by Jack
The news about a small bake sale on the UC Berkeley campus has garnered national attention, something the proponents could never have dreamed, This has their opposition fighting mad. The bake sale price for cookies and cupcakes was determined by race, whites were asked to pay the most, while other races were asked to pay lesser amounts according to their percentage in the U.S. population. This sale was to draw attention to SB185, an affirmative action bill, that Gov. Brown has on his desk and must sign or veto by the 9th of October. Sen. Ed Hernandez-D, wrote the bill as a way to circumvent the Constitutional requirement that race not be factor in admissions and restore much of what was lost by affirmative action. As you may recall affirmative action was challenged by Prop 209 and the policy of using race to define admission was determined to be discriminatory and therefore unconstitutional.
“The point is, the people of California have said we don’t want to see race and color in admissions,” said Ward Connerly who spoke to angry students and faculty who crowded around the table. Connerly is black and a former UC Chancellor. In response to Mr. Connerly’s soft spoke and well reasoned explanation for the “Go to hell!” yelled Ann Callegari, an African American student. “Are you the overseer?”
Many students denounced the group’s bake sale as racist, and student government leaders unanimously approved a resolution condemning discrimination “in satire or seriousness” in response to the event. UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau and two vice chancellors sent out a campus-wide letter strongly supporting that position, while acknowledging that the administration “can urge, but not mandate, a person to behave with civility.”
The republican students represent a tiny minority on campus, but their attempt at dissent and free speech has brought not only jeers, but threats of violence. Their opinions are not welcome and many students and faculty would like to silence them by any means. That is the shocking part of this story. Here’s a campus that has been a focal point for leftist free speech, including communists like Angela Davis and radical groups that often engaged in violence and a dozen conservative students are being shouted down and threatened for their support of the Constitution. Where is the respect for free speech and tolerance for diversity in that?
“Brad Bitler, a white student, pushed through the crush and paid $5 for an M&M cookie and an oatmeal one. “Good luck on the fundraiser,” he said. “I’m Hispanic, so I’ll pay a dollar,” said Chris Maldonado, a chemical engineering student who took a green-frosted cupcake. He explained his support for the bake sale, saying, “I’m the son of two poor immigrants from Guatemala. Yes, there exists a disadvantage, but if you put the emphasis on education, you will get an education. Me and my two brothers are proof of that.”
A few feet away was the table that prompted the whole brouhaha. There, Berkeley’s student government, the Associated Students of the University of California, were encouraging students to call Brown to express support for three bills on his desk, including SB185 by state Sen. Ed Hernandez, D-West Covina (Los Angeles County).
At midday, hundreds of students dressed in black lay down in Sproul Plaza, silently demonstrating support for SB185.
Since 1996, Prop. 209 has constitutionally prevented California’s public universities from using race, ethnicity or gender in enrollment decisions.
At UC Berkeley, underrepresented minorities – Latino, black and Native American students – represent 16 percent of students, down from 20 percent in 1995 before Prop. 209 became law. The percent of white students has held steady at 30 percent at Berkeley, while Chinese American students have grown slightly from 19 to 20 percent of enrollment.” Nanette Asimov, Chronicle Staff Writer ( PS: I wonder if the lower black student enrollment at the campus is just a reflection of the increased drop out rate in high school, than anything else? )
According to the bill’s summary, SB 185 would authorize the University of California and the California State University to consider race, gender, ethnicity, and national origin, along with other relevant factors, in undergraduate and graduate admissions, to the maximum extent permitted by the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution, Section 31 of Article I of the California Constitution, and relevant case law.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/09/27/BABR1L9PQL.DTL#ixzz1ZG45vbqa
The bill sounds like another attempt to certify affirmative action, which has already been tossed by the Supremes.
If you REALLY want to make admissions fair, eliminate all names, race or gender from the applications and let the students be judged only on their grades. ‘Nuff said.
Students did this on another campus a few years back. It is a very clever way to expose the absurdity of affirmative action and to get students thinking about what exactly it means.
“If you REALLY want to make admissions fair, eliminate all names, race or gender from the applications and let the students be judged only on their grades.”
