Apparently, the admissions board at Imperial College, London did their bit to fight crime and uphold the public's trust in the medical profession, when they withdrew 18 year old applicant Majid Ahmed's offer of a place to study medicine, after he admitted to a spent criminal conviction from three years previously.
I must write to them and say thanks. Possibly a fruit basket? Or muffins? No, fruit because muffins, a doctor would tell me, aren't part of one's five a day.
Sorry, back to the point before I descend into hair-pulling and calling the members of said admissions board 'smellyheads' and other juvenile phrases.
The title of this piece asks: what has Mr Ahmed got in common with British national treasure, Stephen Fry? The answer is, they both had criminal convictions before applying to university. In
Mr Fry's case, it was credit card fraud. After serving a three month prison sentence, Fry was allowed to return to school and subsequently went onto gain a place at Cambridge University. The rest, of course, is British comedy history.
Is it an overreaction to compare this young man's current plight with Stephen Fry? One could argue that they are both isolated cases and that, if you looked longer, there are plenty more examples of people being turned away from jobs, university, positions of responsibility due to their criminal past. It is just a fact of life. This may be true. However, I pick out Stephen Fry, paradoxically, because he is a celebrity and because, it is possible that he would not be where he is today if Cambridge University had turned him away.
Nor am I saying that young Mr Ahmed is necessarily going to turn out to be the man who singlehandedly cures cancer. However, given that he has, in his own words, worked with disabilities charities and helped raise £11,000 to help poor children attend a summer camp in Wales and taking into account the good references from charity workers and doctors he has worked with, why not give him the chance?
The counter-arguments I have heard include : the fact that he is entering into a heavily oversubscribed profession, that he should have mentioned his conviction on his original UCAS form and that, ultimately places should go to other students who haven't commited a criminal offence. The author of a post on the Telegraph website says that if a doctor committed burglary, he would be struck off. Yes he would. If a doctor also happened to find himself in the position where he was systematically killing his patients, he would likewise be struck off...and Harold Shipman seemed like such a nice chap in the beginning.
The point here is that he's not a doctor yet and Imperial College, in taking the moral high ground and upholding what they see as the public trust in 'the integrity and probity' of doctors everywhere (quote from BBC news website), seemed to have missed the point that your average criminal mastermind doesn't usually confess to a criminal background. Mr Ahmed was later advised to write a letter confessing to his conviction. I remember my own UCAS application to university all too well and, at the time, there are plenty of teachers, parents and handbooks telling you what to write and what not to write in an application. This was a boy of 18 who probably got lots of contrasting advice. Imagine how much younger he was when he committed that burglary. People make mistakes but, especially at university, they change. I like to think for the better. Yes, he committed a criminal offence, but in a world where much worse is done on the streets of the UK every day, a young man who has tried his best to come back from a four month community service referral deserves a chance to reform.
Oh, and I thought of another example to conclude. Leslie Grantham, a.k.a. Dirty Den from Eastenders, got the part in 1985 in spite of a sixteen year prison sentence for murder. And the Beeb didn't let him go until nineteen years later when he was caught exposing himself on a webcam.
Next Week on 'Where Are The World's Priorities?'
....
Sunday 6 July 2008
Thursday 3 July 2008
America's love affair with the Second Amendment.
A new chapter in the debate over the United States' Second Amendment - the right to bear arms - unfolded last Thursday. A ruling by the US Supreme Court was passed by a majority of 5-4, that 'enshrines for the first tme the individual right to own guns and limits efforts to reduce their role in American life' (BBC's Justin Webb).
To elaborate, the Supreme Court was ruling that a ban on handguns in the district of Washington D.C. was unconstitutional. A single security guard working in the capital, Dick Heller, was the main catalyst for this decision. He argued that of he was allowed to carry a gun at work, it made sense that he should be allowed to use it in his home life as well. Unfortunately his viewpoint conflicted with a thirty two year old ruling by the Supreme Court, which prohibited the private use of handguns in the US capital. That is, until it was overturned by the present day Court in Thursday's landmark ruling.
