Posted on 12/24/2003 6:46:18 AM PST by Sub-Driver
College bake sales by conservatives who oppose affirmative-action spark conflict
By MELANTHIA MITCHELL The Associated Press 12/24/2003, 7:13 a.m. ET
SEATTLE (AP) — Campus bake sales by conservatives who oppose affirmative-action are cooking up discord — and complaints about restrictions on free speech.
Organizers charge white students $1 for a cookie, while blacks and other minorities pay 25 to 95 cents. Doughnuts are available for 50 cents to everyone except Asian Americans and whites, who cannot purchase them.
Unfair? So is affirmative action, organizers contend.
"It's a good example of what affirmative action does, judging people based on race," said Jason Chambers, president of the University of Washington College Republicans, which held a sale in October that shut down when some students began attacking the booth.
"People were upset. People did feel offended," said Anthony Rose, president of the UW Black Student Union. "You see something like that, you feel itemized."
In September, Southern Methodist University shut down a similar event by the Young Conservatives of Texas.
Similar bake sales have been held since February at the University of California-Berkeley, the University of Texas at Austin, Texas A&M University, Northwestern University near Chicago, the University of Michigan and Indiana University.
A conservative watchdog group in Philadelphia contends some universities are violating students' constitutional freedoms by restricting the protests.
"They cannot defend in public what they have done to the First Amendment at the University of Washington," said Thor Halvorssen, CEO of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. "There is no question that the administration would never censor a group of students holding a peaceful protest in favor of affirmative action."
The UW College Republicans' Oct. 8 bake sale took place about the same time as a step performance by a traditionally black fraternity and drew plenty of attention.
Chambers said students engaged in a couple hours of good, heated discussion, until some began yelling and tearing down signs, even throwing cookies at members of the conservative group.
"I really thought that everyone on campus could maintain their composure and have a civil discussion without getting violent. I was really surprised that it went that far," Chambers said.
UW spokesman Robert Roseth said the administration had nothing to do with the shutdown. The group's members dismantled the booth voluntarily after the office of student affairs asked them if they wished to take it down, he said.
Rose, a 20-year-old junior majoring in American Ethnic Studies, backs up the university's account.
"It was for their own safety," Rose said. "They shut themselves down."
In a letter responding to the melee, Board of Regents President Jerry Grinstein expressed disappointment with the sale.
"The statements of the UW College Republicans in putting on a bake sale about affirmative action were tasteless, divisive and hurtful to many members of the university community," he wrote.
In the incident at Southern Methodist University, organizers described the event as a bake sale — not an anti-affirmative-action protest — in their application for event space, said Jim Caswell, vice president for student affairs.
Had the university known it was a demonstration, a more appropriate location would have been chosen, Caswell said. A staff member thought the friction was likely to escalate, and stopped the event, he said.
"I think it's important to note that freedom of expression was not the issue, it was the hostile environment created by the Young Conservatives' failure to fully disclose their intentions," Caswell said.
With Jesse jackson.
I've had police 'ask me if I'd like to pullover' & I guess I did it voluntarily.
But as best I understand it, 'the administration' did have something to do with it.
That and the guns (or expulsion, probation, arrest, having cookies thrown at you and your booth torn down), they had something to do with it too.
Nothing quite like the polite threat of force to resolve political (or traffic) matters.
Of course, he can exercise that right "badly" if he chooses to do so. Perhaps it was an inadvertent mistake, a hip-shot slip of the tongue. I sure hope so.
It's just that spokesmen for any cause are far more effective when they speak and write articulately - and when it's a cause I believe in personally, I want them to be as articulate and effective as possible. Can you imagine Patrick Henry making such a statement ??
Thor's gaffe is more than a 'grammatical imperfection,' it is a complete malaprop a la Yogi Berra.
Lighten up - where's your sense of humor ??
Colleges have stepped up to the challenge and realized that not all of their lib'ral arts graduates will end up in the culinary trades. In response to feedback from their alumni, "language arts" classes have included training in the following arenas:
Nutritional Distribution:
"Can I start you out with a yummy appetizer?"
"How would you like that cooked?"
"Ranch, Thousand Island, Blue Cheese or Italian?"
Micro-banking:
"Do you have a club card?"
"Can I see your driver's license?"
"Would you like to fill out a credit application and save 10%?"
Small Systems Manager:
"Thank you for calling _________; how may I direct your call?"
"Paging _______, you have a call on line 1"
Affirmative action is "tasteless, divisive and hurtful" to all members of our society, particularly those who are believed to be unable to succeed without it (and taught to believe that about themselves) and who will never have the chance to find out what they are truly capable of on their own.
It is so extremely condescending to those it purports to help and is or should be just as offensive to them (or more so) as it is to the people against whom it discriminates.
OH MY GOD. Hilarious (and pretty damn disturbing.)
Indeed! In the spirit of "Dan's Bake Sale", the dynamics are simple. Selling goods on an open market with the only restriction being the limits due to color or gender.
If all Young Republicans would have a "national" bake sale at their respective colleges on a fixed date, it might receive more attention.
One observation: if one of these so-called liberals takes to hostile actions, that means that they young Pubs are making headway. The idea would be to take a page out of the leftist manual and agitate the Libs - keep it up!
These bake sales are offensive, they are meant to be. The bake sales are saying to minorities, "you need charity" and "we don't need charity, which implies, we are better than you".
But affirmative action should be even more offensive. AA says to minorities, "you are inferior and need an edge".
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