This speech by the NUS president sounds a lot like one from The West Wing

They’re almost identical – did Shakira Martin ‘borrow’ from the NBC classic?

Matt Gutteridge & Louis Ashworth Follow Louis Ashworth on Twitter

A tale of two Martins: Martin Sheen, left, as Josiah ‘Jeb’ Bartlet, and Shakira Martin, right, as Shakira MartinNBC/NUS UK

The NUS conference was eventful for a number of reasons: heated candidate debates, questionable midnight flyering practices, and an occupation in rebellion against bureaucracy being some of the highlights of a tumultuous week which drew to a close today.

But things took a bizarre turn on Wednesday as incumbent Shakira Martin appeared to plagiarise TV show The West Wing in her candidacy speech.

Martin, who ultimately won re-election in a landslide, said that youth criminals “weren’t born to want to do this” in a section of her speech which evoked President Bartlet’s speech in “College Kids”, the third episode of The West Wing’s fourth series. It was the beginning of a sequence of uncanny resemblances.

Have a watch:

Watch both speeches side-by-sideNBC/NUS UK

Perhaps most suspect is the triple repetition of the line “not nearly enough” which both Martin and Bartlet deliver in the middle of speeches which end with the lines “we can do better, we must do better, and we will do better”.

Responding to this article on Twitter, Martin astonishingly chose to suggest that the similarities are pure coincidence:

The transcript, however, is damning:

Jed Bartlet (Martin Sheen)


All I know for sure, all I know for certain, is that they weren't born wanting to do this.


There's evil in the world, there'll always be, and we can't do anything about that. But there's violence in our schools, too much mayhem in our culture, and we can do something about that.


There's not enough character, discipline, and depth in our classrooms; there aren't enough teachers in our classrooms. There isn't nearly enough, not nearly enough, not nearly enough money in our classrooms, and we can do something about that.


We're not doing nearly enough, not nearly enough to teach our children well, and we can do better, and we must do better, and we will do better, and we will start this moment today!


Shakira Martin


But I don’t know why this is happening, and I know for sure … and I’m not sure, but all I know for certain, they weren’t born to want to do this.


There is evil in the world, there always has been, and we can’t do nothing about that. But there’s violence in our colleges, racism in our universities, there’s bullying in our workplaces, and we can do something about that.


There’s not enough books or chairs or spaces or advice in our system; there’s not enough teachers in our schools. There’s not enough counsellors in our campuses. There’s not nearly enough, not nearly enough, not nearly enough money in our colleges, and we can do something about that.


We can do better. We must do better, and we will do better.


Students can only hope Martin will be exercising slightly more original thinking when lobbying the government in the coming year.