SMU shuts down bake sale w/ race-based prices
 

From Newsday.com: http://www.newsday.com/news/nationwo...tion-headlines

This is a very interesting protest...whattdya think about it???
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Texas University Shuts Down Bake Sale




By Associated Press

September 24, 2003, 11:17 PM EDT

DALLAS -- Southern Methodist University shut down a bake sale Wednesday in which cookies were offered for sale at different prices, depending on the buyer's race or gender.

The sale was organized by the Young Conservatives of Texas, who said it was intended as a protest of affirmative action.

A sign said white males had to pay $1 for a cookie. The price was 75 cents for white women, 50 cents for Hispanics and 25 cents for blacks.

Members of the conservative group said they meant no offense and were only trying to protest the use of race or gender as a factor in college admissions.

Similar sales have been held by College Republican chapters at colleges in at least five other states since February.

A black student filed a complaint with SMU, saying the sale was offensive. SMU officials said they halted the event after 45 minutes because it created a potentially unsafe situation.

"This was not an issue about free speech," Tim Moore, director of the SMU student center, said in a story for Thursday's edition of The Dallas Morning News. "It was really an issue where we had a hostile environment being created."

The sale drew a crowd outside the student center and several students engaged in a shouting match, Moore said.

David C. Rushing, 23, a law student and chairman of Young Conservatives of Texas at SMU and for the state, said the event didn't get out of hand. At most, a dozen students gathered around the table of cookies and Rice Krispies treats, he said.

"We copied what's been done at multiple campuses around the country to illustrate our opinion of affirmative action and how we think it's unfair," he said.

Matt Houston, a 19-year-old sophomore, called the group's price list offensive.

"My reaction was disgust because of the ignorance of some SMU students," said Houston, who is black. "They were arguing that affirmative action was solely based on race. It's not based on race. It's based on bringing a diverse community to a certain organization."

The group sold three cookies during its protest, raising $1.50.

In June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled universities could use race as a factor in admissions under limited conditions. In Texas, universities had been banned from using race as a factor under a 1996 decision by a lower court.
Copyright © 2003, The Associated Press

Re: SMU shuts down bake sale w/ race-based prices
 

This is my favorite part of the article.

I think some people are offended way too easily.

So, as an Asian-American woman, would my cookie have been free?

I think some people are idiots.

I mean honestly, what would possess someone to do something like this? There are lots of ways to make more effective points against affirmative action. And this makes some other points that I don't think we even want to get into (like a commentary on the "worth" of people based on their race and sex?).

I'm really surprised that this has been allowed on other college campuses, if what they claim is true. Contrary to popular belief, universities (even state-run ones) can restrict your freedom of speech. And one of the things they're most likely to silence is hate speech and anything that could possibly be misconstrued as, or lead to, hate speech (i.e., experiments like this).

I think they missed their mark with this, if the point they were intending to make was that "affirmative action is bad."

Edited to add: Also, they need to do some research -- because these days white males are more likely to benefit from affirmative action than white females when it comes to college acceptance. (Excluding tech schools like MIT, Cal Tech, etc.)

Restricting free speech is always a great idea. Like I said, some people are offended way to easily. Why call someone an idiot over an opinion?

I'm not calling them idiots because they don't like affirmative action. I'm calling them idiots because this was a horribly ineffective and verging-on-racist way of saying that they don't like affirmative action.


Universities have the right to restrict speech (generally they only use it to restrict hate speech) in order to maintain a "safe learning environment." The reason the policy was put into effect was a situation where, in a discussion section, some kid decided to rant about why black people are bad and tie it into whatever it was that they were reading, which is "not conducive to the learning environment," LOL. Schools have the right to restrict free speech if it interferes with the learning process. It might not be "fair," but regardless of what you or I think, it's a policy that's out there and invoked fairly often in cases like this.

dude, the protest didn't even remotely invoke the way affirmative action policies work - it's not a 'free speech' issue, it's a matter of being a tool then hiding behind some sort of political movement.

