At Stanford, four out of ten students claim to be disabled.
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Last week, the Stanford junior Elsa Johnson revealed in The Times that many of her fellow students were claiming they were disabled to receive accommodations like extra time on tests, excused absences and the best housing on campus. Johnson admitted that she had used her own endometriosis diagnosis to secure housing and academic perks.
“The truth is, the system is there to be gamed,” she wrote, “and most students feel that if you are not gaming it, you are putting yourself at a disadvantage.”
The result? We are gradually teaching young people corruption under the guise of compassion.
Just look at the numbers. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 18 per cent of male and 22 per cent of female college undergraduates report having a disability. Among non-binary students the figure jumps to 54 per cent. The figures are especially striking at elite universities.
Writing in The Atlantic, Rose Horowitch reported that more than 20 per cent of undergrads at Brown University and Harvard University were registered as disabled. At Amherst College the figure exceeded 30 per cent. At Stanford it approached 40 per cent. The rise is sharpest at the most selective schools, with only 3 to 4 per cent of students receiving accommodations at community colleges.
In her piece, Johnson argued that anyone who did not cheat was putting themselves at a disadvantage. “Stanford has made gaming the system the logical choice,” she wrote. “The students are not exactly cheating and if they are, can you blame them?” Yes, you can.
Something has shifted about American attitudes towards rules, especially among members of Gen Z. A 2020 survey from the American Enterprise Institute found that relative to older adults, young people are less likely to agree with the statement: “It is more important to always follow the rules even if it means you may be less successful.” At the same time, young people are more likely to say it is acceptable to get ahead even if it requires bending or breaking the rules. The trend points towards a lower-trust society, where rules are seen less as shared guardrails and more as inconvenient obstacles to work around.
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