ABC News22%

License revoked for boarding school where Paris Hilton says she was abused as teen 48%

By The Associated Press63%

7/18/2026, 12:11:53 AM

BS Summary: This article contains 22 faulty reasoning types, including Framing Effect, Hasty Generalization, and Confirmation Bias, with Appeal to Emotion as the most egregious example at 31.8% saturation with 156 hits. Analysis detected 1,025 faulty-reasoning hits from 490 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 49.1% and a BS Rank of 48% (11,458 of 21,887 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 52.30% of the article peer group.

SALT LAKE CITY -- Utah revoked another license for the boarding school where Paris Hilton said she was abused as a teenager, the state announced Friday, marking a major victory in the hotel heiress' yearslong fight for reforms in what is commonly known as the troubled teen industry. 
The Utah Department of Health and Human Services' decision cites a multitude of noncompliance citations in 2026 for the Provo Canyon School’s Provo campus, including not protecting “a client from potential harm or acts of violence,” and “using cruel and unnecessary practice on a child." 
More than a dozen of the citations were noted on Friday. 
“No child should be hurt in a program that is meant to protect them; particularly programs that require the authorization of the state to operate,” Shannon Thoman-Black, director of the division of licensing and background checks at the health and human services department, said in a statement. 
Earlier this month, the state revoked the license for the Provo Canyon School’s other campus in Utah, saying the school has “failed to provide applicable health and safety services for clients.” 
The school, which is described on its website as a psychiatric residential treatment facility for youth ages 12 to 18, has until Aug. 15 to stop providing services at its Provo campus. 
In the interim, Utah officials will be monitoring the facility at least once a week, according to the state's Department of Health and Human Services. 
Paris Hilton, the media personality who spent almost a year at the school in the late 1990s, said the announcement means she finally feels a sense of “peace.” 
“This horrific chapter of abuse, neglect, and trauma has finally come to an end,” she said in a statement. 
The school has 15 days to request a hearing before the department. 
Staci Bradley, the school’s director of business development, said in a statement that they do not agree with the state’s decision and “are carefully reviewing all available legal and administrative avenues, including the appeals process.” 
Hilton alleges that school staff members beat her, watched her shower, fed her unknown pills and locked her in solitary confinement without clothing. 
“Today means no child will ever have to endure what we did at Provo Canyon School again,” she said. 
She has testified about her experiences there in Congress and state legislatures around the U.S., helping pass laws to protect teens in Utah and 15 other states. 
Utah has long played an outsized role in the troubled teen industry, a network of private, for-profit residential centers for children with behavioral issues. 
In June, Hilton returned to the Provo Canyon School to support two families who filed lawsuits alleging that their children were mistreated at the school. 
The school is under new ownership, and the administration has said it can’t comment on anything that came before the change, including Hilton’s time there. 
Article reasoning-pattern comparisonThis article: 16.1%The Associated Press: 2.8%ABC News: 2.2%Confirmation Bias16.1%This article: 0.0%The Associated Press: 1.4%ABC News: 0.7%Anchoring Bias0.0%This article: 6.9%The Associated Press: 3.2%ABC News: 3.0%Availability Heuristic6.9%This article: 4.9%The Associated Press: 0.9%ABC News: 0.9%Representativeness Heuristic4.9%This article: 0.0%The Associated Press: 0.6%ABC News: 0.5%Hindsight Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%The Associated Press: 1.8%ABC News: 1.1%Overconfidence Bias0.0%This article: 19.2%The Associated Press: 11.1%ABC News: 6.8%Framing Effect19.2%This article: 0.0%The Associated Press: 0.6%ABC News: 0.3%Loss Aversion0.0%This article: 5.1%The Associated Press: 0.7%ABC News: 0.4%Status Quo Bias5.1%This article: 0.0%The Associated Press: 0.1%ABC News: 0.1%Sunk Cost Effect0.0%This article: 3.9%The Associated Press: 3.1%ABC News: 2.4%Optimism Bias3.9%This article: 0.0%The Associated Press: 1.7%ABC News: 1.0%Pessimism Bias0.0%This article: 13.5%The Associated Press: 11.0%ABC News: 7.7%Negativity Bias13.5%This article: 7.1%The Associated Press: 2.2%ABC News: 1.5%Self-Serving Bias7.1%This article: 0.0%The Associated Press: 1.2%ABC News: 0.7%Fundamental Attribution Error0.0%This article: 0.0%The Associated