Within the context of Mr Heller's case, the ruling makes a kind of sense. One could imagine that Mr Heller is a law-abiding citizen who is good at his job and resents being treated like a criminal the second he takes a gun, which he is trained to use in the defence of himself and his colleagues, off his work premises. So far, so rational.
Where this gets more worrying is in it's ramifications for how the American public chooses to define the Second Amendment.
Republican Presidential hopeful John McCain said that the ruling proved that 'gun ownership was a fundamental right - sacred, just as free speech or amnesty.' Further, Justice Antonin Scalia gave the Court majority opinion when he said that said that the Constitution did not allow “the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defence in the home”(The Times website).
While being only two examples, they do point to a certain reading of the Second Amendment, which says that the right to bear arms in self- defense is as relevant now as it was in 1791.
I am left wondering, has no one considered how the ambiguity of the language in this Amendment leaves it open to numerous interpretations? Even a comma in a different place can slightly change the meaning of the phrase - "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."
The amendment works in lofty, ideological terms with it's concern of the 'security of a free state". And where exactly does the 'well regulated militia' fit into modern day DC life? Are Al Quaeda not a well-regulated militia, to use a darker, contemporary example. The pro-gun elements in this debate have latched onto the latter part of the sentence, which simply says the right to keep and bear arms. But are we talking sleeping with a musket under your pillow or keeping a prized and various collection of guns in your shed?
The right to defend yourself and the right to possess a gun is a line which can become all too blurred. Look at Tony Martin in this country. Would he have courted media attention, let alone a life sentence in prison, if he had clubbed his intruders with a baseball bat that simply knocked them unconscious. Instead he chose to 'defend himself' with a shotgun.
Give the average American citizen a gun and the question shifts from 'Is the burglar going to kill me before he robs my house?' to 'Can I shoot him before he shoots me?'
Both are a bit too ambiguous for my liking. Rather like the American Second Amendment.
To elaborate, the Supreme Court was ruling that a ban on handguns in the district of Washington D.C. was unconstitutional. A single security guard working in the capital, Dick Heller, was the main catalyst for this decision. He argued that of he was allowed to carry a gun at work, it made sense that he should be allowed to use it in his home life as well. Unfortunately his viewpoint conflicted with a thirty two year old ruling by the Supreme Court, which prohibited the private use of handguns in the US capital. That is, until it was overturned by the present day Court in Thursday's landmark ruling.
Within the context of Mr Heller's case, the ruling makes a kind of sense. One could imagine that Mr Heller is a law-abiding citizen who is good at his job and resents being treated like a criminal the second he takes a gun, which he is trained to use in the defence of himself and his colleagues, off his work premises. So far, so rational.
Where this gets more worrying is in it's ramifications for how the American public chooses to define the Second Amendment.
Republican Presidential hopeful John McCain said that the ruling proved that 'gun ownership was a fundamental right - sacred, just as free speech or amnesty.' Further, Justice Antonin Scalia gave the Court majority opinion when he said that said that the Constitution did not allow “the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defence in the home”(The Times website).
While being only two examples, they do point to a certain reading of the Second Amendment, which says that the right to bear arms in self- defense is as relevant now as it was in 1791.
I am left wondering, has no one considered how the ambiguity of the language in this Amendment leaves it open to numerous interpretations? Even a comma in a different place can slightly change the meaning of the phrase - "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."
The amendment works in lofty, ideological terms with it's concern of the 'security of a free state". And where exactly does the 'well regulated militia' fit into modern day DC life? Are Al Quaeda not a well-regulated militia, to use a darker, contemporary example. The pro-gun elements in this debate have latched onto the latter part of the sentence, which simply says the right to keep and bear arms. But are we talking sleeping with a musket under your pillow or keeping a prized and various collection of guns in your shed?
The right to defend yourself and the right to possess a gun is a line which can become all too blurred. Look at Tony Martin in this country. Would he have courted media attention, let alone a life sentence in prison, if he had clubbed his intruders with a baseball bat that simply knocked them unconscious. Instead he chose to 'defend himself' with a shotgun.
Give the average American citizen a gun and the question shifts from 'Is the burglar going to kill me before he robs my house?' to 'Can I shoot him before he shoots me?'
Both are a bit too ambiguous for my liking. Rather like the American Second Amendment.
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