Campus Republicans at the University of California Berkeley have reportedly received threats after creating a novel form of protests against California schools considering race in admissions. The students created a sale of baked goods priced according to their race: white men for $2.00, Asian men for $1.50, Latino men for $1.00, black men for $0.75 and Native American men for $0.25. All women will get $0.25 off those prices.
The Associated Students of the University of California, held an emergency Senate meeting late Sunday to pass a resolution that “condemns the use of discrimination whether it is in satire or in seriousness by any student group.”
I have difficulty with a condemnation (and certainly physical threats by some individuals) over satire. There is a good faith disagreement over race criteria in admissions. This group found a way to dramatize the unfairness and arbitrariness of such policies. It is not actual discrimination but a satire to drive home their point. What do you think?
UPDATE: if the bake sale was not a hit with some people as a political idea, it proved a great marketing ideal. The bake sale sold out.
Source: CNN
Robert Shibley of FIRE discusses affirmative action bake sells here: http://thefire.org/article/5504.html and notes how FIRE has defended actions taken against the various students many times, including at other UC campuses.
He also notes:
The suppression of this type of protest of affirmative action at NEIU is particularly galling, however, considering that the university’s Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance student group has in fact held a similar “pay equity” bake sale to protest the income gap between men and women. (FIRE has never heard any reports of a pay equity bake sale being prohibited by a university—if you know of any recent instances, please write us.) The fact is that both protests must be allowed on a public university campus like that of NEIU. The argument most commonly used by universities to attack these protests is that selling baked goods for different prices based on sex, race, etc., is illegal discrimination. But these students aren’t setting up a Jim Crow Krispy Kreme—they’re engaging in a day-long political protest that uses discrimination in cookie pricing to protest race preferences in admissions. And from the amount of debate that these protests stir up, it looks like they’re pretty effective in stirring debate on the topic among students.
One final thought: on campuses today, many students are subjected to mandatory “diversity orientation” programs that use discrimination against people on the basis of arbitrary characteristics (such as having blue eyes) to make a point about the unpleasantness and unfairness of race or gender discrimination. Many of these mandatory programs are odious and coercive, and should be ended. Yet if such programs are widely accepted in academia (and they are), there can be no basis for claiming that a real political protest such as an affirmative action or pay equity bake sale is illegal discrimination.
Professor Turley, I think you are wrong on one point.
What the Republican students are doing is discrimination, it is a dramatized satirical discrimination, but fwiw it is discrimination and that is precisely their point.
BTW, here’s a UCLA Faculty Association blog post about the bake sell:
http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2011/09/uc-berkeley-bake-sale-controversy.html
mespo, you are the last person at this forum to be calling out others for their insensitivity. Anyone that calls out a person as a “gay porky pig” should stfu about tossing accusations of insensitivity and demeaning around.
But once more, you are wrong even on the merits of your argument:
I think you have the right to be insensitive, demeaning, historically blind, and callous, but no right to be free from the scorn of those who aren’t.
Two groups have a fundamental disagreement, not about discrimination, but about remedies.
And in fact the California Voters through Proposition 206, took up the position that UC admissions had to be race blind. And the voters, by direct vote, directly voted on that issue and voted directly to put that in place. THAT WAS 1996. (by direct vote actually)
Governor Brown went to court over this in 2009, and in 2010, the California Supreme court rejected his arguments that portions of 206 were unconstitutional.
Now in 2011, SB 185 is trying to overturn through the legislative process what the California Voters had voted into place just 15 years earlier, and which the California Supreme Court had agree was constitutional just a year before.
I would say that is a terribly ripe issue for debate.
According to your criticism, there is no way for the Republican group on campus to make any argument about this or hold any discussion without your claiming they are insensitive, demeaning, historically blind, or callous.
THERE, you just ended the debate by not agreeing to listen, and by pre-deciding the issue.
Wow, some progressive you are, and sadly, you are the very model of a modern major generally proclaimed progressive twit.
I am of the opinion….that….
mespo….
That was good…
rafflaw,
I’d second that!
I couldn’t say it better than what Mespo said in the first response!
JohnnyC,
I see we think alike. I should have read your comment before I posted mine at 10:13 am.
Samatha Lee:
If I reading your comment correctly, I suggest you have a lunch date with Roco. As to your point about admonishments, obviously you’re unaware of the notion of false dichotomy. The correct response from the purchaser from the historically discriminated upon group should have been that, as a matter of dignity and equality, he/she had no interest in purchasing anything from a bigot wearing false victimhood on his sleeve. These conservative students remind me of the Shah of Iran, who, after being deposed, complained that he was “forced” to wait for commoners in the Bahamas and Mexico even as he received his meal in posh restaurants. Why he never had to do that before! More is the pity for this young nobility and shame on them for their belief that their home run lives had nothing to do with the at bats of their ancestors and the cosy relations they enjoy with the umpires who look remarkably similar to them.
Do you see how watering down perfectly simple matters of decency with arcane points of dubious logic can be just as insulting as this price list?
From the CNN article:
Tim Wise, author of the book “White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son,” calls the bake sale a “sarcastic and rather smarmy slap at people of color.”
“There are a lot of ways to make a point about your disagreement with affirmative action,” Wise told Lemon Saturday night.
“I get the joke,” he continued. “How very original. It’s been done for 15 years. The point that I think needs to be made … is that by the time anyone steps on a college campus … there has already been 12- to 13-years of institutionalized affirmative action for white folks, that is to say, racially embedded inequality, which has benefited those of us who are white. And it’s only at the point of college admissions that these folks seem to get concerned with color consciousness.”
I wonder if campus Republicans in the Ivy League would support the same kind of “satirical” bake sales that would give away baked goods free to legacy students.
Roco:
“If the liberal students were smart they would have found a bunch of native American women and “bought” the entire production and then had a bake sale of their own and used the profits to fund their club.”
*************************
If you define “smart” as a the belief that the maniacal acquisition of money overrides any sense of principle and trumps everything else you’d be right. But then again that would make them “conservative” wouldn’t it? You win again, Roco!
The UC system goes by SAT scores more than any other admissions program.. They want five SAT scores including a couple of SAT II tests. My daughter was admitted to UCLA out of state so I know the system.
What is the problem with this?
If the liberal students were smart they would have found a bunch of native American women and “bought” the entire production and then had a bake sale of their own and used the profits to fund their club.
Leave it to libs to go pass a law or a resolution instead of actually doing something. But I guess they felt good.
Boston Globe 2010 article on capping Asian enrollment:
Do colleges redline Asian-Americans?
Since only 4 percent of the students at Berkeley are African American and less than 1 percent are Native Americans, how much of an advantage have these groups received? It does not look like much to me. Women are over represented on most campuses as more graduate high school with higher grade points.Women usually receive no special consideration in college admissions.
This has been done several times before.
If prices are to reflect the SAT score thresholds for admission by different racial groups, the “price” for Asians should be highest on the list. I believe that UC admissions, however, are race-blind.
I think Democratic students should set up their own bake sale: Whites of a certain class get everything free (legacy rules!) while all others are charged more than they can afford to pay (capitalism rules).
Brilliant way to start a conversation over the issue I say. If a “discounted” segment of that population gets offended by paying less, it’s an opportunity to ask that individual why they are offended and go from there. “Do you feel you deserve to pay a lesser price than others?” [uncomfortable silence] “No.” “Do you see how admition guidelines can be as insulting as this price list?”
I think you have the right to be insensitive, demeaning, historically blind, and callous, but no right to be free from the scorn of those who aren’t.