With cupcakes in hand,
members of the College Student Republicans at the University of California
Berkley are making more than one political statement, and taking on more than
one topic, with their bake sale.
By selling baked food items
for differing prices based on the race or ethnicity of the purchasers, the
student group is showing opposition to the state of California’s Senate Bill (SB) 185.
The idea behind the bill is
to raise the academic standards while representing the diverse population of
the entire state.
SB 185 authorizes the two
largest public universities in California, University of California and
California State University, to consider race, gender, ethnicity and national
origin during undergraduate admissions selection. The bill also requires these
institutions to report to the state Legislature and Governor the information
collected about these admitted students, in comparison to the prior two years
of student admissions. This list again includes race, gender, ethnicity,
national origin as well as geographic origin and their annual household income.
The bill was proposed in
February by Senator Ed Hernandez, who believes this will bring equity to highereducation in California.
Initially, the bake sale was
a means for the College Student Republicans to protest the signing of SB 185 by
California Governor Jerry Brown. They believed the bill was racist in nature
because it of the criteria set for student admissions and institutional
reporting. Their original point was, once the questioning begins, where will
the list end? At what point do students need to tell us they are homosexual or
Catholic or afraid of the dark in order to gain admittance to college? And why
should that matter? Shouldn’t everyone be eligible for higher education?
Now, however, the discussion
has turned more towards whether or not the bake sale is racist in nature.
Some students are
complaining that the bake sale goes beyond the basic political statement about
a proposed bill to being bigoted in general. In fact, hundreds of students associated with anotheractivist group protested today by silently blocking the bake sale.
As a Liberal, I usually find
the more conservative members of the Republicans, not only the College Student
members, annoying. In this case, however, I feel they had a good point
and started a thoughtful conversation but got lost along the way. They started with concern for their original topic, affirmative action in admissions, but ended up debating diversity and about student First Amendment rights. My first thought upon
hearing this news story was not directed towards SB 185 but to the other types
of First Amendment discussions happening today on campuses across the nation,
particularly regarding free speech and social media.
As classmates Meloni and Dana have pointed out in their respective blogs, there is much
confusion surrounding the First Amendment and free speech on campus.
What if the bake sale was
hosted by a sociology class researching the ramifications and reactions to the
race based prices? What if it was hosted by the Black Student Association to make
a point about historically under represented social groups? Any student groups
could take the same event and make it their own.
Unfortunately, the UC CollegeRepublican students may well face more negative reaction to the disruption
their sale causes to classes at Berkley than the outcome from SB 185. Their means of information dissemination
might distract everyone’s attention from their initial point of contention and
hurt their argument in the long run.
I’m not sure what is more unbelievable about this situation – that the California government thinks it is acceptable to make admission decisions based on race and ethnicity or that this creative idea to protest has received national attention. I think the Republican student groups’ intention of making people stop and think about California’s SB 185 is a very clever one that has obviously served its purpose. They have done just that by bringing up questions of equality, fairness, reverse-racism and discrimination across the nation. The groups who are against them, including the Associated Students of UC-Berkeley, have tried to directly correlate the bake sale to the bill (saying, for example, the bill has nothing to do with tuition discounting based on race and ethnicity) and in my opinion, have completely missed the boat. This seems to me like a situation that has been taken so far beyond the scope of its original purpose that it is almost impossible to bring it back to the basic intention. I would hope that this doesn’t turn into yet another First Amendment debate where a student groups’ protest is taken too far.
ReplyDeleteI was happy to see a student organization on a college campus revolting in a passively educated way with food. It seems like the students are more mindful and inclusive than the state. I am always encouraged when students take action in their own way to make a statement to administration. It makes people think about issues at a basic “food” level. With that said, time, place, manner, and the method in which it is carried out is important. Unfortunately it sounds like the student organization is going to face some less positive outcomes from Berkley.
ReplyDeleteFree speech is an interesting topic that seems to be still muddy for some student groups versus others. I appreciate Janella asking these questions.
When I heard this story on a liberal news station, it stated that a Republican Student Group at Berkley was holding a bake sale that was selling baked goods at different prices based on a person's race, gender and ethnicity. It immediately caught my attention! As the reporter continued, he spoke of the uprising that was being caused by this controversial sale. He interviewed students that were disgusted, outraged and couldn't believe the discrimination surrounding the sale. Again, I sat in awe with a feeling of disbelief. Why would students do such a thing? FINALLY, the reporter, as a side note, stated that the Republican Student Group was holding the sale as an example of their opposition of California SB 185. The reporter went on to say that the bill was in support of making admission decisions based on race, gender and ethnicity. One has to love the media...as truly, if I had not listened to the last minutes of this report, I would have thought the Republican Student Organization was a racist, biased organization that needed some serious reprimanding!
