Queensland University of Technology defends removing 'merit' from hiring policy

[EEVblog]

As the title says:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-17/qut-defends-removing-merit-from-hiring-policy/103114562

Queensland University of Technology's vice-chancellor has defended the decision to remove all references to "merit" from its hiring policy.
Staff were told about the move via an internal email, which informed them that they would be moving away from "the merit principle" towards a "more inclusive suitability assessment".
Vice-chancellor Margaret Sheil told ABC Radio Brisbane the suitability assessment would consider factors such as gender and ethnic backgrounds.

Professor Sheil said it would also consider the current demographic breakdown of their various schools and disciplines.

She said women, for example, were under-represented in science and engineering at QUT whereas men were under-represented in teaching and nursing.
She 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," Professor Sheil said.
"There's so much data on this around selection, whether it's recruitment into orchestras or into universities.
"There isn't a way of being colourblind that's not got some form of bias into it."

She said staff undertook unconscious bias training, and that the selection committees were chosen with diversity in mind.
She said they would aim to hire a diversity of personalities, such as recruiting more outgoing scientists who were good at industry engagement.

'We don't want everybody to look the same'
Professor Sheil denied the policy was a "political" decision, insisting it was a practical move to improve the university's talent pool.

"We need to access the entire talent pool, and we don't want everybody to look the same," she said.
"We need the workforce to reflect the students coming through, and we also know people look at things differently when they come from different backgrounds.
"I've been working in improving diversity in academic environments my entire career; it's got nothing to do with contemporary politics."

Professor Sheil said she was the first female professor of chemistry in Australia and has subsequently spent her life trying to get more women into science.
QUT claims the suitability assessment is based on the Queensland Public Service Commission's hiring strategy.

[SiliconWizard]

Yes, let's remove any "friction", as they say.

I read the thing and am unable to say what exactly that means though. I see a lot of buzzwords, but what exactly will they do?

Just a note about this one: 'We don't want everybody to look the same'. While I still don't quite know what they mean by removing "merit" here, denying the concept of merit usually leads to exactly that though, making everyone precisely look more the same. Buggers.

[.RC.]

So I take it the Vice Chancellor will be standing down so she can be replaced by someone who is far more qualified.

By qualified I mean someone who is disabled,  identifies as a gender other then male and female, who also identifies as coming from a disadvantaged area, extra points awarded if it is determined  by a committee of specially selected lefties people who identify as human as having "suffered" at the hands of some more powerful country when they were a child.

So at this point in time, going by what I read on the news, she would be replaced this week by a genderless, disabled person from Gaza who specialises in rocket science or underground mining geology.   

After all they have to lead by example right?

[wraper]

I read the thing and am unable to say what exactly that means though. I see a lot of buzzwords, but what exactly will they do?

Hire worst among applicants instead of best qualified ones because reasons and whatever fits today's agenda.

[.RC.]

As with most things Trey Parker has already made something about this.

[Dan123456]

God damn that is a big oof 

I can’t see that backfiring in their face at all 

[CatalinaWOW]

This is mostly just word salad.  To me suitability is a perfectly valid reason for selection for a post.

Where the rubber meets the road is in the definitions of what makes one suitable for the job.  Sex is sometimes perfectly valid.  I have difficulty seeing how a male would be suitable for a surrogate mother position.  And from a purely local standpoint, if ones funding depends on having census matching numbers for various population cohorts on your staff, cohort membership is a valid suitability criterion.

Of course one would hope that capability of graduates is a metric of interest at all universities.  Contribution to that should have a high weight in the suitability evaluation.  Unfortunately it is difficult or impossible to measure even after years of employment and so the bureaucracies will fall back on the easy to measure things like membership in cohorts.

An interesting side effect of this may be a dramatic reduction in production of PhDs.  Even in the easiest of fields there is a fair amount of pain in achieving this degree, and if it is not valued why would anyone pursue it?

[EEVblog]

Yes, let's remove any "friction", as they say.

I read the thing and am unable to say what exactly that means though. I see a lot of buzzwords, but what exactly will they do?

Just a note about this one: 'We don't want everybody to look the same'. While I still don't quite know what they mean by removing "merit" here, denying the concept of merit usually leads to exactly that though, making everyone precisely look more the same. Buggers.

They mean "white men". I"m not kiding, that's what they really mean.
I asked AI to generate their worst nightmare:

[EEVblog]

This ranks up there with UTS lowering the engineering entry standard for women:
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/university-boosts-female-enrolments-in-male-dominated-subjects-after-lowering-atar-bar-20221010-p5bomw.html

[.RC.]

I asked AI to generate their worst nightmare:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F_-9zvGawAAnSA5?format=jpg&name=small

Where is the PTSD trigger warning for that photo?

[EEVblog]

An interesting side effect of this may be a dramatic reduction in production of PhDs.  Even in the easiest of fields there is a fair amount of pain in achieving this degree, and if it is not valued why would anyone pursue it?

Because many people already have no idea about practicality, hence getting PhD's in gender studies etc.
https://arts.unimelb.edu.au/asia-institute/discipline-areas/gender-studies
https://www.phdportal.com/search/phd/gender-sexuality-studies

EDIT:
A 6 year PhD in Anthropology and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at no less than Yale anyone?
https://anthropology.yale.edu/academics/graduate-programs/combined-phd-anthropology-wgss

[Bud]

the Pareto rule is about to change from "20% people doing 80% work" to "5% people doing 95% work." 

[magic]

It might be a symptom of a more general trend of academia going downhill.

Of the people I remember from my year, most of the brightest went for commercial careers because that's where real R&D happens and where the money is, while the "upper-mediocre" were left behind to attempt PhD. I remember two specific individuals who wanted to stay at the university simply because they had not a faintest clue what to do with their lives otherwise or felt not good enough for "real" work (one of them thankfully wasn't good enough for PhD either, the other got it after years of nonsense "research" no one will ever care about).

