Merit No Longer Important at This Uni

Merit is required to go to or work at a university, right? Well, not anymore at the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane. “Queensland University of Technology defends removing ‘merit’ from hiring policy”. Via an internal email, Vice-chancellor Margaret Sheil told staff that they would be moving away from “the merit principle” towards a “more inclusive suitability assessment”. I don’t know if she’s lost her mind, or perhaps I’m not understanding this fully, but this sounds completely insane in my opinion.

She told ABC Radio, “The suitability assessment will consider factors such as gender and ethnic backgrounds. Women, for example, are under-represented in science and engineering at QUT, whereas men are under-represented in teaching and nursing. It will also consider the current demographic breakdown of their various schools and disciplines.”

So basically she’s saying that instead of hiring people based on their merit, based on their ability to teach a subject, they’re instead going to focus on whether you fit the prescribed gender or ethnicity or any other arbitrary factor that the university decides.

She actually dismissed suggestions that the hiring process should be colourblind, saying that was impossible in practice. “When people say things like ‘We do this on merit’, they're actually reflecting the bias of their own experience. There’s so much data on this around selection, whether it’s recruitment into orchestras or into universities.”

I’m not sure if she fully understands how orchestras recruit, but they use blind auditions where musicians perform behind a screen to take away any bias from the hiring process. The only thing the musician is judged on is how well they play – their merit. It’s only merit they’re being recruited on! What is she trying to say here? Is she saying that we shouldn’t have blind auditions, and recruit solely on gender and ethnicity? What an absurd notion!

It’s funny, these people call themselves progressives, but they’re doing the very opposite. They’re regressive. They’re returning to a former or less developed state. This is insanity.

Professor Sheil continued, “We need to access the entire talent pool, and we don’t want everybody to look the same.” What does that mean? Is she implying that people of a certain ethnicity and gender all look the same? What an incredibly racist and sexist thing to say!

Actually, on the radio, she did mention that she was the first female professor of chemistry in Australia and has subsequently spent her entire life trying to get more women into science. Well I would suggest that she believes that she earned her place as the first female chemistry professor, not because of her gender, but because of her merit. But now she wants to turn all that on its head and just choose people not based on their merit, but on arbitrary university-decreed factors.

If we take this to its natural conclusion, will surgeons now not be chosen based on their merit? Is that what society wants? When you go in for heart surgery, you’re not quite sure whether this person earned their place, or just happened to be the right combination of gender, ethnicity, and sexuality? Surely surgeons would agree with me on this and be fully against such an absurd notion.

Luckily, some academics at QUT have been speaking out against this. One academic, who did not wish to be named, stated, “The policy to get rid of merit is bordering on embarrassing. It’s completely disrespectful to tell students who will be charged thousands of dollars for a program that they will be taught by people chosen not on merit, but suitability.’’

Another academic said, “Every academic colleague I have spoken to about the proposed changes has been left appalled and flabbergasted. They think it is a terrible signal to students and university donors. To students, it is saying you will not necessarily get the best professors when you pay tens of thousands of dollars for this course, you will get who the university believes is the most suitable.”

There’s only one good thing about this change that I can think of. At least they’re being honest. Perhaps previously they were trying to conceal their depraved plans, but now, it’s all out in the open. They want to openly discriminate against people, and I hope the students and the academics see through this and either go on strike and demand that the vice-chancellor is replaced, or quit the university and let the university fail. As it should.

QUEENSLAND UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY DEFENDS REMOVING 'MERIT' FROM HIRING POLICY
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-17/qut-defends-removing-merit-from-hiring-policy/103114562

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