Down With The Cool Kids

So the University is still allowing Abercrombie and Fitch to come and advertise for jobs in the careers fair after a poll by Impact showed that 78% of the students asked don’t want them here.

WHY? Well it’s all because of some comments made by rubbery-faced Abercrombie CEO Mike Jeffries (below) in 2006:

“In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids,” he says. “Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes], and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely.”

Over the past few weeks, these comments have resurfaced after a youtube video criticising the company went viral on Youtube:

Jeffries offered an apology, but it didn’t come across all that well. An article in the Huffpost documents some of the backlash from the apology:

Some people got a bit personal… 

According to Impact, the Uni has released a statement defending their decision to allow  A&F to attend the fair:

“A&F is one of 40 employers attending the Summer Careers fair, has attended fairs in the past, and is popular with Nottingham students as a graduate recruiter. . .

We do not think it is appropriate to withdraw the opportunities to those students interested in a possible career with this company on the basis of one person’s ill-considered remarks.

Our students are adults and are able to make their own decisions about whether or not they engage with any particular organisation. As such, we don’t think it’s appropriate to rescind A&F’s registration at the fair.”

Sounds about right, especially when you consider that only 495 people voted (1.5% of the student population).

James McCoy, a Nottingham Uni student offered a voice of reason which reflected the majority of comments by Notts students on Facebook:

“If the invitation is retracted, we are quite literally sacrificing students’ future possibilities. And for what? To show that we don’t really like the CEO or the target market of A&F? It’s just petty, and more importantly shows a pretty warped sense of priorities.”