Oxford on the spectrum

This article is taken from the March 2025 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £10.

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At the University of Oxford, neurodivergence isn’t just a diagnosis, it’s an upgrade. It signals you’re not merely a high achiever; you’re an oppressed high achiever. Much like the transgender trend, the neurodiversity movement has given rise to a new class of entitled whingers, activists on a mission to stamp out neurotypical tyranny wherever they see it.

Gone is the tacit understanding that academics can tend to be a little unworldly and idiosyncratic. Today, the assumption is that universities are bastions of ableism, perpetuating discrimination against vulnerable students and staff who claim to have autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) or to be grappling with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Writing in the Oxford Blue, one undergraduate described this struggle, complaining that “neuronormative frameworks” are “replicated systematically and enshrined in the pedagogical structures of our universities”.

Figures from 2022-23 reveal that one in four Oxford students are registered with the Disability Advisory Service (DAS) — a 57 per cent increase since 2017–18. Of these, students with mental health conditions make up the largest share at 27 per cent, whilst 26 per cent claim to be neurodiverse. Tellingly, nearly a third of DAS-registered students first mentioned their disability after enrolling.

Neurodiversity at Oxford, a project bankrolled by the Oxford Diversity Fund, aims to address “the current lack of support for neurodivergent staff in Oxford”. Founder Dr Siân Grønlie, diagnosed well into her academic career, argues the university should “rethink our admissions process, our methods of assessment, and how we measure career progression”. Formal diagnoses are dismissed as “gatekeeping”, in favour of vibes-based self-diagnosis. On the academic side the Neurodiversity Network, which draws from the same fund and is also headed by Dr Grønlie, “seeks to nurture and promote work-in-progress on neurodivergence and intersectionality”.

Pressure to become “neuroinclusive” isn’t just top-down. The student union group Neuroinfinity welcomes anyone who “identifies as neurodivergent or as having neurodivergent traits”. An educational video recommends that ASD and ADHD students be offered “segmented tasks, flexible deadlines and alternative course requirements”, “intellectually nurturing supervision and mentoring” and “an empathetic learning environment”.

There’s a powerful incentive to get a label, from using laptops in exams to grants and mentoring

Neurodiversity has been politicised as yet another fashionable cause. To wield an ASD or ADHD diagnosis is to claim to be part of a discriminated-against group, to be on the side of the global majority and against Zionism and climate change. Predictably, Riz Possnett, the well-heeled “non-binary” campaigner who glued her hand to the table when Prof Kathleen Stock spoke at the Oxford Union, is vice chair of Neuroinfinity.

There’s a powerful incentive to get a label, from the right to use laptops in exams to grants and mentoring. Not all dons are thrilled about this special treatment. A lecturer, who asked not to be named, explained that when a student tells her they’re neurodivergent she simply has to accept it.

She recalls the case of a gifted student who “claimed to have ADHD” and was given 25 per cent extra time in exams despite the lack of obvious need. “In my opinion, they just lacked structure and rigour, something that can be dealt with by robust methodological support, which is in part the purpose of academic training anyway. But of course I couldn’t say this, although I felt this was rather unfair on the rest of the class.”

Fear of being reported by entitled perma-victims is now an occupational hazard. “There’s a huge crossover between students who claim to be trans and those who say they are neurodivergent. It makes me very anxious as a lecturer. I don’t want to be the subject of a complaint for simply applying the same standards to all my students and having high expectations of them. I have sometimes had to go to the faculty head to back up my assessments in case I am accused of discrimination.

“It means I am unable to offer helpful criticism because it can be used against me. I don’t understand how sheltering students like this helps them to flourish. It would have been unthinkable a few years ago.”

Another lecturer at an Oxford college, who also didn’t want to be named, questioned the purpose of special accommodations. “Suppose psychologists manage to pin down exactly the package of executive and cognitive traits that makes it hard to succeed in an intellectually demanding environment like Oxford, and they give it a name: ‘The Oxford Disorder’. Are we supposed to make adjustments to marks to achieve equality in outcome between students with the Oxford Disorder and those without it?”

What this bold march towards neuroinclusivity misses is that elite universities have always been havens for the eccentric, the obsessive, the socially awkward — people who might today be labelled “neurodivergent”. Having a mind able to thrive in such an environment is, in itself, a divergence from the neurotypical. Activists have scrambled to posthumously diagnose historical alumni such as Stephen Hawking; imagine what he might have achieved had he only had flexible deadlines and an empathetic working environment.

There has been a 787 per cent rise in the number of such diagnoses between 1998 and 2018 in the UK. This has not gone unnoticed by experts in the field. Prof Ginny Russell, at the University of Exeter, has suggested there is a loop between awareness and referrals for assessment, and that ever-wider criteria based on people’s accounts of how the condition affects them could lead to a situation where “maybe everyone is categorised as neurodiverse”.

For the chronically self-obsessed or just plain rude, “I’m neurodivergent” is the ultimate get-out-of-jail-free card. It adds a dash of victimhood to privilege, a sprinkle of oppression to success. Of course, in the clamour to come out as neurodiverse those who really do need support, the autistic people who are non-verbal and need 24-hour care, have been brushed aside. Genuinely debilitating disabilities are — who could have guessed? — considerably less in vogue.

The rebranding of autism from a form of retardation to a desirable condition is almost unparalleled. The only comparable social makeover must be cross-dressing, which has seamlessly transitioned from the hobby of middle-aged men with questionable browser histories to a celebrated transgender identity. The parallels don’t stop there. Question a self-identified condition? You’re a bigot. Refuse to dismantle time-tested policies for the sake of an individual’s feelings? Oppressive. Expect students to fit within existing structures? Congratulations, you’re marginalising the marginalised.

In the 1990s, dyslexia was beginning to creep into public consciousness. As an eight-year-old, my dreadful handwriting and poor spelling led to a diagnosis. My mother, somewhat in contrast to the school’s touchy-feely ethos, responded: “That’s just middle class for ‘thick’. If she’s bright, she’ll cope.” And I did. It seems reasonable to ask the same of Oxford students. If they have the nous to get in, and if they work hard, they’ll succeed. But they ought to be judged by the same criteria as every other student.