A student at Oxford University quit her Politics, Philosophy and Economics degree after administrators at the elite British university dismissed her pleas for special treatment at exam time on account of her purported disabilities.
Sophie Spector, who is 22 and claims she has Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, made a series of demands for accommodations to the college administrators. In a spectacular display of black knighting that will bring an amber glow to the heart of anyone who gets off on that sort of thing (and don’t we all?), Douglas Dupree, chaplain and dean of Balliol College, gave short shrift to Spector’s special pleadings. He mused in an e-mail to a University doctor, “Yes, why did we admit her?”
Dupree then went on to request that the problem student be referred to a doctor “who can be straight and firm with histrionics and panic.”
And what exactly did she demand of this ancient institution, which has honed the intellects of three former British Prime Ministers and the economist Adam Smith?
The key thing I wanted was extended time for essays because I am a really slow reader.
Sounds sweeter than the taste of tears.
A candidate for one of the toughest degrees at Oxford, one of the toughest universities in the Western world, is a “really slow reader.” It is equally nonsensical as, say, a quadriplegic expecting special arrangements so he can fulfill his dream of being a cage fighter.
Bailliol College did, however, make accommodations, as Spector relates:
I was given more exams with higher pass marks than everyone else. I had to get 55 to pass while my friend was allowed to continue with a pass mark in the 40s. I asked for extended deadlines for course work.
Spector says her request for extended deadlines was dismissed and that she “started to struggle and fall behind.” She reveals how she was again vehemently black-knighted by a (female) course tutor, who told her to just get on with it:
She suggested my disability was in my head and due to the Facebook and social media culture.
Frothing at the mouth at the university basically telling her to grow up, Spector rage-quit her course and lashed out at the College, calling their treatment of her “callous.” She then went to seek out the nearest firm of grievance-mongering human rights lawyers to launch a legal case against the university.
Playing the victim card is the sole preserve of the mediocre
In her media attack on the hallowed institution, Spector haughtily opined that “Oxford needs to be dragged into the 21st century, but it is doing it kicking and screaming.”
But does it? Oxford University is 752 years old, and has consistently hammered into competence the most brilliant of minds from across the spectrum of human endeavour. It suffices to say that forty-seven Nobel Laureates are amongst its alumni.
An alternative view might be that it is Sophie Spector who needs to be dragged kicking and screaming up to the standards of this elite institution, irrespective of how outdated she thinks its values are.
Mastery is blind to fashionable modern concepts such as the legal notion of discrimination, and concocted medical conditions like ADHD and OCD, both of which help all manner of mental subnormals to circumvent its rigours.
The proof of mastery is in the pudding. A truly exceptional work of the human mind stands apart from the author, from the process of production. No artist or scientist, other than the millennial saps masquerading under these titles in our modern time, has ever expected the world to accept their work at a lesser standard on the grounds that the author themselves were subject to some handicap.
An example to cosseted chancers like Sophie Spector, is Dawn Faizey-Websterm. Faizey-Webster suffers from “locked-in syndrome” a condition which leaves the sufferer aware but unable to move or communicate verbally due to paralysis of all voluntary muscles in the body except the eyes. In spite of this, she earned a degree in Ancient History from the Open University, using a computer that translates her eye movements into text. At the rate of 50 words per hour.
Can you compare that to Specter, the self-reported “really slow reader,” and not spill your coffee?
Millennials need made-up diseases to explain their inadequacies
On his death bed, psychiatrist and autism pioneer Leon Eisenberg admitted that ADHD is essentially a “fictitious disease.” Dr. Edward C. Hamlyn, a founding member of the Royal College of General Practitioners, said “ADHD is fraud intended to justify starting children on a life of drug addiction.” Leading psychiatrists have likened ADHD more to a social construct than a real disorder.
ADHD is said to be a scam because there are no laboratory or radiological tests or specific physical features attributed to the “disease.” There is also no known cure, so conveniently for the profit-making pharmaceutical industry, long-term therapies are required.
The smoking gun of ADHD’s bogusness is perhaps the differing rates of diagnosis and treatment across countries. French child psychiatrists view ADHD as having psycho-social and situational causes. Instead of of prescribing drugs, French doctors look for the underlying issue that is causing the child distress in the child’s social context rather than the child’s mind.
They then treat the problem with “talking cures” like psychotherapy or family counseling. American doctors on the other hand, tend to attribute all symptoms to a biological dysfunction such as a chemical imbalance in the child’s brain, and then prescribe psycho-stimulant medications such as Ritalin and Adderall.
Could it be that French doctors have come to the conclusion that so-called ADHD, in children at least, is simply a natural reaction to environmental factors like diet, schooling and family relations, which are best managed with practical changes rather than drugs? Could it be that Sophie Spector is an attention-seeking spoilt millennial brat who has found herself in the middle of a pitilessly rigorous institution of learning that simply refuses to put up with her tantrums?
Making a spectacle of one’s own victimhood is now a serious career choice
Sophie Spector is a victimhood huckster in a similar mold to Emma Sulkowicz, the eponymous Mattress Girl of late rape culture hysteria. Both are students who wallow in the abject mediocrity of their academic endeavours. Spector purports to study PPE at Oxford, whilst being unable to keep up with the pace of study. Sulkowicz, rape hoax aside, pretends to be an artist while producing only a cheap and gaudy stunt, the carrying around of a foam mattress, whatever the significance of it may be.
Both of them also streetwise opportunists, hip to an opening for a bit of cheap publicity off which to launch some sort of public profile as a martyr. Spector will no doubt go on to be a prominent (and well paid) campaigner for “disabled rights,” huckstering for extra government cash and more discrimination law to assist every self-acclaimed sufferer of one of the ever-growing compendium of made-up psychiatric diseases.
Sulkowicz is already playing the publicity game like a fiddle, having attended Obama’s State of the Union address at the invitation of Democratic senator Kirsten Gillibrand. She also recently released a film “reenactment” (read: low-budget porn movie) of her imagined rape.
To characters like Spector and Sulkowicz, the world, and the university campus in particular, is a virgin canvas to be defiled with the gaudy smears of one’s own embellished grievances. Little is thought nowadays of modesty, restraint and the idea of a reputation as something to be conceived of, much less preserved.
Mediocrity and faux-victimhood are now seen as a cause for celebration. In academic instituions, which are responsible for shaping the minds of tomorrow, this nonsense should not be tolerated even one bit. It is cause for celebration that in the case of Sophie Spector, the administrators of Oxford University have told the grown up cry-baby where to go with her insane demands for accommodation.
It’s not the end of social justice warrioring on campus, but it’s a start.
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