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But other students are affected, namely next year's (and later) students, and especially those who are not so good at strategy. You must consider them too to ev

• bonesss 9y ago
  And missing from all the analysis I've seen so far: some nations have baked "equality" into their approach to legal decisions. The trading policy was deemed discriminatory, enhancing some students at the "expense" of others. "At the expense of" means "so as to cause harm to or neglect of". The other students were not directly denied something, and did not lose their spots in school. What they would have lost, had the swapping been permitted, is an equal and fair treatment by their government and laws while being placed in school. As swapping allows some "haves", thereby also creating "have nots", the government deemed that to be enhancing some "at the expense of" others who were denied equal opportunity and treatment under the law. They lost fairness, equality, and "freedom" (in American parlance). I mean... "Whites only bathrooms come at the expense of civil liberties." is not a controversial assertion. The judge ruled that everyone not being equal causes harm/neglect. ESL author Ronald de Haan was using the word and phrase correctly, I think it is being misapplied in most of this discussion by a degree of pedantic over-parsing.