ReplyDeleteI have to say that I am not certain that the bake sale was the "most" effective way to show their opposition but I think they were trying to prove just that. This bill is definitely not an effective way to decide admissions into a University. When speaking to affirmative action, there are pros and cons.
Con's of affirmative action include such things as: 1. Affirmative action leads to reverse discrimination. 2. Affirmative action lowers standards of accountability needed to push students or employees to perform better. 3. Students admitted on this basis are often ill-equipped to handle the schools to which they've been admitted.4. It would help lead a truly color-blind society. 5. It is condescending to minorities to say they need affirmative action to succeed. 6. It demeans true minority achievement; i.e. success is labeled as result of affirmative action rather than hard work and ability. 7. Once enacted, affirmative actions are tough to remove, even after the underlying discrimination has been eliminated.
The Pro's of affirmative actions can include such things as: 1. Diversity is desirable and won't always occur if left to chance. 2. Students starting at a disadvantage need a boost. 3. Affirmative action draws people to areas of study and work they may never consider otherwise. 4. Some stereotypes may never be broken without affirmative action. 5. Affirmative action is needed to compensate minorities for centuries of slavery or oppression. (http://www.balancedpolitics.org/affirmative_action.htm)
I truly feel that there are places and times for affirmative action. I just do not think that college admissions is one of those places. I do believe that there are students starting at a disadvantage but, I feel that this is one of the roles of a community college. It is a great alternative for those students that may not have the GPA or test scores to get into the University. The community college allows a student to transition to the increasing demands of a college curriculum. I also understand the argument that affirmative action leads to a more diverse population in some instances but I feel reverse discrimination outweighs the idea of lowering the standards for some races, genders, and ethnic groups. I do not see how allowing the SB 185 is not promoting reverse discrimination and not just reverse discrimination on the "white male". It could mean reverse discrimination at all levels!!
Hopefully, others listened and read "the whole" story to see that the very purpose of the bake sale wasn't that of discrimination but one of "what in the world are you thinking, California"?
When I first read this article, I was shocked. I could not imagine being on campus and watching something like this take place. However, the intentions of the bake sale, did exactly what they were supposed to. It made me stop and think about their demonstration and what California SB 185 would mean for future students.
ReplyDeleteWhile I do see both the pros and the cons of affirmative action, I do not believe that everyone in this world has the same opportunities in life. I don't think a student growing up in a low income family is going to go the same K-12 school and receive the same opportunity as those coming from a high income family. If we were to base admissions based off of test scores and academic achievement only, I do not feel institutions with selective admissions would create diversity amongst their student body.
Working at a community college allows me to see what socioeconomic, ethnic, gender, religious, disability, and sexual orientation diversity does for a college (just to name a few of our differences). We are an open enrollment college located in downtown Denver. We have so many different types of students coming here and as someone who has taught classes here, it is amazing to see what each student brings to the table.
One of the comments on this article stated "I hope they gave the white males the biggest pieces of pie, too, and women and minorities proportionally less (like a payment scale in the real world)." I loved this comment because it is so true. People come to the table with advantages and affirmative action works to balance some of these advantages. Is it perfect? No, but neither are the opportunities afforded to us in the real world.
College is a time when students are afforded the opportunity to test the waters. If things do not turn out as planned, or someone is greatly offended by their actions, they are often times excused because they are students and they are just trying to learn and figure things out. Because of this freedom to make mistakes, students often engage in some of the best learning experiences while they are in college.
ReplyDeleteThis appears to be one of those learning experiences. The students found an issue which they are passionate about, and developed a non traditional way to educate their peers and the community about the issue. To me that demonstrates they developed the ability to think critically about this issue, and evaluate it in order to transform it into something everyone can understand. A bake sale is a voluntary event, that no one is forced to participate in; which means although the premise of the prices could be seen as distasteful; no one is forced to engage in the activity.
Ah, the bake sales...they keep popping up. I have worked at 2 institutions where the College Republicans wanted to make a point about affirmative action.
ReplyDeleteI come to the same conclusion you do, that the idea of it, which can be annoying and frustrating, creates a very vibrant and dynamic conversation for the campus. This is what we hope for in an institution of higher education. In my experience though, out of the two institutions where I have seen bake sales. The one who shut it down without discussing it was the very "tolerant" and "open-minded" CU Boulder. The other, which was at a more conservative, church affiliated school, allowed other student groups to create opposing bake sales. "Make cupcakes, not war" was one slogan. The entire campus seemed to be discussing the issues.
While controversy can be a headache for administrators, if it's not a violation of the Code of Conduct, we should be willing to embrace provocative discussion.