Today's Washington Post includes a profile of Kiwi Camara, an aspiring law professor who enrolled in Harvard Law School at age 16. Now 22, Camara recently withdrew his application to teach at George Mason University following the revelation that he used a racist phrase in a law school paper...

During Camara's first year at Harvard Law School in 2002, he fueled a controversy when he wrote racist remarks in a voluminous summary of a 1948 Supreme Court decision that barred restrictive covenants based on race. He then posted the writing on a Web site designed to help other law students.

In the five years since he wrote the racist phrase, it has surfaced from campus to campus, job interview to job interview -- a predicament that raises a broader question perfectly fit for these Google times: What's the appropriate standard for judging a teenager years later?

A tough question, particularly in light of the fact that Camara was already enrolled in an Ivy League law school at the time. Should he be held to a higher standard than other 16 year olds? Or should all 16 year olds be held equally accountable several years down the road. Tough call.

[Washington Post] Racist Writing as a Teen Haunted GMU Candidate