Funny Events of the "Woke" world
- Thread starter CriticalGaming
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It is not woke to talk to your son even if your son is Hunter Biden who is smart enough to get into many good schools has fallen. I fault Biden for many things, but his interactions with his son aren't it.
We have evidence in the fact that a dispute and a split up even happened at all. But you're right it's all otherwise guess work.
Imagine a university did the same thing on "teamwork". They asked some questions on it in applications, and used their quality for their "first pass" filter in the review process.
Would anyone object and write newspaper articles about it?
If an application is required to give stuff like teamwork statements and be asked to answer in certain ways in order to get a position? Yeah, probably.
What do you actually think a job application is about if not presenting yourself in a way attractive to your employer (ideally, honestly)?
We all know that there are stock sorts of lines we are expected to trot out, because if we don't, we've got a pretty good chance of sinking our own application. I know of an occasion where an interviewee was asked to explain what they thought teamwork was and basically just replied "doing what your boss tells you": which unsurprisingly was deemed a very poor answer. Are you seriously going to argue that it was unfair to penalise that candidate for giving an answer that the organisation in question did not deem suitable for what they wanted from an employee?
Asking about "teamwork" is a very different thing from the statements required as described in the article.
Also, not sure if job applications and employers are really 1:1 with universities.
First, you might want to check my post history, because the notion that I'm triggered by anything "woke" doesn't hold up to scrutiny.
Second, teamwork is value neutral, DIE isn't. As cited in the article, 75% of applicants were rejected purely on their DIE statements.
Why?
It's an absolutely standard interview process to ask someone to write about why they are a good person for the job, and discount them for weak answers. A basic personal statement fulfils this function. If you've ever been through a competency-based application process, your application is mostly a series of mini-essays on topics the panel want to interrogate where it is your responsibility to demonstrate you've got the goods.
The article you're citing basically explains that some universities made ability to deal well with diversity a hiring criterion, and if applicants give a poor answer on diversity, they'll ditch the application. Like they could do for a poor answer on any other topic they deemed an important hiring criterion. Thus at face value, the complaint in the article seems farcical. It's effectively arguing that a candidate should not have to demonstrate competence in an area the employer wants competence, claiming that it is "compelled speech".
It's sole reason for defending this principle on diversity is the deeply specious claim that diversity is "political". And yet some critical appraisal would reveal most of this is a load of digressive hogwash about quotas ("proportional representation"), affirmative action and other gibberish, none of which is really relevant to the basic competence of academic staff having appropriate sensitivity to the diverse student body that they will be teaching.
Weak answers usually relate to competency, not belief systems.
Um, no, I've never had to write an essay on anything when applying for a job. Competency tests, sure (usually with electronics), never an essay.
That would be fine if all areas of competence were equal.
You're right in a sense, a private institution can generally apply any number of criteria (I imagine if I applied to teach in a religious school I'd be tested on knowledge/dedication to the faith in question), but again, as laid out in the article, you have candidates refused based purely on DIE statements. So, you could be a genius in whatever field, but if you don't agree with DIE principles, you'd be refused. Fine, that's the university's business, but it's very iffy standing.
I'd hardly call that a "basic competence," not to mention that you'd be reducing diversity by ensuring only certain teachers get in.
Absent
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Nope. It's fine. and it's the equivalent to teamwork. And it increases diversity instead of reducing it (it's only less diverse in the usual conservative sense that oh noes there are fewer nazis represented how unfair). If you want to work with actual diverse people, from all sexual orientations, skin colors, gender, religion, etc, you have to sacrifice one category of people : the ones who don't get along with the multiplicity or ethnic origins, gender identities, accents, skin colors, etc.
Conservatives adore their old argument according to which intolerance should be tolerated, inclusion implies the inclusion of assholes, and diversity supposes people who can't stand diversity. But nope. Diversity works with people who accept it, not people who treat others as subhumans based on color, sex, orientation, etc.
In short, the common trait should be not being bothered by all these differences and not bothering others based on all these differences. If your difference is "nope, I don't see other the colors/orientations/sex/etc as my equals", well it's, arithmetically, the one difference we can spare ourselves in order to allow all the others.
Oh goody, Goodwin's law. I think that's a new record, and after the Quran burning stuff, that's saying something.
I do work alongside the people you describe, thank you very much. That's one of the many reasons why I'd oppose the kind of stuff that DIE stuff stands for (e.g. affinity groups).
