Country Views & Woke Corporate Fluff: Welcome to UNE

The University of New England is a public university whose main campus is in the regional city of Armidale, mid-way between Sydney and Brisbane. As with most universities these days, you have to highlight people’s race, gender, and sexual orientation at all times. Because nothing screams “progress” quite like ensuring everyone’s racial identity is meticulously catalogued and verified.

They have something called the Oorala Aboriginal Centre where Aboriginal students are guided by a community of experts (what a relief) and where, among other things, they can get free tutoring. In a modern university, I’d hope all students could get free tutoring without having to tick the appropriate identity box.

Naturally, student and staff sexual orientation is at the forefront with their LGBT Ally Network and their grandly titled Queer Allyship Steering Committee “Being Myself at UNE” report.

Also, just in case you were worried, they are a “COVID Safe Campus”. Truly comforting. I don’t think I’d want to study at a campus that risked exposing students to fresh air or moving on from 2021.

But today’s focus is on their wokified job application process, which ensures that merit takes a back seat to the ultimate goal of progressive groupthink, ideological conformity, and administrative virtue-signalling. Thank you to the viewer who sent this in.

Just for the sake of example, let’s click on their “Executive recruitment” page. Prepare to be utterly astounded, because the absolute first order of business isn’t corporate strategy or academic excellence—it’s an Acknowledgement of Country. It’s reassuring to know that even at the highest levels of institutional management, ideological box-ticking takes precedence over actually running the university.

But let’s go back and look at “Current positions vacant”. Of course, you’re met with pictures of lots of happy people working at UNE. But if you actually want a job, there is currently only one available across the entire institution: “Senior Lecturer in Rural Medicine”. The role will net you a cool $135,000-plus, not to mention the highly prestigious perk of “Free on-campus parking”. Phew, what a relief! I was deeply concerned that a low-income earner on a measly six-figure income wouldn’t be able to afford to park their electric vehicle in a small regional hub.

They also offer something called “Queer Space”. I don’t know if they’re referring to the parking bays or a separate dimension entirely, but it sure tells you everything you need to know about their institutional priorities.

Naturally, the job ad features all the usual boilerplate fluff: “UNE: A Diverse and Inclusive Workplace,” “strength comes from our diversity,” and the obligatory notice that they “warmly encourage applications from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, people with disability, culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds,” and of course, the LGBT community.

Whatever happened to a simple, five-word alternative like: “Anyone is welcome to apply”? Apparently, that doesn’t keep the HR department occupied. But let’s click on “Apply Now”.

Of course, the online application form immediately subjects you to the usual woke rituals, with things such as your “Preferred Pronoun”. Amusingly, there are only three options: He, She, or They. What if I want to be identified as an abstract concept during the interview?

More interestingly, apart from your surname, filling out your gender is strictly mandatory. And I thought we were trying to eliminate systemic bias from recruitment? The options available are Female/Woman, Male/Man, Non-Binary, or “Different Term”. You know, just in case you identify as something that defies the laws of both biology and English grammar—like a root vegetable.

On the form, they also collect Equal Employment Opportunity information. Because of course, collecting highly specific personal data won’t possibly affect the outcome of your application. For example, they ask for your date of birth, your disability status, and your ethnicity.

Interestingly, the valid ethnicities explicitly listed include Aboriginal, Chinese, Filipino, and Taiwanese. It’s bold of a regional university to wade into international diplomacy—defining Taiwan as a completely separate ethnicity is certainly a choice that would make the Chinese Communist Party’s blood boil. Meanwhile, if you happen to be a regular old Anglo Australian, you don’t even get your own box—you simply count as “Other”.

So, if you want the quiet serenity of working in a regional hub, but you desperately want the woke lifestyle of a capital city, perhaps UNE Armidale is for you. It really is the best of both worlds: fresh country air and free parking for your electric vehicle, combined with the sterile, administrative identity-based box-ticking of an elite metropolitan bureaucracy.

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Allégro by Emmit Fenn