Employer Says He Has Stopped Hiring Ivy League Grads: They’re Too ‘Woke,’ Too ‘Self-Important,’ or Have Been Trained to Stay Silent When it Matters

In years gone by if you had a degree from an Ivy League school, you owned the keys to the kingdom. Are they still valuable today?

One employer says that they aren’t.

R.R. Reno, editor of First Things, a well-known religious public policy magazine says he has practically stopped hiring people with a degree from the Ivy League. He says they are either too woke, too self-important or they do not speak up when it matters.

There was a time when the Ivy League concentrated on education but today they focus on political correctness.

I guess that these are the same people who demand their employer turn down business from companies they don’t like.

If they did that to me, I would hand them all an application for Wendy’s and tell them the choice was theirs to make. I always believed if I was going to hang it would be with a rope of my own making.

Reno says that woke employees and their radical thinking are a problem but that there are many more who refuse to talk when it matters:

If students can be traumatized by “insensitivity” on that leafy campus, then they’re unlikely to function as effective team members in an organization that has to deal with everyday realities. And in any event, I don’t want to hire someone who makes inflammatory accusations at the drop of a hat.

Student activists don’t represent the majority of students. But I find myself wondering about the silent acquiescence of most students. They allow themselves to be cowed by charges of racism and other sins. I sympathize. The atmosphere of intimidation in elite higher education is intense. But I don’t want to hire a person well-practiced in remaining silent when it costs something to speak up.

Reno says some students have been “socialized to panic over pseudocrises.” Reno says that these graduates as employees focus on equity and inclusion rather than putting their nose to the grindstone and working.

He says he now concentrates on graduates from smaller schools with a good reputation or graduates of state colleges.

Reno is probably not being close to the only person now using this method and I would bet there are liberal bosses who avoid hiring the woke as well.