Absolutely. And if liberals really want to make things “fair” for minority students they would do something about the failure of the educational system that they have been controlling for the past few decades to disasterous results.
It is outrageous that the curriculum has moved toward special interest issues and values (a parental obligation)and away from core educational teaching and excellence. It is outrageous that we have so many highly paid administrators. It is outrageous that bad teachers are protected by the union and tenure. It is outrageous that preperation for adulthood through a good education has slipped into mediocrity in the world. It is definitely outrageous that children living in low income neighborhoods are stuck in schools that do not serve them well.
There are no excuses needed or offered for the dismal quality of our educational system. It exists exactly as liberal progressives planned.
“In response to Mr. Connerly’s soft spoke and well reasoned explanation for the ‘Go to hell!’ yelled Ann Callegari, an African American student. ‘Are you the overseer?’
POC should have the satisfaction and dignity of being admitted on the basis of their own achievement rather than the faux compassion (guilt) of liberal “masters” in control of their achievemnet. Talk about “overseers”. This young lady needs to smarten up about who it is that wants to keep her compliant, dependent and needy.
I am still getting ugly and threatening posts to my blogs about “race”, including a couple of women who seem to be using real names and e-mails and threatening to show me the literal meaning of “kick your ass.”
It just amazes me how ballistic people go over the discussion of race. And how stupid they get. Here some are saying, it’s not racist for the state to require an appicant to put their race on an application, but it IS racist for a group of people (of unknown race, by the way) to protest that action by writing the same words on a sign that they would be asked to choose from on the form.
Thanks for keeping this topic out there, I was afraid it would get swept under the rug.
“If you REALLY want to make admissions fair, eliminate all names, race or gender from the applications and let the students be judged only on their grades. ‘Nuff said.”
I’m sorry, but again, you’re being very dim about the nature of the problem. If you have 100 white applicants and 18 black applicants, all of them equally qualified for 25 spots, what are you gonna do?
I’ll tell you what we’re doing, we’re giving five spots to the black folk and 20 to the white, and if you don’t like it, you can pony up some more tax money and build us another UC campus.
Which is not to say that those poor bake-saler boys don’t have cause for distress. They are being pushed out, deprived of their traditional preferential position, but not by the minorities … by the women!
Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh.
I agree 100&% with J.Soden, recognize this SB 185 for what it truly is ‘AFFIRMATIVE ACTION’. To label it anything else is like sticking your head in the sand, and that my friends will only ‘expose’ other anatomical parts of your personage to other potential problems.
Libby…swing and a miss…completely misses the point, but manages to get in a plug for more taxes…
😐 <-------- surprise face
” If you have 100 white applicants and 18 black applicants, all of them equally qualified for 25 spots, what are you gonna do?”
First of all, what do you mean by “black” and “white”? If we’re going to play the race game, let’s get some real terminology and some blood tests to back it up. It’s getting so you can’t even trust gender without some kind of test.
But, let’s just say, we have 118 applicants, all equally qualified for 25 spots – obviously you pick the first 25 who got in line. Getting themselves into the line first shows a lot of personal qualities. Make them apply in person. If they want to come to your college, they can just get their hiney over to the admissions office.
That’s the way the real world works, and giving people a boost up when they don’t really deserve one isn’t doing them or us any favors.
And the problem isn’t that we don’t have enough universities, or enough space – it’s the salaries Libby. Go to Chico State some day during full session, you won’t see the classrooms overflowing. Then look at the salary chart – they can only afford so many teachers at salaries like $90,000 a year. And their salaries are no indication of quality – go sit in on a class sometime. If you were paying for that you’d be outraged.
“To label it anything else is like sticking your head in the sand, and that my friends will only ‘expose’ other anatomical parts of your personage to other potential problems.”
Oooo! Good one Harold!
I think if there were only 25 spots available and a 100 equal students maybe they should do a lottery or something? But, to pick a percentage of the 25 spots based on race is not fair. But, its really wrong when the minority students are less qualified than the others. Why should they go to the front of the line just because of race? Who wins doing that? That’s an injustice for everyone.
