Watch Megyn Kelly Blast Ivy League Students Demanding Exam Delays: ‘In America, We Have Grit,’ ‘Responsibilities’

Monica Sanchez | December 12, 2014
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Law school students are calling for exam delays, saying that they are not only upset, but traumatized by the Ferguson and Staten Island grand jury decisions.

Fox News’ Megyn Kelly asked Iraq and Afghanistan war veteran Pete Hegseth about his take on the matter.

An Ivy League alumnus, who was actually at Princeton when 9/11 happened, Hegseth expressed little to no sympathy, calling the students “coddled” and “adult children” for requesting that their exams be delayed.  

“I was at Princeton during 9/11 and I didn’t get bereavement because of those events which were clearly traumatizing.”

He continued, “But I know about this Ivy League bubble world, the world they live in where there’s a lot of navel gazing and feelings hurt, with adult children who don’t know what the real world is like and want to be coddled in their beliefs.”

The veteran argued,

“Tell that to the soldier in Iraq or Afghanistan who didn’t get a day off, who watched their buddy get blown up, who saw their kids get born while they were overseas… They didn’t get to sit back and wonder. They did their job no matter what.”

Dr. Daniel Bober, a child and adolescent psychiatrist, disagreed with Hegseth’s assessment, saying that “we have to try to be sensitive” and allow minority students affected by the legal decisions the time to cope.

“Listen, these events affect people differently. The minority community, their faith has been shattered, they’re disillusioned, and they are essentially traumatized. It’s what we call in the psychological learned literature ‘learned helplessness.’ And so if they want a little bit of extra time for their exams, I think they should get it.”  

Kelly asked, “You think then that these traumatized young law students, that they should be given continuances when they’re actually practicing law and something disturbing happens?”

She continued,

“Because, you know, after practicing law for almost a decade, I can tell ya, bad stuff happens a lot – and it can be very traumatic, and it can happen to you while you’re in a court room. And you know what the judge will tell you if you say, 'I can’t go on'? He’ll say, ‘Give me your law license.’”  

Kelly went on to argue that students are no different than those of us who are parents, lawyers, or soldiers, in that we all have responsibilities to fulfill.

“In America, we have grit, and we have responsibilities that need to get fulfilled even if something upsetting happens to us.”

Dr. Bober retorted that “sometimes people need more than others” to deal with trauma and distress, as if he were underestimating minority students—or the minority community for that matter—in their ability to deal with adversity.

Watch the rest of the heated exchange above. 

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