Raising the Next Generation of Snowflakes

Graphic credit: Wall Street Journal

One in four students at elite universities are now classified as “disabled,” largely due to mental-health issues, reports the Wall Street Journal. And that disabled status is increasingly entitling them to special accommodations like being given extra time to complete exams.

Under federal law, schools must offer reasonable accommodations to the disabled. A blind student, for instance, would be given access to specialized software or a reader for an exam. No one could argue with that. But what about people with less visible disabilities such as depression, anxiety, or ADHD? Some colleges are providing “low distraction” testing centers and allowing students to bring “comfort animals” to school.

“At Pomona, we have extremely talented bright students with very high expectations who are coming in with a good level of anxiety and are highly stressed,” said Jan Collins-Eaglin, the Claremont, Calif., college’s associate dean of students for personal success and wellness. “Our job here is to help them really thrive.”

Bacon’s bottom line: Got that? The way to deal with anxiety and stress is to give students safe spaces rather than learn to master their fears and emotions.

Despite the advances of modern medicine and psychiatry, Americans are becoming mentally and physically more fragile with each succeeding generation. The problem starts long before kids go to college, but it’s becoming clearer than ever that institutions of higher education are not part of the solution but part of the problem.

The American character is becoming weaker and less resilient with each passing year. Can you imagine Generation Z (or whatever the post-Millennial generation is called) producing a Teddy Roosevelt, who was born a sickly child with debilitating asthma but, through force of will, overcame his physical health problems by embracing a strenuous lifestyle? The old virtues — strength, stamina, courage, perseverance, indomitable spirit in the face of adversity — are dying, replaced by the therapeutic ethic and cult of victimhood. Truly, we are a decaying society.

Recent news articles have noted that only a quarter or so of America’s youth qualify to enter the U.S. armed services. Once upon a time, American elites looked down upon military careers, as if they were occupations of last resort for those who couldn’t get into college. But if one third of college students have disabilities, it looks like the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines are more selective these days than our institutions of higher education — and perhaps our only hope of preserving the traditional virtues upon which this country was built.