Affirmative Action Bake Sale

[GutshotApe]

Note: (This post, while of a "political" nature, is being made primarily because of the ironic humor I see in it ).


According to an AP article in the Dec. 25 Eugene Register-Guard, the University of Washington College Republicans, a conservative student group, recently held an "affirmative action bake sale" on campus.

They were selling cookies for $1 each to white students while selling the same cookies to minority students for 25 to 95 cents. Doughnuts were available for 50 cents to everyone except Asian-Americans and whites, who could not purchase them.

Unfair? So is affirmative action, bake sale organizers contend.

Supporters of affirmative action became upset, disrupted the bake sale, and resorted to violence...yelling, tearing down signs, throwing baked goods at the conservative group...eventually shutting down the event.

"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."

As a UW grad, I remember how affirmative action really got up a head of steam at UW...and elsewhere...in the early '70s. IMO, it was wrong then and is still wrong today.

A conservative watchdog group in Philadelphia contends universities are violating student's constitutional freedoms....."They cannot defend in public what they have done to the First Amendment at the University of Washington," said Thor Halvorssen, chief executive of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.

[WheresMyBobber]

[img]graemlins/applause.gif[/img]

Good for them!

[ 12-28-2003, 09:15 AM: Message edited by: WheresMyBobber ]

[Birdnest]

That is a pretty intersting way of making your point.

Affirmative action is certainly a slippery slope. While I do feel it is a racist policy that would be offensive to me if I were a minority, there are many layers to this onion.

I think the policy makers miss the boat. Affirmative action is a day late and a dollar short. The money and effort should be placed on early intervention programs. Poorly equiping somebody for a dog eat dog world, then telling them they don't need to be as good is a flawed system.

I don't proclaim to have a perfect solution, but it would seem that the answer would be in early intervention. I don't know how you would set up the screening process with out violating people's privacy/right to live as they choose. There is also a grey area in discerning neglect/abuse vs "hey, we are doing the best we can".

The human needs pyramid comes to mind. If you don't have enough to eat and a clean place to sleep, worrying about college prep classes seems a little silly. I like this model better than assumtions based on race. Regardless of ethnicity, if we equip our children with the right tools today, we wouldn't need to make allowances tomarrow.

Joe

[ 12-28-2003, 12:52 PM: Message edited by: Birdnest ]

[DF]

Thats a good way to make a point.. and I agree with them. Don't get me wrong folks im not rascist, but because I am a white male from a middle class family...school is expensive, grades must be good, and so forth. But yet if my skin was a differn't color, or if I was not bourne in our great country.. I could have slacked off not shown up to school bombed tests and still...get money for college

I remeber in my highschool, last year, my senior year we heard an announcement on the intercom. It said:

" If you are a black, or hispanic male with a GPA of at least 2.0 come to the counsling office as there are scholarships waiting for you."

Most of us seniors who were applying for scholarships and trying to scroung money for school next year said... WHAT?!? :shocked:

[ 12-28-2003, 04:43 PM: Message edited by: Drummer/Fisherman ]