Another Half-Baked Bake Sale
By Byron LaMasters
Via the Houston Chronicle
Conservative Texas A&M University students, joining a rash of student groups around the country clamoring for attention to their stance against affirmative action, held a bake sale at which buyers were charged different prices depending on their race or gender. The students got the spotlight they craved, but the message they sent fell flat.
The A&M students, members of the Young Conservatives of Texas, sold cookies to "humans" for $2, to Asians for $1, to whites for 75 cents, to Hispanics for 25 cents and to blacks for 10 cents in protest of the new diversity office on the campus, where whites make up about 85 percent of the student population.
Actions like these reinforce the common misconception that affirmative action policies give academically unqualified minority students a get-into-college free card, and they ignore historical discrimination that denied nonwhites opportunities to be successful at any price, no matter their talents or intelligence. The Young Conservatives certainly managed to offend some of their fellow classmates, which is a good way to throw up barriers to inclusion and open exchange of ideas.
YCT could contradict charges that it is helping create a hostile campus environment by working with A&M's new diversity officer to attract and welcome nonwhite students in ways that don't offend their conservative sensibilities.
Thankfully, A&M officials did not shut down the bake sale. Administrators at some other schools overreacted to similar events. After all, the students have the right to free expression, even when the message offends.
Racial dialogue is good for Texas - we need it. But these bake sales by YCT are counterproductive. The Houston Chronicle correctly states that these bake sales held by YCT do nothing to further racial dialouge on campus. Instead they polarize the debate on affirmative action by implying that minorities are given special treatment so that unqualified people can attend college. Nothing could be further from the truth. Affirmative action is about using race as one of a large number of factors when considering applications.
Cross-posted on the Yellow Dog Blog
Posted by Byron LaMasters at November 21, 2003 08:39 AM
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Byron,
How does the Affirmative Action bake sale imply that minorities who attend college are completely unqualified? All it does is sell cookies at different prices based upon race, with lower prices for minorities.
Affirmative action does the same thing. It lowers admissions standards for minorities by giving them an undeserved boost based solely upon the color of their skin. The fact that it is considered along with other factors does not change the fact that it lowers the standards.
Perhaps the truth is that these protests hit too close to the mark, which is why they're effective in stirring debate.
Of course these folks have every right to have their bakesale - freedom of speech demands as much. The best way to deal with such views is not to censor them but to allow the sanitizing rays of daylight should shine upon them, show them for what they are, and disinfect them.
I hope enough Aggies will exercise their free speech and confront these people at their bake sale.
By the way, what is the cost of the cookies for the "legacy" daughter of an alumnus, for the son of a scion, or, for that matter, the less than stellar student who gained admission because he had the best tutoring and SAT classes daddy's money could buy?
