Yesterday the College Republicans at Berkeley (yes, Virginia, there are some Republicans at Berkeley) sponsored an affirmative action bake sale (different prices based on the race or ethnicity of the buyer).
The purpose of the young Republicans was to call attention to the inequities inherent in treating people differently based on race and to protest legislation, SB 185, pending before Gov. Brown that is a transparent attempt to circumvent Prop. 209, the amendment to the California constitution that prohibits the state from discriminating for or against anyone based on race or ethnicity, and of course they were called racists, etc., for their trouble.
The bake sale has caused a storm of controversy, and I shall probably have more to say about it presently. Meanwhile, you may want to take a look at an article that appeared this morning on Inside Higher Ed on yesterday’s event and the legislation that prompted it. If you do, or even if you don’t, I highly recommend the following comment that appears below the article:
Proposed Law Would Violate Prop 209
Posted by John Rosenberg at www.discriminations.us on September 28, 2011 at 8:15am EDT
Prop. 209 prohibits the state from discriminating against or for anyone based on race, ethnicity, etc. The defenders of the legislature’s attempt to circumvent that prohibition argue that the proposed legislation does not violate Prop 209’s restrictions because it does not require preferential treatment based on the prohibited categories; all it does is “allow” admissions officers “to consider” the race or ethnicity of applicants.But doesn’t “consider” mean “taking into account”? And doesn’t taking race into account mean some students would be admitted (and thus, necessarily, others rejected) because of their race? It has to mean that, for otherwise the proposed law would not result in any more “underrepresented” minorities being admitted.
If the proposed law means anything at all, if it would do anything at all, it would clearly violate Prop. 209.
