Donald Larsson writes:



>If, for instance, a committee member discovered that a candidate had 

>created a blog denying the Holocaust, it would be very likely to 

>have some effect on that candidate's chances, even if the job 

>description had no direct relationship to the blog content.



The key phrase here, IMHO, is 'If, for instance, a committee member 

discovered'.  Even though the humanitites-based academic study of 

film and broadcast media is a relatively small profession, I'd still 

be surprised if an interview panel (I presume this phrase is pretty 

much the UK equivalent of 'search committee') member would take it 

upon him- or herself to do the Google searching to find out if an 

applicant writes a blog about life, the universe and 

everything.  I've now been a member of two panels, and I didn't have 

the time to do that, let alone the inclination.  My judgements were 

based purely on the application documentation and what the candidates 

said during the interview.



>That's an extreme example...



Hence the reason I used a hypothetical example which is equally 

contradicted by the overwhelming majority of qualified professional 

opinion (i.e. someone contending that smoking tobacco is not a health 

hazard) but which isn't quite as notorious as Holocaust 

denial.  Anyone who publicly expresses a view of that extremity is 

likely to fall foul of one or more of the published criteria for the 

job spec, anyhow.  Holding, arguing and defending a rationally 

defensible but minority view is one thing (honestly, I know all about 

that, as a Conservative Party member working in a profession 

populated mainly with colleagues whose political views are somewhat 

to the left of Arthur Scargill's), but believing something which is 

contradicted by an overwhelming mass of empirical evidence in the 

belief that the evidence is all wrong must surely rule anyone out for 

a job, the basic skill for which is the ability to identify, analyse, 

draw conclusions from and communicate such evidence.  Anyone who 

denies that the Holocaust took place has shown a fundamental lack of 

ability to do those things, so I really don't think there's any 

danger that the kind of safeguards I'm describing in the application 

process would enable a Holocaust denier to get a job in a British university.



Leo 



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