‘Whatever happened to the best person for the job principle?’
Welcome to the column where you provide the content. After US President Joe Biden said he would appoint a black woman to the US Supreme Court last week, Janet Albrechtsen took aim at the equity ruse, which “repackages a stupid idea under a softer name. Gender quotas rely on equity claims to hide the injustice of holding back people of talent to make room for those with a certain gender but fewer skills.” John wondered:
“Whatever happened to the best person for the job principle? Without that, mediocrity will prevail.”
Too late, said Stephen:
“Absolutely. Unfortunately mediocrity has and is prevailing!”
FinMccool’s theory:
“A place to start dismantling all this nonsense would be for companies to rid themselves of HR departments. In my experience working in large companies, they had a department called ‘payroll’, where their job was manage payroll, holidays and entitlements such as superannuation, long service, sick leave, etc. It would be a good time for management to redefine the role of HR departments.”
Michael agreed:
“Brilliantly articulated. Compulsory reading for any big company CEO and their HR people who perpetuate these unjust policies.”
You decide, said Diogenes:
“Imagine the following scene: your only child is transferred critically ill to intensive care and you have, for whatever reason, 5 seconds to choose between two ICU physicians to treat him/her: one who got through the exams with non-passing marks and won the job to fill a diversity quota, and the other who received no leg-ups and had to compete with those who did.
“This is real life and death and there is no time for philosophising. Be honest, which physician would you choose? After you answer this question, you will know what you truly believe.”
Ian R reckoned:
“To overcome disunity in society requires only for bold legislatures to repeal/remove all discriminatory legislation be it for sex, religion or colour. It then remains for the great proven uniter, common law, to be the arbiter of all disputes like it has been for centuries.”
Rod reasoned:
“Equity is a malign version of equality. Is requires discrimination by sex and/or skin colour and in some (many?) cases eliminates meritorious candidates from selection. The end result is that extremely capable people cease trying because they know the system works against them. Equity = discrimination which leads to an empowered mediocracy rather than a capable meritocracy. Huge mistake.”
CW 4810 said:
“What is above your shoulders is more important than what is below them, and skin colour is entirely irrelevant. Putting a person unqualified into a job and excluding a qualified person from that job is an abomination, and will only lead to second rate outcomes.”
Denis noted:
“Excellent article Janet, and well articulated as usual. You may also want to have a look across the Tasman to what’s going on in NZ. The Ardern Government, under the cover of Covid, has been hard at work on a number of fronts (refer the ‘he Puapua’ document) that if successful, will confer a perpetually preferred constitutional status on citizens who chance to have one or more Maori ancestors, around 14pc of the population. This would create a nation permanently divided by race. A deeply divisive and shockingly anti-democratic agenda by any measure.”
Andrew said:
“Look at the representation on the court. You may then rethink the appointment given there are plenty of well qualified black women that also add to the diversity of the court, that is the point.”
SOA begged to differ:
“No, the point is that specifically targeting and appointing a black woman, purely because she is a black woman, leaves the ultimate appointee, whoever she may be, open to the accusation of tokenism, leaves the Court saddled with a lifetime appointee who may be totally useless at the job, and leaves the country deprived of the services of someone who may be totally useful for the job, but who is not there, because they are not a black woman.”
Stephen said:
“Dr Thomas Sowell, himself a black Harvard graduate, has pointed out that affirmative action in university admissions actually hurts everyone involved. Firstly, qualified white and Asian students are denied a place. Secondly underqualified black students are admitted to courses at elite colleges like Harvard that they struggle to pass. The teaching pace and reading requirements of these courses are just too much. The drop out rate for these students is very high and then end up with only the student debt. Had these kids been rejected by Harvard et al they would have found places in many other fine colleges with courses within their capabilities.”
Sleepy Lizard’s solution:
“A person who applies for a course with an SAT way too low to pass the course should be able to pass their student debt onto the admissions people. An opportunity you are likely to fail in is not an opportunity but a debt burden for life.”
Mick mused:
“If equality of opportunity actually delivered what it promised, it wouldn’t be facing such a sustained challenge. People of seen through the veil: it delivers to a very large extent the prevailing status quo. How else to deal with the entrenched privilege that puts opportunity closer to some and so far out of reach for others?”
Bill Loney said:
“I don’t believe that equal opportunity ever promised equal outcomes. Diversity outcomes for most endeavours most often depends on individual choice. Scandinavian countries have been at the forefront of providing equal opportunity and have shown that equal outcomes are not forthcoming, or necessarily expected. Equal outcomes only occur when there is equal individual preference for particular life choices across race/gender divisions. How many female brick layers or male school teachers or nurses do you know? Until this is recognised we will continue to be incorrectly beaten over the heads with outcome statistics by the social justice bean counters.”
David felt dudded:
“Years ago I taught at a university which had the slogan ‘We offer equal opportunity to all to make themselves unequal’. Sadly, it was ditched in the face of the equity wave, with seriously deleterious consequences, with students now striking to enforce equity in results, ie if a student does poorly, it’s the fault of an inequitable system, not because of lack of ability or lack of application to their studies.
“Most recently I taught in an Australian university, where we had to ‘grade on the curve’, ie raise poor grades to maintain ‘equity’, thus degrading the entire course.”
Stephen said:
“When my wife was a tutor at university she had to fit class results to a statistically correct normal distribution ie a ‘bell’ curve. So some students marks were scaled up and others scaled down to fit what in statistics is called the normal distribution. So if you had students in a class who all achieved over 93 per cent ie the median plus three standard deviations none of them would be awarded top marks.