I see no hatred directed towards any individuals by their actions. They were trying to make a statement about a policy. Hell, I would have only paid 50 cents for one of their cookies. In reality, many affirmative action programs do indeed examine the issue of race, granting points or preferred status to certain individuals. To me, race/gender based quotas are offensive. I guess those individuals who are offended by Affirmative Action should simply keep their non-politically correct opinions to themselves.

I think the university chose to act before the situation reached that point . . . which it very easily could have.

The message you may have gotten from this demonstration is "Oh, affirmative action is like this cookie sale, because certain people are favored over others." The message that other people may have gotten from this is instead "Wait . . . are they saying that a black man only needs to do 1/4 the work of a white male in order to get into the same school? Are they saying that a woman is only worth 3/4 of what a man is worth?" (Actually, 7/10th according to current wages.) There are multiple other ways it could be interpreted too. Their message isn't clear and that's what makes it dangerous -- because even though it isn't meant to be hate speech, it can be interpreted as such.

The thing is, if I want to a sell a cookie to one of my friends for five bucks and give the other one away for free, I can do that. And universities can do the same thing with their affirmative action policies if they want. There's no law anywhere that says a school must accept the most "qualified" (according to the traditional scale of grades, extracurriculars and test scores -- and oh, did you know that they did a study that found that the SAT correlates better with grandparents' income than with college academic performance?) applicants, and usually they don't. Nobody whines when a school accepts a girl that published a book at age 16 but only has a 3.4 GPA over a girl who has nothing to make her stand out but her 3.9 GPA. So why should we attack schools for using their own criteria to accept students in cases of affirmative action? Schools are looking for a qualified diverse student body in terms of race, socioeconomic status, background, accomplishments, talents, gender, whatever. They don't want "the most qualified" if the most qualified means all naive white upper-middleclass violin-playing track-running honors students from the suburbs, and I can't say I blame them. As long as I student is qualified, I'm not going to argue about who is "most qualified" based on the admittedly shaky standards of SATs and grades.

In case anyone cares, a feminist organization on campus (that I'm President of) did this same activity last spring. Only we did it according to the male-female wage gap--so women were charged less, etc.

I find it hard to believe that anyone on the SMU campus would have any bills smaller than a $50 to buy anything.

this is hilarious. i love the idea! :D

and yah. people get offended easily. its real silly!

Has anyone gone to one of those "Hunger Dinners" where everyone pays the same amount to get in, however, you draw a poker chip to see whether you get to eat a full dinner, just vegetables, or a cup of rice? For every 50 chips, there was one full steak dinner, 2 vegetable dinners, and the rest were rice - symbolizing what the earth's population eats like. And even at that, it should be one out of a thousand (or whatever).

I saw this exercise as the same sort of eye-opener.

probably would have had to pay like 1.25.

Hate speech is okay and should be protected. Fight speech isn't. The line is blurry with protest. Because if you were like "I hate affirmitive actions" and then some ones like "why? just because I'll get a better chance?" and then the two exchange remarks, what they doesn't matter, because they're probablly trying to provoke each other to take the first swing. I.e. you can talk about hating white people all you want, but if you walk to someone and are like "hey cracker" and he punches you in the face, you can't be like "hey, i have free speech" and get away with it. I think thats what they're doing here.

now i'm in the mood for cookies

The line is very blurry but under our Freedom of Speech it would be ok to walk up to a white guy and say "Hey Cracker" or "I hate white people." If he punches you that's your bad. I don't think you could try the battery because you instigated it in a sense, but you do have that right to say it. It all depends on how good your lawyer is as well and that's another topic altogether.

Your Freedom of Speech protects the unpopular opinion, "hate speech" and even ill will.

Now if you walk up to someone and say "I'm going to kill you cracker" that is no longer protected. You have turned an idea into an act or an assault.

Quote of the week. LOL.

