My Application for LGBTQQCC

by Mike S. Adams

Dear Oberlin College Division of Student Life and Services:

I recently read your advertisement seeking applications for the position of Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/ Transgender/Queer and Questioning Community Coordinator in the Multicultural Resource Center at Oberlin College.

I believe that I am perfect for this full-time, twelve-month administrative and professional staff position, which reports to the Associate Dean of Students and Director of the Multicultural Resource Center. I am definitely not "questioning" my interest in this position. I am ready to begin as LGBTQQCC ASAP!

In your ad, you mention that the incumbent will have responsibility for assessing and addressing the specific cultural/social/ political needs and concerns of LGBTQQ students while also working with other students who belong to historically disenfranchised communities. Among the other groups you list are: Africana, Asian/Pacific American, Latino/Latina, Native American, and multiracial communities, first-generation and, finally, low-income college students.

I want to make it very clear that I am willing to work with any students who are not both pure bred Caucasian and heterosexual - unless, of course, they are first-generation or poor. Also, as one who is 1/32 Native American I subscribed to the belief that with a single drop of non-white blood one ceases to be a Caucasian. I learned this from my relatives in Mississippi and Alabama.

As a member of the Multicultural Resource Center staff, I understand that the LGBTQQCC acts as a link between the Associate Dean/Director and LGBTQQ students, as well as between the Multicultural Resource Center and the rest of the College communities. I also understand that additional responsibilities include, but are not limited to, the following:

*Identify the social, cultural, educational, and political needs of LGBTQQ students, as well as those of other student communities.
* Under the direct supervision and guidance of the Associate Dean/Director, assist LGBTQQ students to foster a strong sense of self, to strengthen individual communities, and to build coalitions with other departments and communities.
* Assist the Associate Dean of Students/Director in identifying the concerns of LGBTQQ students, as well as those of Africana, Asian/Pacific American, Latino/Latina, Native American and multiracial communities, as well as first-generation and low-income college students.
* Work as part of a collaborative team that includes the Associate Dean of Students/Director, the Africana Community Coordinator, the Asian/Pacific American Community Coordinator, and the Latino/Latina Community Coordinator.
* Collaborate on diversity and multicultural education workshops and trainings.
* Help to create connections between the LGBTQQ community at Oberlin College and the LGBTQQ community in the greater Cleveland area.

I noted in your ad that you require a B.A. degree in LGBT and Queer Studies, Sexuality Studies, African American Studies, American Studies, Ethnic Studies, Gender and Women's Studies, or related field. I hope you will consider the fact that my PhD in Criminology was actually granted in a sociology department. In order to get a PhD in a sociology department one has to study at least as much worthless "scholarship" as one has to study to obtain a Queer Studies degree. I hope you agree and will, therefore, consider me to be qualified.

I also noted that you require "experience working with the issues and concerns of LGBTQQ students." I have long recognized the fact that the LGBTQQ community has issues - for example, anti-religious bigotry - and I have addressed their issues in numerous columns. I hope you will, therefore, consider me qualified in this regard.

Among your "desired qualifications" I noticed you listed "experience working with the issues and concerns of students of color especially within a higher education context." Given the paucity of "people of color" at my present institution, UNC-White, I consider this the weak point of my application. I hope you will consider my other strengths including my firm commitment to immediately bring "white" and "colored" restrooms back to higher education. This will be possible after we get rid of the "men's" and "women's" restroom distinction that so clearly discriminates against our LGBTQQ brothers and sisters - as well as those who are not sure whether they are our brothers or our sisters.

Your ad indicates that "Salary is competitive and commensurate with experience and skills for an entry level administrative position." I am willing to waive my salary as LGBTQQCC at Oberlin because I am sure that enough material will come from this job to make millions on books, speeches, and columns.

Along with this email, I will send a letter of application, resume and the names and addresses of three references to: LGBTQ Community Coordinator Search, Oberlin College, 135 West Lorain Street, Wilder Hall 105, Oberlin, OH 44074. I will also urge other academic dissidents to do the same.

