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 ---- Online resources for film/TV studies may be found at ScreenSite http://www.ScreenSite.org