Public universities are offering huge sums of money as salaries for new positions specifically catering to LGBT individuals.

Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania is currently seeking a coordinator for its “Pride Center.” The incumbent will be paid up to $41,000 annually and will be charged with duties such as creating and delivering programs to provide “outreach” and “community building” for LGBT students and faculty, as well as their “allies.”

“Research interests relating to LGBTQIA+ people with multiple marginalized identities"

The selected candidate will also be responsible for developing workshops on “LGBTQ+ specific topics” such as “SAFE ZONE trainings,” and for planning celebrations of National Coming Out Day, Trans Remembrance Day, and LGBTQ+ history month. He or she will also help organize the university’s “lavender graduation,” a separate graduation ceremony held for students who identify as LGBT.

Additional duties for the coordinator will include ensuring the “inclusion and visibility” of all LGBT students, staff, and faculty, as well as working with administration to ensure that university policies and curricula are “LGBTQ+” inclusive.

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A similar opening at Virginia Commonwealth University promises up to $86,000 each for a maximum of three scholars who will be chosen to “promote” LGBTQIA+ “empowerment, inclusion, and equity.” The LGBTQIA+ visiting scholars will be charged with conducting “translational research” and will “promote empowerment, inclusion, and equity for LGBTQIA+ people with multiple marginalized identities.”

The chosen researchers will be required to advise the university on the creation of its own center “focused on LGBTQIA research and advocacy,” as well as to teach a course during the academic year. The job listing notes that successful applicants should have “research interests relating to LGBTQIA+ people with multiple marginalized identities,” as well as “lived experience and/or service that informs worldviews and/or perspectives about minority group status, to include race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, religion, class, and disability.”

“I certainly don't think this is a valid use of university resources,” VCU alum Thomas Wagner told Campus Reform. “Students shouldn't wonder why tuition rates continuously increase when every year the school hires more professors to teach a specific political ideology.”

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“It is sad to see postmodern philosophy and identity politics framing the academic curriculum,” Wagner said. “Hopefully the school returns to teaching people how to think, and not what to think.”

Campus Reform reached out to both VCU and Shippensburg University but did not receive a response in time for publication.

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