Laura Spence Affair

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The Laura Spence Affair was a major British political row in 2000, caused by the failure of a high-flying state school pupil to secure a place at Oxford University. Comments by Labour MP and Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown triggered a fierce political debate about perceptions of elitism and the question of how accessible the UK's top universities are to pupils educated at state schools.

1 Background
2 Political row
3 After the row
4 References

[edit] Background

Laura Spence was a pupil at Monkseaton Community High School, a state school in Whitley Bay, North Tyneside. In 1999, she was the only pupil out of 100 in her sixth-form class to apply to for a university place at Oxbridge. She was one of 22 students to apply for 5 places to read medicine at Magdalen College at Oxford University, all with 10 GCSEs at grade A* and high predicted A-level grades.^[1] Spence had also been predicted five straight A grades at A level (in Geography, English, Biology, Chemistry and General Studies), which she indeed subsequently achieved.^[2] She was nevertheless turned down after interview because academics there believed that she "did not show potential".^[3]

Spence was subsqeuently one of ten British students to be offered a £65,000 scholarship by Harvard University in the U.S. to study biochemistry.^[3]

[edit] Political row

The political row broke out when Labour MP and Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown commented on the decision at a TUC reception. Brown accused Oxford University of elitism, saying it was an "absolute scandal" and that he believed Spence had been discriminated against by an "an old establishment interview system". Dr Colin Lucas, vice-chancellor of Oxford University, said that Browns remarks were "disappointing", and Conservative spokeman condemned Brown's comments as "ignorant prejudice", and that "he can't possibly know the full facts."^[4]

Her headteacher, Dr Paul Kelley, also said he believed Oxford was "missing out" and that he thought that Spence had been discriminated against because of where she lives, in the north east of England; Oxford denied that allegation, pointing out it 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.^[3] The admissions tutor at Magdalen, Andrew Hobson, also denied the claim, pointing out that he was from Newcastle.^[5] Spence herself did not get involved in the arguments, subsequently saying that she tried to ignore the row by focussing on revision and not watching television for a week.^[6]

These assertions triggered a debate between those who agreed with the Chancellor, and those who believed that he was wrong. His detractors fell into different camps — including those who disagreed fundamentally that discrimination took place; those who did not believe he had his facts right and therefore should not have spoken; and those who believed Laura Spence should never have been offered a place at Oxford in the first place, leading to some unprovoked personal attacks. For example, when the issue was raised on an Oxford-based 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", since the degree she had accepted at Harvard was in biochemistry. ^[7] However Spence was never personally involved in the original row, and so these assertions were made when she had not discussed her future career intentions in public.

In a House of Lords debate on Higher Education on the 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 said Brown's speech about 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 joined the attack, saying that it was "an ultimate disgrace to use a young girl, a sixth former in this way".^[8]

[edit] After the row

The Laura Spence Affair recurred in the headlines in the UK throughout the summer of 2000 (both before ^[9] and after Brown's speech), and is arguably one of the major events that pushed widening participation in Higher Education closer to the top of political hot topics in the opening years of the decade. It caused bitter political arguments, including a party political row over a select committee report on higher education.^[10]

In 2001, Laura Spence was quoted as saying that she believed that Oxford had been right to reject her admission on the basis of her interview, saying that she "was a bit upset when I came out of the interview because I knew I hadn't done as well as I thought I could have."^[6] and that she was not "a perfect example of what [Gordon Brown] was trying to point out because I don't feel that being from the North or a comprehensive mattered in my case.^[6]

Oxford University consistently denied any elitism or malpractice in its admissions system.

Spence completed her studies at Harvard in 2004, and planned to return to the UK to pursue a medical career. She also encouraged more British students to study in the U.S., citing the "broader, more balanced curriculum" of a liberal arts education and the availability of scholarships to assist with fees that may seem "astronomically prohibitive".^[11] It was later reported that she was studying medicine in Cambridge University.^[12]