Are openly gay narcoleptic atheists from Alabama the majority where you live?

The BBQ Pit
1

The title may not be that explanatory of the thread but that’s because with the new rules I couldn’t entitle it “Kiss my white cracker ass ye fucking misguiding demographic manipulating academic hypocrites”.

For starters I should say I am very happy to have a job in my field that pays my bills. That’s very good and I’m very appreciative, especially in this economy, to not be in any serious layoff danger. That said, and though I hate to use this cliché, I’m seeking something more challenging and need growth potential, so I’ve been looking for other positions. It’s not easy at the moment since, with the near universal budget cuts many universities are not filling vacant positions, and understandably so as it’s one of the easiest ways to save money without having to let anybody go. (A side rant is that academia, especially public institutions, are on a collision course with disaster as they’re simultaneously leaving said positions unfilled and in some cases letting go of untenured faculty members to save money at the same time as they are actively seeking to increase enrollment to bring in more revenue, which is going to ultimately lead to appalling teacher:student ratios, further devaluation of college degrees due to lowered admission standards and raised capacities, an increase in online v. traditional students as more figure “well I’m not getting personal attention anyway and the knowledge factor is statistically as good”, and of course more degrees [in certain fields especially] is going to lead to yet more students who can’t pay back their college loans, most of which are government secured which means that sooner or later the whole U.S.D.E. student loan program is going to come up for strong criticism, but all that’s another rant and has little to do with this one.)

So anyway, I’m a reference/instruction librarian. (I have some specialized skills as well but they’d only be of any real meaning to other librarians, but reference and instruction [i.e. explaining to students and other patrons how to do research in the library] are the biggies.) I’m good at reference, great at promotions/outreach, and- pardon the immodesty- a god at instruction (have in fact been called “The Elvis of Bibliographic Instruction” by more than one person- at one university it actually caused resentment by co-workers and an overloaded schedule for myself because- again pardon the immodesty, not brag just fact, once professors had me do their sessions they didn’t want anybody else). This isn’t just my opinion, it’s verified: I’m good at what I do and I’m particularly unique at instruction (my favorite part of the job).

So then… I’ve applied to various institutions. I recently applied to a job that I really wanted in Florida, had a complex interview, think I really won over everyone, but, unfortunately, just as we were about to get it on and smoke our cigarettes the search was canceled. The reason was purely money- Florida universities are hemorrhaging even more than most states- so basically I’ve been told “we’d love to offer you the job but we’ve got a glacial hiring freeze and can’t even hire a part time janitor til it’s lifted”, and as they’re lifted on a case by case basis that could be this summer or summer of 2023, who knows. So, that sucks, but… to show I’m not unreasonable, I understand. It’s a bad thing to do, it’s gonna have consequences, but when you have to lop $200K from your department’s budget (on top of the $150K you had to lop last year and the $100K the year before then), not filling vacancies is the most bloodless way to cut a pound of flesh (the bad part being that even by not filling the very needed position you’re not even halfway there).
So anyway, I’m upset about that situation but not at any individual. Here’s where I’m pissed at individuals and institutions:

Since I have a job I can stand I’m not blitzing resumes or anything like, I’m very selective. In addition to the Florida job I’ve applied for three others:

1- An institution where I used to work, where I left on excellent terms, where I was extremely respected, and where- how qualified am I for the job? Well, it used to be my job and I’d be overseeing a project that I started. That’s pretty qualified.

2- A large research university that will be nameless but it’s a name everybody would recognize, doing what I’ve done for a decade and for which I have AAA references- again, I won’t be falsely modest, I’m damned good at what I do.

3- A small out of the way liberal arts institution in the Carolinas that has an excellent reputation and is an area I’d love to live in.

I have not gotten an interview at any one of the three institutions. If it were because of the economy I wouldn’t be that upset (not at the institutions anyway). If it required something I don’t have- a Ph.D. or whatever- I wouldn’t be upset. If the pool of applicants was just so freaking stellar that I didn’t get offered the job- well, it’d sting a little- but I wouldn’t be that upset. What upsets me is the reason(s) I haven’t even gotten to the interview stage- essentially a variation on the same reason (1,2, & 3 correlate to the 1,2, & 3 positions above):

  1. The Director of Institutional Equity and Diversity (DIED is the acronym though I don’t think they’ve thought it through to the irony) has suspended the search, not because the position has lost funding but because the pool of applicants was not diverse enough.