Press: 0.2%ABC News: 0.1%Actor-Observer Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%The Associated Press: 2.2%ABC News: 0.8%In-Group Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%The Associated Press: 1.0%ABC News: 0.4%Out-Group Homogeneity Bias0.0%This article: 5.5%The Associated Press: 1.9%ABC News: 2.2%Halo Effect5.5%This article: 0.0%The Associated Press: 0.1%ABC News: 0.1%Horn Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%The Associated Press: 0.0%ABC News: 0.0%Dunning-Kruger Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%The Associated Press: 2.0%ABC News: 1.3%Recency Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%The Associated Press: 0.4%ABC News: 0.4%Primacy Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%The Associated Press: 0.1%ABC News: 0.1%Blind-Spot Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%The Associated Press: 0.9%ABC News: 0.5%Ad Hominem0.0%This article: 0.0%The Associated Press: 0.2%ABC News: 0.1%Straw Man0.0%This article: 5.5%The Associated Press: 3.8%ABC News: 3.3%Appeal to Authority5.5%This article: 3.9%The Associated Press: 1.2%ABC News: 0.9%False Dilemma3.9%This article: 3.9%The Associated Press: 0.8%ABC News: 0.3%Slippery Slope3.9%This article: 0.0%The Associated Press: 0.1%ABC News: 0.1%Circular Reasoning0.0%This article: 16.9%The Associated Press: 3.0%ABC News: 2.8%Hasty Generalization16.9%This article: 0.0%The Associated Press: 0.3%ABC News: 0.4%Red Herring0.0%This article: 5.1%The Associated Press: 0.5%ABC News: 0.4%Bandwagon5.1%This article: 31.8%The Associated Press: 5.6%ABC News: 4.3%Appeal to Emotion31.8%This article: 3.9%The Associated Press: 0.8%ABC News: 0.7%Begging the Question3.9%This article: 0.0%The Associated Press: 2.8%ABC News: 2.1%Post Hoc (False Cause)0.0%This article: 0.0%The Associated Press: 0.1%ABC News: 0.0%Tu Quoque0.0%This article: 0.0%The Associated Press: 0.5%ABC News: 0.4%Burden of Proof0.0%This article: 0.0%The Associated Press: 0.1%ABC News: 0.1%Appeal to Nature0.0%This article: 0.0%The Associated Press: 0.1%ABC News: 0.2%Composition/Division0.0%This article: 13.7%The Associated Press: 1.3%ABC News: 1.2%Anecdotal13.7%This article: 0.0%The Associated Press: 0.0%ABC News: 0.1%No True Scotsman0.0%This article: 9.6%The Associated Press: 1.7%ABC News: 1.8%Ambiguity (Equivocation)9.6%This article: 0.0%The Associated Press: 0.0%ABC News: 0.0%Gambler’s Fallacy0.0%This article: 0.0%The Associated Press: 0.1%ABC News: 0.0%Middle Ground0.0%This article: 0.0%The Associated Press: 0.1%ABC News: 0.0%Personal Incredulity0.0%This article: 5.1%The Associated Press: 0.2%ABC News: 0.2%Special Pleading5.1%This article: 0.0%The Associated Press: 0.2%ABC News: 0.1%Genetic Fallacy0.0%This article: 0.0%The Associated Press: 1.8%ABC News: 1.9%Unattributed Quote0.0%This article: 2.9%The Associated Press: 1.2%ABC News: 1.0%Quote-first Misdirection2.9%This article: 15.5%The Associated Press: 3.9%ABC News: 3.1%Biased Writer Voice15.5%This article: 9.2%The Associated Press: 0.7%ABC News: 0.6%Indoctrination9.2%This article: 0.0%The Associated Press: 0.8%ABC News: 0.7%Politically Left Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%The Associated Press: 0.3%ABC News: 0.2%Politically Right Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%The Associated Press: 0.4%ABC News: 1.0%Attempt to Sell a Product or S…0.0%

490 words analyzed.

Speakers

5speakers56%attributed speech218writer words
Voice mapSelect a segment to jump to its words
Writer's voice • 14 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 48 words • 100.0% coverageUtah Department of Health and Human Services • 45 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 11 words • 0.0% coverageShannon Thoman-Black • 47 words • 0.0% coverageUtah • 31 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 32 words • 0.0% coverageUtah Department of Health and Human Services • 25 words • 0.0% coverageParis Hilton • 28 words • 100.0% coverageParis Hilton • 19 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 12 words • 0.0% coverageStaci Bradley • 35 words • 0.0% coverageParis Hilton • 23 words • 0.0% coverageParis Hilton • 19 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 27 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 24 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 25 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 25 words • 0.0% coverage
Selected voice

Shannon Thoman-Black

100%flagged-word coverage
47 attributed words17% of attributed speech94% writer coverage
0%12.5%25.0%Biased Writer Voice-22.0 ptsWriter: 22.0%Shannon Thoman-Black: 0.0%0.0%Quote-first Misdirection-6.4 ptsWriter: 6.4%Shannon Thoman-Black: 0.0%0.0%

Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.

Loading…
Loading…
Loading…

Analysis

Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.