“This has been going on for years so it is not possible to compare results from year to year, decade to decade. Furthermore students who would have otherwise failed were passed. The course always produced acceptable results, the lecturer was always judged to be doing an acceptable job and the university filled it’s own expectations.”
KingstonKevin’s conclusion:
“Wouldn’t it be nice to be judged by the strength of your character rather than the colour of your skin. That concept now seems to be dead.”
Kris’s concept:
“People worldwide have confused equality with sameness. Men and women are equal, but not the same. Let’s first understand that equality and sameness are different words for a reason. The majority of women have the ability to conceive a child in their womb and be mothers. Men are mostly the larger and more aggressive sex (perhaps to simply protect their offspring). There is no sameness in these things, and differences (‘diversity’) is a good and important part of our evolution.
“One day in the future perhaps we might be able to have men grow their own uterus from stem cell research. But until then men and women – and people of different races or those of different political creeds – need to treat each other as equal partners and create successful families, creating successful societies, with successful societies being the foundation of successful civilisations.”
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The Mocker reckoned the lack of a furore over AFLW Giants player Haneen Zreika’s decision last week that she could not wear the club’s so-called Pride jumper for religious reasons was all the evidence you need to conclude that Zreika is not of the Christian faith. This jibed for Joe:
“Nailed it again Mocker. Left activism is riddled with hypocrisy as the left don’t actually care about diversity, or for that matter Aboriginal welfare, LGBT+ welfare, or the environment. None of it. The main game is destroying Western democracy and tearing down Judaeo-Christian values. All the rest is the tools they use.”
Ricki reckoned”
“(Israel) Folau didn’t get a fair go but was harshly criticised, lost his job and condemned by the very people who say give minority groups a fair go. So hypocritical. But they didn’t see it.”
True Believer took issue:
“No comparison with Folau. She merely withdrew from the round. Folau, with his high profile, said gay people would go to hell. How much damage did that do to young minds?”
Gregory replied:
“He quoted the Bible, a religious view.”
Robert was unruffled:
“Not surprised. All Christians, practising or non-practising, should see this as further evidence that Christian values are under attack from the left – including the Greens and Labor. The Left preach inclusion and tolerance except where Christians are involved.”
Maxwell asked:
“Why is their even a need for a diversity round? Sport seems to think that they have a role in social engineering, when in reality they are just an entertainment business, and the people that watch sport are only really interested in whether the team they support wins. Likewise, some sports men and women think that society at large are interested in their personal religious or social beliefs, when their job is to play sport, not be moral or social crusaders!”
Anthony said:
“1000pc different outcome if a white Christian player refused to play for faith-based reasons.”
Geoffrey said:
“As George Orwell in Animal Farm so famously wrote: ‘All animals are equal … but some animals are more equal than others.”
Seamus was amused:
“ ‘You see, at no time had I considered the possibility that heterosexuals compete at the top level of women’s football …’. Rare gold!”
Peter giggled:
“Made me laugh! But cue the outrage somewhere.”
Rooboy was a fanboy:
“Welcome back Mocker. 2022 has not dampened your rapier wit or keen observations. While I abhor identity politics and the modern obsession with grievance, what sustains me every night as my head rests on the pillow is images of the various occupants of Departments for Hand Wringing and Gnashing of Teeth that characterise corporate and government entities these days contorting themselves over how to navigate the bog they’ve created. As Bruce McAvaney has famously said, ‘delicious’.”
William (Bill) noted:
“Mr Albanese wishes Muslim Australians ‘Happy Eid’ (as he should), but can only bring himself to say ‘May the festive season bring you joy, and may it be a sign of better times to come’ to Christian Australians. He appears incapable of using the dreaded C word.”
Celtic concluded:
“If a Christian had refused to wear the pride jersey, she would no longer be playing soccer. Fact. Just look at the pile on at the Citipoint College. That is how they treat Christians who dare decide to run a school by Christian doctrine.”
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Wally Mason wrote of Daniil Medvedev, following his loss in the Australian Open final to Rafael Nadal: “The pantomime villain of world tennis has spent two weeks plotting, scheming, spitting and snarling around Melbourne Park, twirling his figurative moustache. And now he wonders why no one likes him.” Eric was even-handed:
“There’s a fine line between support and respect. One can cheer and clap to support one’s favourite player, but booing and cheering someone’s mistakes is a lack of respect.”
Terry’s return:
“Respect goes both ways.”
Skitragic said:
“This is precisely why we stopped to going to rugby league games. Crowd behaviour was disgraceful and mainly (in my experience) from older people who should know better.”
Malcolm said:
“Pantomime villain or not, I still think that the behaviour of the Melbourne crowd was puerile and lacked grace.”
Gordon’s explanation:
“I suspect it is part projection underlying an anger that has grown in Melbourne over the last two years.”
Kate’s conclusion:
“The worst behaviour was from the crowd not from Medvedev. It was appalling the way he was booed from the outset. There was also bad behaviour in the crowds watching Kyrgios. The tournament organisers should have done more to address it.
“For some reason sport brings out the worst in many Australians. It is like the sledging in cricket which too many Australians seem to think is acceptable. It damages the country’s reputation overseas.”
Andrew’s topspin:
“I enjoyed Medvedev’s contribution to the tournament. He is honest, self deprecating and passionate. He is genuine top 5 player rather than a distraction like Kyrgios.”
Last serve to Blix:
“You forgot to mention Medvedev’s appalling verbal rant to the umpire during his semi’s match with Stefano. Medvedev shouted through spitting anger, attacking the umpire with ‘look at me, look at my face, look at me when I am speaking? Are you mad?’
“Medvedev certainly needs a course in charm, but I am not sure he knows what the word means.”
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