Most people don't have a problem with diversity. We're not talking about diversity, we're talking about DIE statements, and whether they should be required. Those are different things.
Who, in this thread, or in any article cited has said they don't see (insert trait here) as their equals?
This is just one giant strawman and evasion.
Think of it this way.
The job requires the holder to interact with students, who will come from various different backgrounds and have various different characteristics. Part of the holder's job is to treat them fairly.
If a candidate is opposed to diversity, equity and inclusion in that environment, then that means they don't think certain people should be there, and don't think people should be treated equally, depending on their backgrounds & characteristics. They've essentially expressed a belief system at odds with the requirements of the job.
So yeah, it's not 'value neutral', but we're talking about a value that shouldn't realistically be disputed. In the same way that "don't be a twat" is also not a value-neutral position, yet I'd be fine with excluding a candidate if they expressed that they were going to act like a twat.
You see, you've just cribbed this straight off the article, as the justification they give. But is it really true?
It doesn't need to test political beliefs at all. It requires a candidate to demonstrate competence. My biology teacher at school was a Biblical creationist. And yet he faithfully taught us evolution as scientific fact because his job required him to.
A candidate doesn't have to believe, deep down, that black people should be allowed to go to university. But they damn well can be required to understand that it is university policy that black people should be allowed to go to university, and that black people should be treated as full and equal members of the academic community when they get there. The candidate can be expected to understand that academic staff might be expected to demonstrate, via theory or experiential practice, of how they will be part of that university mission to ensure that black people have free and fair access to university and treatment when they get there.
Good for you. I have. I've written 1000-2000 word personal statements, and I've also applied under a competency-based system. Both, I would point out, for academic positions. You might find they can be quite common in certain areas.
Universities are places of education. What makes a good teacher? Protip: it's not being a "genius". It's about understanding one's subject to a suitable level, and then ability to explain, describe, to mentor, support, guide. Skills of empathy, communication, etc. Ethical values. The ability to effectively deal with and relate to your students as humans and learners. And that includes ability to deal with the diversity of the student body.
One might compare with the sea change in medical education ~20-30 years ago when the profession realised that hiring a ton of people almost entirely on intellectual merit without bothering to check their ethics and communications tended to end up in a ton of malpractice or patients not trusting their physicians enough to take their treatments.
Yes, they do need to make diversity a big deal. Their paying customers expect it, for a start. And allied to that issue of their customers, where universities have not approached minorities and diversity with sufficient care and attention, it's caused them a huge amount of trouble: disputes, financial costs, and reputational damage. They've got a really big justification to care.
Again, this is some really fucked up idea of what's being asked for. Universities absolutely do not have to let the Grand Duke of the KKK teach at their university because he happens to have a doctorate. No, they cannot let a lecturer step into a classroom and abuse the black people as n*****s and the women as b****es and the homosexuals as f*****s because it would harm academic free expression and the "diversity" of the staff.
Universities are professional workplaces that can have reasonable professional expectations of their workers. Up to an including requirements for them to demonstrate appropriate respect for the students.
Which is true of pretty much every job, but sure, none of that is controversial.
If a candidate was opposed to those things, sure. Now find a candidate in any of the material cited that actually opposes those things, as opposed to (among other things) segregation (segregated dorms and graduations are already a thing in some areas).
It's like saying "if you oppose the Ten Comandments being displayed in classrooms, you must hate Christians" or "if you're opposed to zionism, you must be an anti-semite." There'd certainly be overlap in those cases, but any action/belief can be opposed for any number of reasons. Not all those reasons are identical.
Not being a twat is pretty value neutral. Of course, what counts as being a twat is going to vary from person to person.
There's nothing to suggest otherwise.
Sure, any person could be lying about any given thing. That's true of life in general - Bob might oppose X, give Reason A, while his actual reason being Reason B. I might accuse you of lying about your biology teacher, because you haven't given me any proof. I won't accuse you of that, because there's nothing in the statement or scenario that suggests you're lying.
We're well beyond "basic competence" in what's being described though. Your biology teacher being qualified to teach biology (so, evolution, for instance), would come under basic competence for the field. Believing in the positions required of DIE, however, is very much outside the field, and if we're focusing on student's needs, I'm assuming that would include students who don't believe in evolution and/or are personally hurt by the idea that we're risen apes rather than fallen angels (yes, Pratchett reference, sue me).