  2. This particular position, though it said so absofuckinglutely nowhere in the advertisements, is specifically for minorities. (The ad said “minorities strongly encouraged to apply”, but it did not say “no whites need apply”, which is really more honest.)

  3. Exact quote: “Preference will be given to applicants from historically underrepresented heritages”.

Okay… how to put this…

I HATE SAYING THIS, being a liberal Southerner you have no idea how much I hate saying this because 90% of the time it’s the phrase that precedes a racist diatribe, but… I’ll say it anyway: I AM NOT A RACIST. Really, I’m not. Oh I won’t say that I’m 100% free of any prejudices, nobody is, but never one time has it made the slightest difference to me in who I would hire, who I like or dislike, who I’ll trust or not trust, etc… I’ve worked with/lived around/been friends & enemies with people of all demographics enough to know that ultimately people are people and there have been people of all demographics who are wonderful and people of all demographics who are worthless. I’ve worked for a Fundamentalist Baptist Grandma whose political/religious/social views I found absolutely loathsome, and yet I thought she was one of the best supervisors I ever had and we genuinely liked & respected each other (we weren’t paid to agree on politics and religion) and I’ve worked for liberal white gay guys who I genuinely liked but thought were completely incompetent as supervisors. I’m completely professional in how I view people in the workplace.

The college where I currently work is about 50/50 black/white and students range from slightly dummer than oysters to very bright, students from housing projects and students from upper middle class families, students who literally have to ask “what’s a mouse?” to experienced programmers, from under 20 years of age to over 20 years my senior, and I can assure you that never once did I have one- at least not to my knowledge and not who was rational- hesitate for a second to ask my professional assistance. In fact, I sometimes wish they would be intimidated or alienated as I’d be able to accomplish something without getting interrupted 15 times (small library so I’m on the desk whenever I’m there). I don’t think they see me as demographics (white, fat, 40s, possibly gay [I’m open in so far as if someone asks I’ll tell but I don’t advertise it], other) and I’d think they deserved to fail if they did hesitate to ask because they don’t want to deal with 40-something old fat gay white guys.

That’s why I don’t understand why the fuck any library feels the need for the demographics of their library staff to look like or exceed in diversity the student body. I completely understand non discrimination policies of course, but if the best candidate is a 350 pound Hispanic woman, I’m going to hire her. If the best candidate is a gay white male, I’m going to hire him. If the best candidate is [insert any demographic here], I’m going to hire him/her. (The only time I’ve ever let a person’s appearance matter was when I was on a search committee for an archivist and a woman came to the interview with visible tattoos and facial piercings; this was a highly visible “face of the library” position where the person would have to interact with a lot of very conservative business people and local citizens and I had misgivings about how well that would work [especially considering that people look better at job interviews than at any time thereafter], but even then- if I thought she’d have been the best, I’d have hired her [luckily another person had a better background]).

To me the best candidate is the person who will

1- Do the basics of the job well, preferably extremely well
2- Get along with others while they do it (i.e. do they seem like they’d be hard to work with)
3- How quickly they can think on their feet
4- (I’m extremely concerned with a person’s demeanor- are they warm/friendly/outgoing or standoffish/reserved/cold seeming/patronizing

I’ll admit that a good customer service persona and sense of humor can outweigh an impressive CV since this is as much a customer service occupation as being a bartender is and I’ll take a person who has a MLS from Padooka Tech but seems most likely to assist a student and not make them feel stupid for asking how a microfilm machine works everyday of the week before I’ll take someone who seems about as warm as Hannibal Lecter but has written 30 articles and has a Ph.D. from Princeton. However, I don’t see this as a prejudice because it has nothing to do with demographics but is completely job related.

