Who’s Snide?

Writing in the Allentown (Pa.) Morning Call about the recent affirmative action bake sale at Kutztown University there (discussed here), columnist Paul Carpenter writes:

There are two points of interest in the Kutztown University flap. That is, there are two valid points of interest.

As reported Friday in a huge front-page splash, some KU students got their shorts in a bunch over an ”Affirmative Action Bake Sale,” held Feb. 8 by the Kutztown University College Republicans. The bake sale offered cookies and other goodies at one price for whites and at drastically lower prices for women and minorities — to make the point that affirmative action is unfair.

Two weeks after the bake sale delivered that snide message, female and minority students, in the main, staged a march to protest free expression by anyone other than themselves, although they did not put it precisely that way.

Another sad example of the degradation of “civil rights” — now the message that racial favoritism is unfair is regarded as “snide.”

Carpenter’s sense of history is also impaired. Unlike many commentators, he does recognize that affirmative action originally meant ensuring that people were treated without regard to race, and he also recognizes that later

that concept reversed itself and degenerated into genuine reverse discrimination. Hard work, intelligence or ability meant less than skin color or gender when it came to dishing out benefits.

But, he claims,

Since then [1995], the trend has been to move away from the forms of affirmative action that openly discriminate against those not in favored minority or gender classes.

Apparently the only college campus with which Mr. Carpenter is familiar is Kutztown, which apparently has no racial preferences. For him, that means the students there had no business making those “snide” arguments about affirmative action.

Since Kutztown was not segregated, I wonder if he would have complained about Kutztown students demonstrating for civil rights in the 1960s.

UPDATE: Who’s Snide Are You On? [2/28]

Journalistic myopia about the nature of current racial preference practices seems to be spreading. From south Florida columnist Ralph De La Cruz (who boasts about being happily “peninsulated” from much unpleasantness) writes that he has just learned “about a bizarre expression of free speech on college campuses: bake sales.”

You probably haven’t heard about affirmative action bake sales because, like me, you’re peninsulated.

Despite the title, these events are actually anti-affirmative action. Conservative students, usually connected to the Republican party, sell baked goodies — with a provocative price list: White males pay full price, blacks, Hispanics and women are charged less. Asians often pay more.

It’s intended to show how minorities and women have it easier under affirmative action.

Very clever. Even if it is a bit misguided.

You see, affirmative action has basically been gutted by two decades of court rulings.

Instead of using race as a key factor in college admissions, the new formulas now typically give most weight to things such as academic performance, community service and individual need. Race is way down on the list.

Peninsulated … and uninformed.

Say What? (3)

  1. sharon February 27, 2006 at 6:28 am | | Reply

    Equality = snide, I guess.

  2. Federal Dog February 27, 2006 at 6:31 pm | | Reply

    That’s what I hate about the 14th Amendment generally — how *snide* it is.

  3. Cobra March 3, 2006 at 2:36 pm | | Reply

    It’s far better to be snide than to be denied.

    –Cobra

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