A New Kind of Social Justice Issue

When I set off to earn my master's degree, my thought was that my realistic, worst-case scenario afterward would be a job like the one I had before I got my higher degree. I figured there was a distinct possibility of no advancement and the same pay (plus or minus a reasonable percentage for starting out again), but that in the long-run, the master's degree would dissolve any potential ceilings for advancement. I figured the job market would welcome me back with a great resume that spans 15 years of constant and consistent performance and a solid set of in-demand degrees.

While I have been welcomed back and have found work, I find myself severely underemployed. I have sent out resume after resume to jobs that I am qualified for at the very least, and even "overqualified" for. Not many jobs actually need a master's degree -- but it should be a benefit to an application. After sitting on an interview committee and watching the ONLY candidate with an advanced degree in the technical skills that we were seeking get flushed on count of him being "overqualified," I realized something big: Job hunting and the way the job market works creates new kinds of social justice issues.

Social justice boils down to the necessity to combat discrimination against a person for any trait or condition that creates exemptions to their potential success. A useful definition I found online includes this:

In conditions of social justice, people are "not be discriminated against, nor their welfare and well-being constrained or prejudiced on the basis of gender, sexuality, religion, political affiliations, age, race, belief, disability, location, social class, socioeconomic circumstances, or other characteristic of background or group membership" (Toowoomba Catholic Education, 2006).

(http://gjs.appstate.edu/social-justice-and-human-rights/what-social-justice)

The part of the definition that lends to my argument is the "social class, socioeconomic circumstances, or other characteristic of background or group membership." Those with higher degrees are part of every single one of those items. Social class is often a function of education, socioeconomic circumstances doesn't necessarily just mean indigent, and those with higher degrees are definitely part of a group membership. Those with higher degrees are part of a group that are well educated, yet not necessarily part of a higher economic class privilege.

After hearing so much about "overqualified" while on the job market, I came to view this word as a hidden and pervasive social justice issue. Those who are overqualified are discriminated against -- by those in power and those in the position of hiring. In workplaces dominated by those with bachelor or lower degrees, "overqualified" is a word used to create a form of discrimination that eliminates someone on count of "too much education" rather than too little.

The space where this becomes a problem is when higher degrees end up broadly excluding a person from doing positions that they are well suited for and that they can do and do well. If a person is to apply for a job that requires a bachelor's degree, yet a person with a master's degree is flushed on count of being "overqualified," we have a major problem. That problem is the discrimination against a person for having "too much education."

The strange thing about this argument is that it flips the conventions on social justice. Social justice positions are built on the idea that there is a group that cannot be discriminated against -- the wealthy, the white, and the educated.

As a person on the job market with great experience and education, after being flushed from pile after pile of jobs that require a bachelor's degree, I can say with confidence that I am getting flushed because I am "overqualified." To not even be interviewed is an indicator that I was put into a pile of a very particular kind. After seeing the interview process where the guy in the room with a bachelor's degree was vehemently against hiring a guy with a master's degree on count of him being "overqualified" and because "he would buck the group dynamic by being too good at these tasks," I suggest that the problem is systemic and discriminatory. After being on countless interview committees in my previous life where this was the reason for flushing countless candidates, the problem is here and it is real.

I am now weary of those who wield overqualification as a word used to cleave candidates from an interview pile. What this does is sets the bar high, but the bar is intended to cleave both those too far below the bar and those above the bar. Those above the bar are well-educated, polished candidates and are being cut on count of a membership that they belong to -- a social class that is now exempted from positions because of their education. When did overqualification become such a negative thing? Why are those in power by majority and status quo (bachelor's degrees) able to shed both those below their status and those above? The problem is systemic, but because of our conventional views on social justice, those above the bar of status quo are somehow exempt from discrimination protection.

I now understand those using this word to be part of the institutional structure of mediocrity and idiocy. At what point in our social development did we decide that those who work too hard or are well educated are both targets of our discrimination and exempt from complaints of discrimination? The world is broken.