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Labour and the Liberal Democrats have called for Kemi Badenoch to come clean about her claims of an offer from Stanford University at the age of 16, after former admissions staff said she had described an impossible scenario.<\/p>\n
The Labour MP Peter Prinsley has written to the Conservatives leader saying she should lay out the specifics of how the alleged offer came about, given the doubts cast over her story. The Lib Dem education spokesperson, Munira Wilson, said Badenoch risked undermining trust.<\/p>\n
Badenoch has defended her claim to have received an offer as a teenager in Nigeria from the elite university to study medicine, sometimes described by her as pre-med, even though the university does not offer that course for undergraduates.<\/p>\n
Admissions staff have also said the Conservative leader\u2019s assertion she was offered a place on exam results alone, and was offered a partial scholarship, would not have been possible, with no offers made on that basis.<\/p>\n
Jon Reider, the admissions officer during the period Badenoch applied, told the Guardian he had been responsible for international admissions and scholarships and had not offered one to Badenoch.<\/p>\n
Badenoch doubled down on Monday, telling reporters she had indeed received offers based on her exam results. \u201cAll I will say is that I remember the very day those letters came to me. It was not just from Stanford. I was 16, I had done very well in my SATs,\u201d she said. \u201cBut this is 30 years ago, I don\u2019t have the papers, and what the Guardian is doing is reporting on hearsay rather than talking about what the government is doing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Multiple former admissions staff and US academics have told the Guardian that Stanford has never made offers based only on SATs \u2013 US standardised tests \u2013 with no exceptions even for royalty or child prodigies.<\/p>\n
Prinsley, a former hospital consultant, wrote to Badenoch to say her claims have been \u201ccalled into serious question by people in a position to understand the situation, and I would be grateful if you could demonstrate that you have been telling the truth\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said the Tory leader should clear up whether she had applied to Stanford and whether a place and financial aid had been offered.<\/p>\n
A Labour source said: \u201cHonesty and integrity aren\u2019t optional qualities for those who serve as the leader of His Majesty\u2019s official opposition. The uncertainty surrounding Kemi Badenoch\u2019s Stanford University claims raises important questions that the public deserve to know the answers to.<\/p>\n
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Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.<\/span><\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n \u201cBadenoch needs to come clean about what\u2019s happened here and whether she\u2019s been telling the truth to the British people.\u201d<\/p>\n Wilson also wrote to Badenoch saying she should come clean. \u201cIf Kemi Badenoch cares about restoring trust, she should start by explaining her own academic record,\u201d she said. \u201cFailing to come clean over these allegations would send a message to the thousands of pupils who just received their exam results that their hard work does not matter and that you can just bluff your way to the top.\u201d<\/p>\n Quick Guide<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span>Show<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n The best public interest journalism relies on first-hand accounts from people in the know.<\/p>\n If you have something to share on this subject you can contact us confidentially using the following methods.<\/p>\n Secure Messaging in the Guardian app<\/strong><\/p>\n The Guardian app has a tool to send tips about stories. Messages are end to end encrypted and concealed within the routine activity that every Guardian mobile app performs. This prevents an observer from knowing that you are communicating with us at all, let alone what is being said.<\/p>\n If you don’t already have the Guardian app, download it (iOS\/Android) and go to the menu. Select \u2018Secure Messaging\u2019. <\/p>\n SecureDrop, instant messengers, email, telephone and post<\/strong><\/p>\n If you can safely use the tor network without being observed or monitored you can send messages and documents to the Guardian via our SecureDrop platform.<\/p>\n Finally, our guide at theguardian.com\/tips\u00a0lists several ways to contact us securely, and discusses the pros and cons of each.\u00a0<\/p>\n Illustration: Guardian Design \/ Rich Cousins<\/p>\n Thank you for your feedback.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Labour and the Liberal Democrats have called for Kemi Badenoch to come clean about her claims of an offer from Stanford University at the age of 16, after former admissions staff said she had described an impossible scenario. The Labour MP Peter Prinsley has written to the Conservatives leader saying she should lay out the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18631,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[3494,1711,3287,1289,4747,3547,7062,781,322],"class_list":{"0":"post-18630","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-badenoch","9":"tag-cast","10":"tag-claim","11":"tag-clean","12":"tag-doubt","13":"tag-kemi","14":"tag-stanford","15":"tag-university","16":"tag-urged"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18630"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18630\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Contact us about this story<\/h4>\n