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That degree in Disco Studies may yet come in useful

[British] NuLab has hugely increased state spending on education. This year they will spend well over 80bn pounds, comfortably more than double what they inherited in 1997. In inflation adjusted terms, spending has increased by 5% pa, much faster than GDP. And state education's share of GDP has risen by nearly one full percentage point. In fact, at 5.3% of GDP, we are now spending more on state education than any other G7 country except France (on 5.6%).

So what have we got for all that money? Have we had the promised leap in education standards, and can we now see that bright new workforce equipped to triumph in the post-industrial hi-tech challenges of the 21st Century? Er, no. We've had record GCSE results, record A Level results, and record numbers of university graduates, but we haven't had any of that other stuff - the stuff we actually need. We are spending tens of billions extra every year, yet the results are no better.

In fact, so ill-equipped is the bright new workforce now pouring out of our state schools and universities, that the government is having to pay employers to take them on, even temporarily. Last week, we heard taxpayers' money was being used to bribe employers to take on 35,000 unemployed school leavers as "apprentices" (see this blog). And today we hear another bunch of employers are being bribed to offer an unspecified number of "internships"* to unemployed university grads. Skills Secretary John Denham (most assuredly no relation to The Bloke) explains:

"They [new graduates] will be a very big group: around 400,000. We can't just leave people to fend for themselves. At the end they will be more employable, and some of them will get jobs."

Wow! Some of them might even get jobs? And pray explain again why we've got 400,000 graduates - graduates who are so ill-equipped for life that they can't even be left to fend for themselves. Remembering of course, that when Labour came to power, our unis were only producing 200,000 grads per year.

Yes, we know there's a recession/slump on, but the problems with all these new grads go much deeper than that. As we've blogged many times (start here), both the nation and the students themselves have had shocking value from Labour's gung-ho expansion of "higher" education and its entirely arbitrary 50% participation target. A brief recap:

* Taxpayers now spend 12bn pounds pa on higher education; the students themselves spend a whole lot more

* There are 2.3m students, or 4% of the entire population (including 27,000 doing the Major's favourite, the degree in media studies)

* The 50% participation target is "aspirational" - ie entirely arbitrary (admitted to the PAC by the Chief Executive of the Higher Education Funding Council for England - see this blog)

* The average HE participation rate across the OECD is 35%: ours is already 40% and heading for 50%

* Thousands of graduates now do non-graduate jobs, and that number is growing rapidly- their M Mouse degrees have simply not equipped them to do anything else (according to HESA, 75% - yes, 75% - of 2002-3 graduates were still in non-graduate jobs four years after graduation; what's more, 26% weren't in full-time jobs of any kind

* The average financial return to a degree is plummeting - according to PWC, the gross return to an Arts degree is now only about œ30 grand, and that takes no account of the costs of study and the earnings foregone - net net an average Arts degree almost certainly reduces lifetime wealth.

The truth is that despite all their "challenges of the globalised economy" wibble, Labour have never seen education in economic terms. From comprehensivisation to Laura Spence, Labour's priority has always been social engineering. For them, it has always been far more important to put everyone on the same level, than to pursue educational excellence.

So let's thank God for private education. Because without it, Britain really would be in the merde. All our top jobs would have to be filled by people who'd been processed through our dumbed-down state social engineering factories. Yes, Brown's new Equality Commissar - Haze of Dope Milburn - is perfectly free to rant on about the unfair advantages private education brings on the employment front. But we all know the truth: the reason that social mobility has stalled so badly is that Labour politicians sacrificed state education on the altar of social engineering.

And unfortunately, as the slump gathers pace, the dismal results of their approach are going to be even more apparent. People who may have been employable in a credit boom are going to find it very tough in the harsh future now unfolding before us. As someone whose life chances were transformed by high quality state education, it really does make me want to scream.

*Footnote- So HTF has our deadend government persuaded sensible companies like Microsoft and Barclays to offer these internships? Well, first - as per - it sounds like classic vapourware and probably won't happen. "A spokeswoman for Microsoft said the company in principle "absolutely supports" the idea and had been "really enthusiastic" when the government approached it. Asked what the scheme involved, she said: "We have to sit down and go through the scheme in detail." Hmm. And second, Microsoft... major government supplier... needs to be seen as A Good Citizen in these troubled times... Barclays... big bank with big debts... needs to be seen as A Good Citizen in these troubled times... nope, I don't get it at all.

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