So I don’t understand why the fuck it matters what race or ethnic background or what the fuck ever the candidate is. It’s also patronizing as all fuck: are you saying that because this librarian is Chinese/black/of Chickasaw & Paraguayan heritage that it means that students of that persuasion are going to automatically relate to them better? Because if you think that’s true, you’re probably stupid, and if it is true, then by your own words one of the things college is supposed to teach students is how to interact with ‘diverse people’.

And call it what you want, they’re talking about race when they speak of minorities: I don’t think anybody really thinks they’re looking for Jews, Scientologists, Quebecois or lesbians. As mentioned I’m an openly gay narcoleptic atheist from the Alabama boondocks, that’s pretty goddamned rare- if you met another one in the interview process I’d really like to add them to my Facebook friends. Here in the South (which all these universities are), race is one of the least divisive things to teenagers today: 90% of them probably had teachers and teammates and friends of different races in their schools, and my gayness and rural background is probably far more alien to them than the Chinese woman from metro Atlanta or the middle class black guy from Pennsylvania, but I personally don’t think my demos should work for or against me anymore than those of the other’s should.

And yet another irony: non-whites constitute about 10% of librarians; it’s just not a popular profession among minorities, and why that is I don’t know, but those who are non-white and in the field and with experience generally don’t want to go to campuses in the sticks in the first place as evidenced by the fact that institution 1 specifically said that they didn’t get enough diversity of candidates.

Another irony is that the three public institutions that I applied to: not a single one has “sexual orientation” in their anti discrimination policy. And of course this is political and financial; oh, they love to talk about diversity, but… let’s not offend the Family Values guys in the legislature when they’re deciding on budgets.

In any case, I guess the short version is, Affirmative Action (by whatever name) sucks. A person should be hired based on their qualifications. And don’t do drugs.

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I’m sorry, Sampiro - that truly sucks. I have tremendous respect for good librarians, especially ones who can actually teach what they know. I’m a student; someone who can make me better at research is worth their weight in the precious metal of their choice.

I’m surprised that one of these schools explicitly said that only minorities would be considered for their position. I’m not a lawyer, and I’m not an affirmative action/employment law guy - but that sounds terribly unkosher. Public schools can certainly do non-quota based affirmative action for students - but a flat-out bar on job applicants of a certain race sounds rather more severe. Have you considered talking to the local ACLU chapter, or a friendly law prof at your current institution? (If you have a law school, I mean).

3

If Flannery O’Connor had lived longer, been born forty years later, been a chubby gay man with a sense of humor, she could have written a style called Southern Alabama Mendacious Prose In Righteous Order instead of Southern Gothic. Here at the SDMB we call that style SAMPIRO, by its acronym. Seriously, you are wasting your talents as a mere librarian. Write your life story and just change the names. You will be as rich as your sister.

4

Samp, I can solve your problem with one word…

blackface.
And if it doesn’t get you the job, you can still write a stupid hit comedy screenplay about the attempt.

5

Can one be “particularly unique”? It sounds redundant. Redundant.

6

  1. Draw the lines closely enough, and we all belong to a minority of some kind.

  2. We all have grievances of some kind as well. This is especially true is we mix historic grievances into the stew.

  3. Weighing these is problematic, especially as a direct benefit to someone designed to address a historic wrong may cause more resentment among others.

7

I thought this bore repeating.

8

Seconded!

9

Could you go for a sex change op and claim oppressed female status? Easy-peasy…
That sucks and I agree with you. Sadly, too many places (but I doubt libraries) tend to discriminate on the basis of race, so we have misguided and dysfunctional attempts at compensating for that.

In (graduated 2008) my MLS cohort, there were (I think–I didn’t really pay attention) maybe 4-5 males out of 100+ people. Of those men, 1 was black. Of the 95+ women, 3 were black. I think we may have had one Asian woman, too. The rest of us were middle class to upper middle class, white women. I don’t think we had very many Jewish women, either.
I don’t know the answer. How can you specify diversity to a profession where diversity may mean from Nebraska, instead of Indiana? MLS tends to be white, liberal women. (or at least the programs here in the Midwest).

10

Sadly, both public libraries and colleges were caught up in the Jim Crow era, so while most people working in these libraries aren’t complicit in this discrimination, as institutions many of them did more than their share of discrimination not so long ago.