If computer science faculties become a government sponsored nursery for high functioning adult autists, I don't even want to think what happens in those "social studies"

[SiliconWizard]

Yes, let's remove any "friction", as they say.

I read the thing and am unable to say what exactly that means though. I see a lot of buzzwords, but what exactly will they do?

Just a note about this one: 'We don't want everybody to look the same'. While I still don't quite know what they mean by removing "merit" here, denying the concept of merit usually leads to exactly that though, making everyone precisely look more the same. Buggers.

They mean "white men". I"m not kiding, that's what they really mean.

Yeah, I know, that's the whole current "woke" trend that is going on. But what I was pointing out is that they never really say what they intend to do, it's always fuzzy with a lot of empty words, that are supposed to instantly resonate with the "initiated", while leaving everyone else either annoyed or in a state of denial.

The war on "merit" is not too surprising, even if it's just one angle of attack here among many. The "woke" movement is some kind of (at least in inspiration) neo-marxist movement and for neo-marxists, merit is one of the values to destroy.

[magic]

The war on "merit" is not too surprising, even if it's just one angle of attack here among many. The "woke" movement is some kind of (at least in inspiration) neo-marxist movement and for neo-marxists, merit is one of the values to destroy.

American food isn't real food.
American boobs aren't real boobs.
American marxists aren't real marxists

AFAIK actual commies never used gender or ethnic quotas and were opposed to feminism and other identity politics. Their position was that people are equal and any differences that may be observed today are caused by social dynamics of power and money, which dynamics communism claimed to eliminate. Infamous kleptocracy aside, hiring decisions were officially to be based on suitability for the job. As they had to be, for communism to have any chance of progressing and fighting the global evil of capitalism and imperialism.

Anti-merit is an American movement trying to explain inconvenient statistics for disgruntled liberals who realized that decades of state-level cult of liberalism and elimination of every form of genuine systemic inequality still didn't make the statistics go away completely, as their religion appeared to promise. It's also backed by the American conviction that they are at the top of the global food chain and will stay there forever no matter how hard they shoot their foot. Americans would make actual idealistic communists cringe.

In short, death to America, inshallah

[jpanhalt]

I assume many of you have seen this cartoon about diversity. 

[plain]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9edtHJMaws0[/plain]

It seems Queensland University is imitating parody.

[AndyBeez]

"When people say things like 'We do this on merit', they're actually reflecting the bias of their own experience,"
"There isn't a way of being colourblind that's not got some form of bias into it."

No sh!t Karen!

So no more hiring females or aboriginals(?) on the basis that they are the very best person for the job?

Clearly QLUT has a 'diverse' range of leadership skills. I can think of which box this one ticks - an empty one?

I should add, that as someone who works in the UK, this diversity BS is a conversation from decades ago.

[RoGeorge]

That "decision" is not to be taken lightly, that's national sabotage.  Universities are strategic objectives, just like military bases.  Ask you intelligence services to open an investigation.

Meanwhile, the students, the university and the Australian people should disobey the "decision", and remove her instead.  Find out who come up with that "decision", too.  Whoever is messing with the education system is doing so to ruin your future.

Also, her salary seems disproportionately large:

https://campusmorningmail.com.au › news › qut-finances-are-sound-but-what-about-the-casuals
QUT: finances are sound, but what about the casuals?
Professor Margaret Sheil's salary for 2020 was $1,209,999 and for 2019 $1,189,999. Compare this to the Premier of Queensland's annual pay of $385,605.

[.RC.]

AFAIK actual commies never used gender or ethnic quotas and were opposed to feminism and other identity politics.

In politics left and right is pretty corrupted and meaningless. In fact people can and do believe what they want to believe and justify to themselves that they hold the superior position.

Everything is mixed up.   You can have socially "conservative" people but still believe in communism.   You can have socially "progressive" people that believe in capitalism, and vice versa.

After being on internet forums for years to me it appears there is an infinite number of positions on the socially "progressive", socially "conservative", politically communist and politically capitalist graph and on top of that those positions people hold seem to change as their circumstances and life experience changes.

In fact I would say you can not tell a person's true views by what others say about them, or even what they write in forums themselves as communication skills vary from person to person and comprehension skills vary as well, and emotions are not easily determined by written language.

But it seems some people cannot handle this constant changing flux of views and think, well such and such said this so therefore they absolutely are X, and these people are on all sides as well.

[Warhawk]

I would have never said that a person with lobotomy could be a vice-chancellor.

[RoGeorge]

And now we are here, a parody from 8 years ago on the verge of becoming reality:

Modern Educayshun

[audiotubes]

the Pareto rule is about to change from "20% people doing 80% work" to "5% people doing 95% work." 

I'm pretty sure the 5/95 rule has been in effect for several decades already

[Circlotron]

They mean "white men". I"m not kiding, that's what they really mean.

Especially old straight white men.
The worst kind of people.

[magic]

And now we are here, a parody from 8 years ago on the verge of becoming reality:

It wasn't a parody.
Why you think blueskull bailed out?

[tszaboo]

Well, that's what you get when you let a leftist through your door. They shame you for who you are, send you on reeducation camp, or get you fired. Set up camp, and make policies like this.
Never hire an identity politician, they are truly the most toxic employees, and what their policies are doing is in fact illegal.

the Pareto rule is about to change from "20% people doing 80% work" to "5% people doing 95% work." 

I'm pretty sure the 5/95 rule has been in effect for several decades already

It's called Price's law, and for large organizations it's much worse than 80/20 or even 95/5.