That was...oddly specific. And highly extreme.
Okay, sure, no-one would disagree with what you said. But again, to use actual examples, does believing that (and most people would believe that) require you to also support elements such as segregated dorms/graduation ceremonies? Or to use another example, replace "black" with "Maori" - no-one I know of would claim Maori aren't equal, does that mean we should also include Maori spiritual beliefs in science? Or, according to you, any objection to such incorporation must, by definition, be motivated by racism? It's a sleight of hand - instead of engaging with the actual argument, just take the most extreme position there is, attribute it to the person, and voila, you've won.
You can portray DIE as this innocent lamb, but it isn't. For instance, while I know this isn't 1:1, as someone who's delivered children's activities, if the staff told me that I had to start treating children differently based on certain traits, I don't know if I could do that, in large part due to ethical reasons, in part due to historical, in part due to professional.
All true.
Great. So how do you "deal" with it? Because as has already been laid out, ways of "dealing" with it include practices that would have been considered discriminatory 60 years ago.
Again, this sounds like basic competence.
I think universities (at least in the US) have already done plenty of reputational damage to themselves already. Berkley was mentioned in the article, remember the Weinstein affair? Y'know, where diversity principles demanded days of absence of certain groups?
Again, argumentum ad extremum.
Come on, I know you're smarter than this. You've jumped straight to the most extreme examples possible, instead of engaging with any actual arguments on this thread or any other article. Everything you've described would come under abuse, it has nothing to do with academic expression.
But if we're talking about staff diversity, it's already well known that universities aren't diverse in staff - certainly not in terms of viewpoint.
Now, Absent has already equated anyone right of centre to being a Nazi, I'll give you the credit of assuming that you know life is much more complicated than that.
In case you're wondering, I don't think universities (or any institution) should be obliged to hire people of certain belief systems, but that includes everything else.
Again, no-one's disagreeing with that. What constitutes "appropriate respect?" And how much respect should students give in return? What do DIE statements have to do with respect?
Co-leader of N.Z.’s Māori Party claims that Māori are a genetically superior group
Is it okay for oppressed minorities to evince blatantly racist attitudes, claiming, for example, that they are "genetically superior to other groups"? (Needless to say, the claim I'm discussing here i
whyevolutionistrue.com
The Peckham protests reveal the poison of identity politics
The cult of victimhood is inflaming tensions between ethnic-minority groups.
www.spiked-online.com
I think there's a leap in logic here. Just because you're against the corporatized notion of DEI that doesn't mean you're against the spirit of wanting everyone to be treated fairly and would rather some people not be there or be mistreated. You can just be against the label for the politics it signals but actually treat students totally fair.
There's a false dichotomy here basically that corporatocracies are using to push their agenda. No, what people are against is the machinations of the world economic forum. Not folks of different backgrounds succeeding. And to paint everyone who has such objections with the brush of the bigot is a tactic that weaponizes bigotry to achieve corporate goals.
I think most people want fairness, but not labeled marketed and pre-packaged fairness. I think most people just want to be "good people", without necessarily codifying and delineating that in such a narrow and politically tinged way. Those people aren't gonna be the bigots.
Finally, I think equity goes against fairness fundamentally, because it is unfair for high achieving groups and low achieving groups to be put on equal footing, or to treat their disparities as a societal evil and not as proof of greatness of those whom are great. A high tide raises all ships so if we just focus on human achievement and progress, technological advancements will benefit everyone more so than an equity that shuts down the next big invention so that it can sustain itself would.
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Don't give me that shit, because the article you cited does it, which has gone without comment from you. Do you not realise that describing affinity groups as "segregation" is argumentum ad extremum?
Affinity groups for the most part represent student support processes - many of which are student-led activities: fora or other systems to provide avenues for minority groups to talk about their experiences, forms of mentorship programmes, etc. In terms of student societies, they've de facto existed for decades. There is absolutely no reason to think this means splitting up students by race in regular classroom activities. "Affinity graduations" for instance are not the formal, university-run degree ceremonies, they are additional and separate celebrations.
No, you should be smarter than this.
You do this way too often: a significant number of the posts you put up are dubious crap that you never bothered to check facts about and put enough critical thought into the first place, and when your source is questioned act like it's the god-given truth and refuse to back down an inch.