Political Row
The apparent rejection of a well-qualified state-school pupil led to suspicions that Spence's exclusion was on the basis of social class and regional prejudice rather than pure academic suitability. A political row broke out after Labour MP and then Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown (who later became Prime Minister) commented on the decision at a Trades Union Congress reception. Brown accused Oxford of elitism, saying that Spence's rejection was an 'absolute scandal' and that he believed she had been discriminated against by 'an old establishment interview system'. Spence's headteacher, Dr Paul Kelley, also said he believed Oxford was 'missing out' and that he thought that Spence had been rejected because of her being from the north east of England. The University of Oxford rebutted all allegations of discrimination. Attention was drawn to the fact that Magdalen College had offered only five places to study medicine but had received twenty-two applicants, and that Oxford received a similar number of applications from state schools and private schools in the north east of England, and accepted a similar proportion from each. The admissions tutor at Magdalen, Andrew Hobson, also denied the claims, pointing out that he was from Newcastle. Dr Colin Lucas, Vice-Chancellor of Oxford, said that Brown's remarks were "disappointing", and an unnamed Conservative spokesman reportedly told the BBC: "This is ignorant prejudice. Why doesn't Gordon Brown get on with delivering at least some of the things Labour were elected on, rather than telling universities which candidates they should pick for which courses, when he can't possibly know the full facts."
In the ensuing debate, those who disagreed with the Chancellor advanced a range of arguments: some believed there was no discrimination; some felt Brown did not have his facts straight and therefore should not have offered a public opinion; and some believed that Oxford was correct in not offering Laura Spence a place. When the issue was raised at an Oxford edition of the BBC's political discussion show Question Time in October 2000, Professor Robert Winston said that Spence did not deserve a place, because "you have to be committed to the course, and Laura Spence clearly wasn't committed because she didn't even end up studying medicine." (Harvard, along with most other universities in the USA, does not offer medicine as an undergraduate degree: Spence later went on to study Medicine at Cambridge as a postgraduate).
Spence herself did not get involved in the arguments, subsequently saying that she tried to ignore the row by focusing on revision and not watching television for a week. In a House of Lords debate on Higher Education on 15 June 2000, Lord Jenkins of Hillhead, a Liberal Democrat peer and then Chancellor of Oxford University, criticised Brown for his comments on student admissions, saying that "nearly every fact he used was false", and that Brown's speech on Spence had been a "little Blitzkrieg in being an act of sudden unprovoked aggression", but "The target was singularly ill-chosen." Conservative peer Baroness Young stated that it was "an ultimate disgrace to use a young girl, a sixth former, in this way".
Read more about this topic: Laura Spence Affair
Famous quotes containing the words political and/or row:
“Every two years the American politics industry fills the airwaves with the most virulent, scurrilous, wall-to-wall character assassination of nearly every political practitioner in the country—and then declares itself puzzled that America has lost trust in its politicians.”
—Charles Krauthammer (b. 1950)
“When people ask me how I develop recipes, I have to respond: “travelling, eating, watching, experimenting, and constantly asking myself: ‘Do I want to eat this dish again?’” Will I yearn for it some evening when I’m hungry? Will I remember it in six months’ time? In a year? Five years from now?”
—Paula Wolfert, U.S. cookbook writer. Paula Wolfert’s World of Food, Introduction, Harper and Row (1988)