Oh come on lifesaver.

Surely they've got some spare change in the cup holders of their BMW X5's or Escalades.

FWIW, i don't see anything wrong with this protest. In the end, it causes people to think about the inequities of an affirmative action/race-based admissions system.

Kitso
KS 361 cookies i'd have bought :D

you shoulda had a black person buy them for you. they only had to pay a quarter.

Re: SMU shuts down bake sale w/ race-based prices
 

Admittedly, I am not up to speed on all the minutae of Affirmative Action. But is the above quote correct? I thought that it was based on race. If not just race, then what is it based on in addition to race?

Thanks!

Re: Re: SMU shuts down bake sale w/ race-based prices
 

I think that gender plays a role in it as well. I had a professor tell us that there was an affirmitive action policy at my school that benefited males since more females apply. he said that that males didn't have as high of standards to get accepted as females did. not exactly sure if that is true though...

Re: Re: SMU shuts down bake sale w/ race-based prices
 

For some colleges, you get admission "points" for the following as well (some like sports, are worth more points than race.)

~ Gender
~ Economic background
~ Familial ties (are your parents/grandparents/etc. alumni?)
~ Playing Sports (cha ching! )

Sure, but how many commentaries have been able to get past the school newspaper, while this made it into the Associated Press and GreekChat...while commentaries may work, this did it's job as we are proving

I'd love to see the inequities. Point them out to me.

There might be legitimate inequities if the universities were required by law to take the most qualified applicants regardless of race, gender, or other factors. But they're not. They can pick and choose students by pretty much whatever criteria they want. If the University of Texas stops using grades and SAT scores as application criteria and decides to rely solely on interviews, they can do that. Or if they want to stop using grades and test scores and instead make the application criteria be who can bench press the most, they could probably do that too.

People whining about how affirmative action is "unfair" sound like the 8-year-olds who cry about how they didn't get invited to the popular kid's birthday party. "Wah wah, he invited Bobby instead of me! I'm so much cooler than Bobby! It's not fair! I would have gotten him a better present than Bobby got him too!"

There are many things that college use as admissions criteria to ensure a diverse student background, but since they aren't filed under the label "affirmative action" nobody questions them. As stated, gender is one that's somewhat associated with it, and these days men are actually on the receiving end of AA more often then women when it comes to college acceptances. Most schools --tech schools excluded-- have more women at them than men. This can range from a 51%/49% imbalance (which can be pretty big when you're at a school with 40,000 students like me :D) to the much higher 60%/40% imbalances and beyond. Many schools are going out of their way to correct this by using "affirmative action" on white males. And we all thought we'd never see the day when that happened . . . . ;)

Other factors that can affect your acceptance and are determined in an "affirmative action-like" way include geographic background (many schools will only accept a certain amount of students from one high school/city/state), majors (if half the candidate pool for one year is English majors, you can bet that the non-English majors have a better shot at getting in), talents (if the school band is weak in trumpets, trumpet players have a better shot at getting in than non-musicians or the flutists), and general life experiences -- someone who's gone to do volunteer work in Costa Rica or travelled around the country on a dance team or speaks 5 languages is going to have a better shot at getting in than the kid who is just like every other applicant. It's funny, though -- nobody complains about these things. They're an accepted part of the criteria used. But as soon as race becomes an issue people start hollering.

well put sugar&spice!

It is still hypocritical for points to be assigned to groups based on their race/skin color helping them gain admittance, then once they are admitted they want people to see past their skin color and see them as the same as everyone else.

You want to use factors such as economic background, legacy status fine. But if you use race, don't be surprised when races that aren't getting points get upset.

For a society that wants to see past color, we sure do seem to be awfully concerned with it.

Kitso
KS 361

Why should economic background and legacy status (or the aforementioned other points like geography) be different than race?

