presentation wasn’t even her own, it was plagarized a lot and not very good, I saw her doing it in the computer lab days earlier.

It was annoying how the “outside judge”kept going back to coo over this one presentation even after everyone had moved on and other people had presented. It was super awkward, like she was praising this one girl after a different kid had just presented?? Like maybe pay attention to the person who’s at the podium, not your little favorite??

It was my turn but I’d already seen her phoning it in when watching the last few, playing on her phone even! Not paying attention. I felt like it was pretty obvious she’d already decided who would would win. And that frustrated me, I’d worked really hard on mine and if her behavior is in the last few presentations was gonna continue, I knew she wouldn’t even be listening.

So I went up and said “Look, we all know you already know who you’re gonna give the prize to, we’ve all seen you play on your phone and ignore everyone who came after your daughters best friend, so can we just cut the crap and go home? I’m not gonna stand up here and give a presentation to someone who’s disrespecting our efforts and playing on their phone when anyone who’s not a friend of your family is talking.”

She sure paid attention then, and went to talk to my teacher in a whisper. My teacher sent me to the principal’s office. The girl I expected to win, won… No surprise there. But I felt good I’d at least said something. A bunch of my friends in class said I was totally right when I called out that BS, and we all knew it, I wasn’t saying anything we didn’t all see.

My principal kept telling me that it didn’t seem like I was taking my college apps seriously and I said that I didn’t think I’d be going to college, I got stuck with debt already and I’m gonna need a job right away this spring. Anyway I got detention AITA for saying what I did instead of doing my final presentation for the project?

Edit – I just found out that the girl who got the scholarship money decided to decline it and give it to the student who had the best grade in the class. I don’t know if it was because I called stuff out and she felt guilty, but I think it might be.

Here’s what people had to say to OP:

Thrwforksandknives −  NTA. This judge was not impartial and should not have been a judge in the first place. The fact that the school did not address that is an issue.

ravenousld3341 −  NTA. I’d see if there’s a dispute process. It’s obvious that this person should not have been judging this competition.

Typical_Viking −  Wtf is this country where we make children perform like show ponies to compete over meager sums of money to avoid generating crippling debt by continuing their education…

SupaStarrQT −  NTA. But it sounds like you could have told her your opinion and still given the presentation.

AllIsNew −  Hey, FYI, if she picked the person without giving good attention to the others and obviously picked who it was from personal favoritism… that’s taxable. That’s a gift. I’d go to the organization she’s from and report what happened and also let them know that if there wasn’t a proper look into why the judge wasn’t an impartial 3rd party then you’ll report the abuse for tax fraud.

How do I know this? My mom was on a community board that helped with scholarships. We agreed that I wouldn’t apply to those scholarships unless I was super qualified and that she stepped down from judging that year. And they gave fake names to everyone’s essays. I didn’t win. I got other scholarships so that’s ok.

My family is really involved with scholarships from the local Suburbia Women’s Society (aka old stay at home moms – they actually do really great social projects such as raising $100k to update the local park and bought instruments for the high school band). They also helped raise over $400k this year for the children’s hospital (but many groups were involved with that one, so not entirely from them). The entire group takes it very seriously is it looks like there’s impartiality.

Horror-mrs −  Nta you called out an unfair situation and you should take it further

[Reddit User] −  INFO was she the ONLY judge?

aaroncatguy37 −  NTA this is why you need several judges

S2sufc −  NTA- a judge should be completely neutral and respectful of everyone’s efforts, and she was neither. You were right to call her out and well done for doing so- everyone was thinking it, you were just brave enough to say it.

TriCerb −  NTA – You’re my hero.

Do you think the Redditor was justified in calling out the judge’s favoritism, or should they have kept quiet and finished their presentation? How would you have handled this situation? Share your thoughts below!