11

“Diversity” is still the raging buzzword on college campuses. It’s certainly a big deal on the applications. You have to declare that you are able to work with a diverse population…which begs the question: Why would you be applying for a job in an area like, say, southern California–one of the most diverse places in the U.S.–if you weren’t able to deal with diversity on a daily basis?

A colleague on another campus reported having been told by an insider that she shoudn’t bother applying for a full time position since she wasn’t foreign born, lesbian, a single mom, disabled, and under age 35.

The age factor has me wondering as well. A number of the new hires on my campus are in their 30s and have only worked there for a few years. A lot of us who got no interview have worked there longer and are also in their 40s. Is there something to this? Perhaps so.

12

You know, I can understand, I suppose, their desire to hire a racial minority- colleges need to be able to show diversity in order to attract diverse students. One of the biggest criticisms I hear from the non-white students on my campus is that this campus is “too white”- not that they feel openly or even subtly discriminated against, but that there is a simple lack of perspective about race because the student body and faculty are too homogeneous.

I’m not defending their calling off the search, of course, but I do see their desire here. And if a position that has nothing to do with race is off-limits to you specifically because of your racial background, well, that does sound like race discrimination, and I might even contact the school’s main office (or, if I felt nasty, the school’s local paper’s editor).

13

Yes, but we are talking about today (and Jim Crow days are not “not so long ago” now). Today, most librarians are overwhelmingly liberal in political outlook–and even those who are not, would not discriminate on the basis of race etc. Except in this case, it seems the librarys are…

14

Is it possible for a campus to be too black or too asian in the same sense?

15

And thank goodness for that, because the title you did choose is the best I’ve seen in a long time.

16

Students also say things like “the dog ate my homework” and “I missed the test because I was sick.” In other words, just because people say things doesn’t mean that their concerns are legitimate or that any policies should be changed to address those concerns.

I agree with Sampiro–one should hire the best person for the job without regard to any minority status. This is the goal we should be striving for. We will never get there by definition by sanctioning discrimination (i.e., affirmative action).

17

Seems to work okay for Grambling.

18

I hate to say this, but this will never change until a white male who is eminently qualified but cannot get a job due to his race sues an institution for racial discrimination.

That is the ONLY thing that will ever change it.

19

Well but if you didn’t have some little adversity in your life, Sampiro, the rest of us would miss the rants. And the truths: “And call it what you want, they’re talking about race when they speak of minorities: I don’t think anybody really thinks they’re looking for Jews, Scientologists, Quebecois or lesbians.” Really.

20

I know you didn’t ask for “post your discrimination stories here” but:

In the early '80s I worked as the night copy desk for one of the Denver dailies (back when we had two). I was hired as “contract labor” because I wasn’t qualified for permanent hire because I didn’t have daily experience. (Yet, they let me do the job! And I did a great job.). I had been there about 3 months when my supervisor left to go to the other daily paper. He said they had a position open there, and now I had daily experience, and urged me to apply. So I did. I figured I’d get it because, hey, the supervisor asked me to apply!

Time passed, and finally I called him. He said they had to post the position. Then he said they were looking for a person of a background underrepresented in the industry–which at the time meant anything but white. I still might have a chance, because females, while not particularly underrepresented in the industry, were underrepresented in the job title.

So they hired a woman of a minority race whose “daily” experience was in BFE, and my old supervisor had to work with her. He said she was not particularly bad but my work was much better, and twice as fast (which is important).

I’m not really happy when I lose out to a better educated or more experienced person, or someone who can do the job better. But this pissed me off.

A short time later my kid’s school was electing parents to be on the CDM committee (collaborative decision making? something like that). My husband, who’d been really active in the PTA, decided to go for it. They had three positions, and they had three applicants. So, no problem, right?

Wrong. They sent a notice home saying they were disappointed that no minority people had applied and they were reopening the position in the hopes that some minority parents would step forward.

While I can appreciate this, I will point out that, in this inner-city school, my race was the actual minority. Also that minority parents had already had the opportunity to step forward. Well, once the school authorities announced that that was pretty much all they wanted, they got some minority applicants.

But, sheesh! If we’re going to not discriminate, then let’s by god not discriminate!