Plus I never said that I want people to see people of color as "the same as everyone else." Do I want them to be treated as equals? Of course. But "equal" and "the same" are two totally different things. Often they're admitted to the school precisely because they can bring more diverse viewpoints and learning experiences to the fold, so why should they shut up and pretend that they don't have any diverse viewpoints or experiences and that they're just like "the rest of us" once they get here?

There are way too many people who completely miss the point of having a diverse student body. It's not just to help "them" (those who are admitted in part because of non-academic factors like race, geography, major or life experience) get ahead in the world -- it's to help the rest of us expand our worldview. A diverse student body benefits EVERYONE, not just people of color.

Actually while you are on your soapbox, I'd like to tell you that you are absolutely WRONG on this statement. This has been proven over and over and most supporters of affirmative action do not bring it up as much anymore since research from UCLA has shown that having a "diverse" viewpoint literally has no effect on other students.

-Rudey
--Thanks...play again.

How do you measure that?

Well, since we are pointing out WRONG statements, a study done from Loyola proved otherwise. The UCLA study was considered "lacking", since it did not provide an adequate operational definition of what racial diversity meant.

And people do bring up diversity when arguing their viewpoint in support of affirmative active. Just recently Michagen LS did.

I'd trust the reputation of the study at UCLA over the one at Loyola.

-Rudey
--But you can trust whatever you want.

LOL. :D Ok... :cool:

My opinion is that it's intangible. You can't measure it. If I took a survey that asked, "Are you a liberal because of your associations with black people and Hispanics?" I'd say no, obviously. But the fact of the matter is that my opinions on race and affirmative action would be way different if I'd gone to a high school that was 90% white, if I hadn't taken an ethnic studies class in high school where I discussed race and religion daily, if my classes weren't taught by white teachers, if I'd lived in a town that was primarily conservative, and if I hadn't gone to a university where race issues are so prevalent.

How many of us can say we'd be exactly the same people as we are if we'd only been exposed to people exactly like ourselves? (Or if you were primarily surrounded by people who were a lot like you, think of how different you'd be if you hadn't.) I don't think anybody can say that. And that's why diversity (not just race but diversity of EVERYTHING) is important.

I think that at some schools (and I'm basing this off of my experience at Wisconsin) people get so bent out of shape about the idea of affirmative action that they shut their minds off to any new ideas about race. There are plenty of people who think that the only reason people of color are at their school is because they're not white . . . and they determine that because of that, the minorities are not as smart as them and not worthy of listening to. That is one failing of affirmative action, IMO, but it's not in the process, it's in the people.

Are you saying that you would not have had the ability to make decisions that overlook the race of others without these external influences?

Almost everything is tangible and can be measured. Even the meaning of life.

-Rudey
--I used to think the same way about Rudey Jr. You can't measure this bad boy, but one day they made a measuring tape capable of measuring it.

I would hope that colleges aren't promising things to minority applicants hoping they will accept just to help them achieve their "diversity goals." This is another case where I think retention rates speak far higher than acceptance rates. (i.e., don't trumpet your 50% increase in minority enrollment if only 5% of that increase actually graduates)

I am a product of Affirmative Action... Currently I get paid from a minority based fellowship from the National Institutes of Health for underrepresented minorities in molecular biology...

I am a case of taking advantage of an opportunity that has presented itself. I may never get another opportunity like this again. And in 3 years I will apply for other funds from various departments of the NIH. I will be under just the same amount of scrutiny as all the other applicants and will be required to have similar credentials as anyone else...

Regardless how I got here, I am still held accountable for all that I do in my field just as much as anyone else would be....

I'm saying that because of these external influences, I grew to understand cultures other than my own better.

Almost every opinion that you have is a result of some sort of external influence -- your parents, your friends, your teachers, the people around you, the media, the government, the church. For example, if you're surrounded by people who are conservative, you're much more likely to be conservative than you are to be liberal, because conservativism is the culture you understand best. If you don't understand a culture, it's unlikely you're going to support it.

And Rudey, if the meaning of life is tangible, I want to know what it is. ;)