Fahad X 12/6/25 Fahad X 12/6/25

Enabling fragile kids to become fragile adults.

The Atlantic’s Accommodation Nation (might be paywalled depending on how many articles you’ve read, but here’s a News+ link - also paywalled) is just another look at the decline of resilience and taking advantage of a system to “get ahead” the wrong way.

Accommodations in higher education were supposed to help disabled Americans enjoy the same opportunities as everyone else. No one should be kept from taking a class, for example, because they are physically unable to enter the building where it’s taught. Over the past decade and a half, however, the share of students at selective universities who qualify for accommodations—often, extra time on tests—has grown at a breathtaking pace. At the University of Chicago, the number has more than tripled over the past eight years; at UC Berkeley, it has nearly quintupled over the past 15 years.
The increase is driven by more young people getting diagnosed with conditions such as ADHD, anxiety, and depression, and by universities making the process of getting accommodations easier. The change has occurred disproportionately at the most prestigious and expensive institutions. At Brown and Harvard, more than 20 percent of undergraduates are registered as disabled. At Amherst, that figure is 34 percent. Not all of those students receive accommodations, but researchers told me that most do. The schools that enroll the most academically successful students, in other words, also have the largest share of students with a disability that could prevent them from succeeding academically.
“You hear ‘students with disabilities’ and it’s not kids in wheelchairs,” one professor at a selective university, who requested anonymity because he doesn’t have tenure, told me. “It’s just not. It’s rich kids getting extra time on tests.” Even as poor students with disabilities still struggle to get necessary provisions, elite universities have entered an age of accommodation. Instead of leveling the playing field, the system has put the entire idea of fairness at risk.

Some of these accommodations get ridiculous:

Students at Carnegie Mellon University whose severe anxiety makes concentration difficult might get extra time on tests or permission to record class sessions, Catherine Samuel, the school’s director of disability resources, told me. Students with social-anxiety disorder can get a note so the professor doesn’t call on them without warning. […]
Other accommodations risk putting the needs of one student over the experience of their peers. One administrator told me that a student at a public college in California had permission to bring their mother to class. This became a problem, because the mom turned out to be an enthusiastic class participant.

The worst of all accommodations? Increased time for taking tests.

Some professors see the current accommodations regime as propping up students who shouldn’t have perfect scores. “If we want our grades to be meaningful, they should reflect what the student is capable of,” Steven Sloman, a cognitive-science professor at Brown, told me. “Once they’re past Brown and off in the real world, that’s going to affect their performance.”

The real world is less forgiving and accommodating, unless this becomes the new benchmark in a few generations and no one really has to make an effort to make progress.

It’s no wonder corporations are looking into AI as the solution: lower birth rates, plus lower quality humans are feeding the AI beast.

Accommodations in higher education were supposed to help disabled Americans enjoy the same opportunities as everyone else. No one should be kept from taking a class, for example, because they are physically unable to enter the building where it’s taught. Over the past decade and a half, however, the share of students at selective universities who qualify for accommodations—often, extra time on tests—has grown at a breathtaking pace. At the University of Chicago, the number has more than tripled over the past eight years; at UC Berkeley, it has nearly quintupled over the past 15 years.
The increase is driven by more young people getting diagnosed with conditions such as ADHD, anxiety, and depression, and by universities making the process of getting accommodations easier. The change has occurred disproportionately at the most prestigious and expensive institutions. At Brown and Harvard, more than 20 percent of undergraduates are registered as disabled. At Amherst, that figure is 34 percent. Not all of those students receive accommodations, but researchers told me that most do. The schools that enroll the most academically successful students, in other words, also have the largest share of students with a disability that could prevent them from succeeding academically.
“You hear ‘students with disabilities’ and it’s not kids in wheelchairs,” one professor at a selective university, who requested anonymity because he doesn’t have tenure, told me. “It’s just not. It’s rich kids getting extra time on tests.” Even as poor students with disabilities still struggle to get necessary provisions, elite universities have entered an age of accommodation. Instead of leveling the playing field, the system has put the entire idea of fairness at risk.

Some of these accommodations get ridiculous:

Students at Carnegie Mellon University whose severe anxiety makes concentration difficult might get extra time on tests or permission to record class sessions, Catherine Samuel, the school’s director of disability resources, told me. Students with social-anxiety disorder can get a note so the professor doesn’t call on them without warning. […]
Other accommodations risk putting the needs of one student over the experience of their peers. One administrator told me that a student at a public college in California had permission to bring their mother to class. This became a problem, because the mom turned out to be an enthusiastic class participant.

The worst of all accommodations? Increased time for taking tests.

Some professors see the current accommodations regime as propping up students who shouldn’t have perfect scores. “If we want our grades to be meaningful, they should reflect what the student is capable of,” Steven Sloman, a cognitive-science professor at Brown, told me. “Once they’re past Brown and off in the real world, that’s going to affect their performance.”

The real world is less forgiving and accommodating, unless this becomes the new benchmark in a few generations and no one really has to make an effort to make progress.

It’s no wonder corporations are looking into AI as the solution: lower birth rates, plus lower quality humans are feeding the AI beast.

Fahad X 12/2/25 Fahad X 12/2/25

Congratulations, here’s a trophy for breathing.

When every kid in the classroom gets a reward, no matter how disruptive they have been, you're making them weak. You're no longer rewarding effort and excellence, you're just rewarding their ability to exist.

This is why we have weaker human beings today. People feel entitled to things they haven't earned, and can't go through any struggle without having a mental breakdown because their whole life has been one hand-out after another.

Parents fall into this trap by seeing the masses go in this direction, and they get duped themselves. Our safety and security should not lead to a path of laziness.

The beauty of Islam is it brings inherent difficulty even to those who are living in ease and comfort. Those difficulties also come with purpose, allowing us to compete for the real prize, which is to see Allah subhana wata'aalah with our own eyes in Jannah.

Fasting,

praying,

striving to do good,

preventing the evil,

giving in charity,

building a community,

giving dawah,

all of these acts of worship and more have different levels of struggle and perseverance, and the benefits are seen both in this world and the next.