Article University wholly ditches merit-based hiring, favoring gender, “looks”, & personality

[C C]

Queensland University of Technology completely ditches merit-based hiring, favoring gender, “looks”, and personality
https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2023/11/1...ed-hiring/

INTRO (Jerry Coyne): This gem of a story is about how one Aussie university went to the logical endpoint of the diversity-trumps-merit controversy: Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane is apparently about to hire solely on the basis of diversity, and has erased any mention of the word “merit” in its hiring policy. This of course is ridiculous, intolerable, and a recipe for academic disaster (see our big article, “In defense of merit in science“). But it’s very “progressive”!

The big taboo that people can’t discuss is that there’s a tradeoff between merit and ethnic diversity, a tradeoff that results from members of minorities having lower traditional qualifications—a result of both historical bigotry and present cultural circumstances. To achieve ethnic equity, then, you simply have to lower the merit-based standards you’ve used before.

This is why colleges left and right are getting rid of standardized tests like the SAT for college admissions, and adopting what they call “holistic admissions”. At the same time, high-school graduation standards are being lowered for similar reasons (see this article about New York State considering ditching the Regents exams once required to graduate.) But few people will openly admit why this happens.

Well, Queensland University of Technology is making no bones about it. In their frantic search for diversity, they’ve binned the idea of “merit” altogether... (MORE - details)

[confused2]

Let's imagine it's cheaper to educate a person than keep them in prison.
Let's also imagine educated females tend to produce fewer babies.
In such an imaginary world you could use education as a sort of social engineering thing.

[Zinjanthropos]

. This is why colleges left and right are getting rid of standardized tests like the SAT for college admissions, and adopting what they call “holistic admissions”. At the same time, high-school graduation standards are being lowered for similar reasons (see this article about New York State considering ditching the Regents exams once required to graduate.) But few people will openly admit why this happens.

Isn’t this the same as saying the university is dumbing it down. IOW the people they’re hiring and new students are not as smart as people who worked or went to school there previously. Maybe this will or won’t protect them from future lawsuits from some bad engineering, malpractice, and anything else a graduate student might be qualified to do…but really isn’t.

What are the smarter people doing while this is going on?

[C C]

.  This is why colleges left and right are getting rid of standardized tests like the SAT for college admissions, and adopting what they call “holistic admissions”. At the same time, high-school graduation standards are being lowered for similar reasons (see this article about New York State considering ditching the Regents exams once required to graduate.) But few people will openly admit why this happens.

Isn’t this the same as saying the university is dumbing it down. IOW the people they’re hiring and new students  are not as smart as people who worked or went to school there previously. Maybe this will or won’t protect them from future lawsuits from some bad engineering, malpractice, and anything else a graduate student might be qualified to do…but really isn’t.

Yah, whether the utopian goal is radical homogeneity in terms of socioeconomic status or education -- or both, the only way to accomplish such extreme equality is to forcefully lower everyone down to less achievement. Since it's impossible to elevate everyone up to fulfill high standards.

Although the latter will be possible when the world is populated with cyborgs or robot citizens. Because then individuals can simply be programmed to have the same skills, knowledge, talent, work-ethic, wealth aspirations, and so-forth. But not before. 

There are already plenty of avenues provided for low achievers (like the Scotch-Irish culture descendants living in Appalachia).[1] All a country accomplishes by degrading the quality and expectations of its best institutions is to turn itself into a pauper nation.

Affirmative action or "positive discrimination" programs of the past often benefitted students of color from other lands (India, Middle East, Africa, etc) rather than inner-city Black kids (North American born). Or served children of privileged families within a minority neighborhood. On rare occasions where a truly disadvantaged, local student was the recipient, they would find themselves struggling in courses they were inadequately prepared for, due to their poor background.

What are the smarter people doing while this is going on?

They should probably be getting ready to move to a different country, like anyone with foresight did after the Bolsheviks seized control of Russia. Of course, if one is already a member of the ruling and privileged intelligentsia who drove the revolution, then maybe there's no need. (Still, there might be some Stalin hanging around the corner who later decides to purge the house of non-sycophants. Usually the initial, conquering intellectuals are just pushovers that any thug with enough clout and gunpower can dispose of and install himself as dictator. Most social justice utopias forged by eggheads or scholarly elite are doomed in that manner.)

- - - footnote - - -

[1] There are diploma mills for those who completely lack a study ethic or work ethic; or who are fundamentally oriented toward a profession in fraud.

There are unaccredited institutions of higher education for those at the next level who are either personally or culturally burdened with humble criteria. 

There are legit community colleges for those who can't afford anything more in the beginning. 

Most high schools are affiliated with vocational training centers that bus-wise ensure any student who wants job skills for the basic workforce needs of industry can get them.

[Zinjanthropos]

Seems like the effort required to bring about diversity is to call those currently out of the loop stupid, but in a nice way.

Universities are still a business. Increasing clientele by lowering standards is one way of boosting the bottom line.

What will happen to the generation? Surely some of them got a raw deal in life and like cream will rise to the top with this measure. Yet the door is open to the less intelligent who through no fault of their own will actually acquire phoney certificates, degrees & qualifications that they don’t really deserve.

Edit: I figure in an earlier post CC is saying that AI will provide all the smarts we need so in essence the standards being lowered means the status quo doesn’t change much. The underprivileged will earn worthless diplomas and be no better off than before.