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Sonia Kruger attracting headlines (again) over scholarship comments

Despite questions about adequate time to raise complex subjects, Sonia Kruger says an LGBTI scholarship is "reverse discrimination."

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpXfcq1vzpE

Fresh from acknowledging that her call to ban Muslim immigration was “a complex issue… that cannot be fully discussed on a simple TV segment,” Sonia Kruger has attracted headlines once again for comments during Today‘s Mixed Grill segment.

Discussing a scholarship program for LGBTI high school students, she said the program should be based on skills not sexuality.

The $7000 scholarship from the Australian Business and Community Network Scholarship Foundation is awarded to Year 10 student who identifies as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or intersex.

The scholarship application form, which must be filled out by the school principal, has questions about gender and sexual orientation including a “prefer not to say” option.

Kruger questioned whether the scholarship was “reverse discrimination.”

“I don’t think it should have anything to do with the awarding of a scholarship,” Kruger said. “I think scholarships should be given on merit.”

Co-host David Campbell said one scholarship was “no big deal” given other scholarships are awarded to socially-disadvantaged and skilled students.

“Kids’ sexuality nowadays is different now to even when we were in high school,” he said.

“There are tonnes of other scholarships that are set aside for kids who are supremely talented.”

Chris Pycroft from the NSW Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby told News Corp, “The research shows that the significant majority of these high school students do experience abuse because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

“The impacts of homophobia, discrimination, harassment is often not considered and the implications are not often realised.”

SameSame reports the scholarship foundation’s application guide discloses that a “targeted scholarship” for a student identifying as LGBTI is being offered “in addition” to its regular scholarships.

Last week Karl Stefanovic apologised for comments offensive to the Transgender community.

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14 Responses

  1. Its all about clicks. Say something controversial, make headlines. The thinking is that people will tune in. You might get a few but after a while people will realise its all fake and run a mile. Its a bit like the women’s mags with all their crazy headlines. It has not worked, sales are nose diving. Short tem gain but long term pain. Reputations will never be recovered.

  2. I’ve had gay friends beat up and thrown out on the streets struggling to find a meal whilst trying to get an education. I’m sorry Sonia, you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.

  4. Surely Sonia’s inclusion in the ‘Mixed Grill’ segment is tacit approval from her bosses to keep airing her opinions, no matter how complex or sensitive the issue. I don’t watch Today, but from the few articles I have read, ‘Mixed Grill’ seems ill-conceived.

  5. What on earth has gotten into Sonia, she’s showing a really ugly side of herself. I hope someone sits her down and explains to her about the high rates of suicide about LGBTI teens. I wonder if she understands that most scholarships have criteria, they aren’t all based purely on academic merit. A lot of them have race, gender, age, location, religious, economic and many other types of requirements for different scholarships.

    1. Also, I hope they haven’t decided to use Sonia saying controversial things as a weekly publicity machine after seeing how much press it got last time.

  8. Totally agree with her. Anything that excludes some but includes others is, well, – Discrimination: “Treatment or consideration based on class or category, such as race or gender, rather than individual merit; partiality or prejudice” – Free Dictionary.

    1. Yeah there is no such thing as reverse discrimination…….just discrimination……and who is to say what the orientation of kids who get scholarships is. Such a lot of prejudice by vociferous folk right now, jumping on every comment as if it is destroying the world…..a real paranoid bunker mentality

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