However, if a good student can’t get their first choice in a college, there’s plenty of others. The whole group can eventually find a decent college if they try. But, if they are not qualified in the first place, then they should be doing something else besides going to college. Not everyone is college material and we don’t owe a college education to every student that wants one.
The problem in America is we keep lowering the bar to accommodate unqualified students only because they’re from a minority race and for no other reason. That makes a BA degree from some colleges pretty worthless. What country does that besides the USA? None that I know.
If I were black and I only had a C grade average I would not expect entry to Stanford. I would expect I would be going to some place like Butte College until I got my grades up to speed. Places like Stanford must keep their standards up or we fail to compete in the world.
“Libby…swing and a miss…”
How … exactly so?
Juanita, you too are missing the point.
Why should there not be places for all qualified applicants, of whatever ethnicity, in the UC system?
Pony up … or shut up.
And if you’re not going to do that … we … the rest of us … have decided that the ethnicities are getting a leg up.
Again … you don’t like it, you know what’s to be done about it.
No. Sorry. Any sort of “lottery” gives an advantage to the more numerous party … the white boys, or more lately, the white girls. That’s why we’re doing what we’re doing.
And your assertion with regard to lowering the bar with regard to Stanford or the UC system is utter bull(snip). As qualified minority applicants are admitted as a matter of their proportion in society, rather than their proportion of total applicants … the excluded white boys will simply have to find themselves another campus.
Libby, are you saying it’s a fault of our higher education system, like the UC system, that we can’t accommodate all students who want to go there?
As far back as you care to look at colleges these colleges have had strict admission standards. To to do away with or even lower those standards just so we can enroll a poor student (and I mean academically poor and unprepared) because he/she fits a certain race based test is kinda foolish don’t you think?
I do agree with you on this point. If we have a minority student who did not have the support that your average student had growing up. And lets say they are trying, even struggling to be admitted to a college, then we as a society, should have some sort of referral system that will find them a college that fits them and can offer them the good education that they want and deserve.
I’m not against giving a helping hand to those who deserve a break in life because they were dealt a bad hand at birth. I recognize the need to help the disadvantaged, is this what you are talking about?
Libby, yeah, I see where you’re coming from on the lottery, that wouldn’t work. I didn’t think it all the way thru. Well, maybe an oral board would be the way to go then? They can consider background, wealth, motivation, etc., things that are hard to quantify on an entrance exam.
Tell me Libby, where’s the overcrowding at Chico State? Right now they are turning kids away not for lack of physical space but for lack of money to pay salaries. The administrators are eating all the money – Paul Zinggg! makes $329,000 a year, including a $50,000 “housing allowance”. Plus benefits and 90 percent of that salary for the rest of his life. The average teacher at Chico State makes almost $100,000 a year, plus benefits and retirement. So, they could build new universities in every town, as if they had the money to do that – but then where would they get the money for these salaries?
I already pony up Libby. Anytime you want to meet at City Plaza with a copy of YOUR property taxes, which I’m guessing, you pay less than $1000 a year – well, anytime you’re ready to “pony up,” you just let me know. Until then, you can just SHUT UP. I’m sick of non-producers like you sitting on their butts telling everybody else they need to pay more taxes.
This is what Libby always does to a conversation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifRKu1W1fXQ
Juanita, you know virtually nothing about me, and I intend to keep it that way.
And I’m not telling you to pay more taxes. I’m telling you to pay for what you want, and, if you don’t want to pay … fer pity’s sake, stop sniveling.
Furthermore, while I know it pains you, $300k plus bennies is not unreasonable for a university president. And your critique is not rational anyway. If you halved the man’s salary, it would get you maybe two toilet cleaners, or an English instructor, which would not solve the institution’s staffing deficit, would it?
You wanna yowl, yowl about that failed HP clown who’s being told to take his $13 million and bugger off.
Geez.
“They can consider background, wealth, motivation, etc., things that are hard to quantify on an entrance exam.”
Again, I’m going to have to fault you for your ignorance, cause that’s exactly what they do. The high-end schools now give much less weight to grades and SAT scores than they do to application essays, interviews, extra-curriculars, teacher recommendations, and like that … not that a 2160 does you any harm. It’s dog-eat-dog, but we’re still carving out 20 percent for the underdogs.