September 27, 2011 | 10:34 AM | By

How does the UC Berkeley ‘diversity bake sale’ rub you?

Photo by joelorama/Flickr (Creative Commons)

Fellow students have protested it and campus officials have condemned it, but a group of Republican students at UC Berkeley is moving ahead with plans to hold an “increase diversity” bake sale this Thursday in mockery/protest of legislation awaiting the governor’s signature that would consider race and gender in college admissions.

The method of protest? Charging higher prices for the baked goodies to white customers, especially white males, and lower ones to minorities and women.

From the campus group’s original Facebook post promoting the event (the language has since been softened), as published by the campus paper The Daily Californian:

Berkeley College Republicans will be SELLING BAKED GOODS from 10 AM – 2PM across from the Affirmative Action Phonebank on Upper Sproul, and just like the CA Senate Bills 185 and 387 the phonebank supports, we will be considering RACE, GENDER, ETHNICITY, NATIONAL/GEOGRAPHIC ORIGIN and other relevant factors to ensure the EQUITABLE distribution of BAKED GOODS to our DIVERSE! student body.To ensure the fairest distribution, and make sure that there are a DIVERSE population of RACES of students getting BCR’s delicious baked goods, the pricing structure will be as follows:

White/Caucasian: $2.00
Asian/Asian American: $1.50
Latino/Hispanic: $1.00
Black/ African American: $0.75
Native American: $0.25
$0.25 OFF FOR ALL WOMEN!

Hope to see you all there! If you don’t come, you’re a racist!

Affirmative action-based admissions have been prohibited on California campuses since the implementation of Proposition 209, a 1996 state initiative. The “diversity bake sale” is in protest to a bill known as SB 185, which if signed by Gov. Jerry Brown would allow the state’s public universities to consider race, gender and nationality in the admissions process.

Reaction among students, not to mention the general public, has been polarized, not surprisingly. Nearly 250 comments have been posted just under the Daily Cal story from Friday, when the controversy first hit campus, ranging from praise to groans.

Small Business owner wrote:

What The Republican Club is doing is absolutely brilliant; exposing the hypocrisy and the utter stupidity of those who just don’t get the message of the bake sale. If one does not fully understand the hypocrisy (which I would imagine be the majority of the student population), God help you in your search for a job in the real world.

Marcus in MN wrote:

You’re buying into the Conservative fallacy that, if affirmative action is removed, what remains is a fair meritocracy. It’s been shown in many ways that a bias against minorities still infects business and other institutions. “Color-blind” policies are, in effect, affirmative action for whites.

And so forth. Others were more offended by the group’s tactics, which they felt mocked the experiences of minority students and graduates. In its story, the New York Times cited a comment on the Republican group’s Facebook page from one user, who made this point:

“Perhaps you should be charging women and Latinas double to better reflect the fact that we’re being paid 78 cents and 59 cents to the white man’s dollar,” wrote Ally Wong.

Still, while condemning the protest, campus student leaders will allow it to go on. A “Conscious Cupcakes Giveaway” counter-protest will be held by students opposed to the bake sale.

So readers, what’s your take on the bake sale, the group’s message – and the method?

  • Qetuo76

    I like to know if they paid whites students $20 to bake the muff5ns, blacks $5 to blacks students to bake the muffins and hispanics students $4 to bake the muffins. Conservatives never attack affrimative action in corporate American when white male workers make 150% more than blacks and hispanics.

  • auser

    Message to Qetuo76.  You couldn’t be more wrong.  White males at this point cannot get a federal government job.  The government only hires blacks and others that they mistakenly label “minority”. The same goes for private industry.   In New York City, whites are no longer the majority, but keep being labeled as such.  White privilege is a lie, and any intelligent thinking person already knows this.  Where white men are concerned, they are at a disadvantage these days.  It’s about time that a group got together to protest affirmative action, which is compleely racist and should be outlawed.  Stop crying and make it on your own merit. 

  • Qetuo76

    @auser, White males are still getting the majority of government and private sector jobs in the upper management and high paying areas. Minorites get most of the low paying government/private jobs such as Postal Worker/Teachers that paid little. So my analogy is still accurate. Statically whites are still the majority demographic in all major US cities. Your comment is nothing more than unfactual hyperboly.The only demographic that is at a disadvantage these days are middle and lower class, which includes, asians, blacks, hispanic and whites.

  • Darryl

    I have never understood how penalizing someone for failures of their culture, made several generations before they were born is fair, or is remedial in any way. It promotes antagonistic feelings between races, and do you really help someone by promoting them past people who are more qualified, had better grades, studied harder, or whatever, when sooner or later, in the real world, are going to have to perform, or stand aside?
    I do not understand the rationale….

  • Anonymous

    uhhh what AM radio station did you hear that?  DC federal jobs are full of middle aged WASP men.   Just look at a list of SES positions accross any federal agency.

    Private sector.  Just take look at Fortune 500 CEOs.  Almost all white men.

  • Anonymous

    “penalizing someone for failures of the culture, made several generations before they were born is fair”

    I assume your talking about some kind of victimization fantasy White Anglo Saxon Protestant.  Apply your rationale to any disadvantaged minority.

    Are you talking about the African Americans who were fooled or captured and forced to be slaves, then start over with little or no net worth just 150 years ago in the USA? 

    Or Native Americans, pushed off their land, target of US federal persecution, just allowed to become US citizens less than 100 years ago.

    How about Asian Americans, who literally were not allowed to be citizens until the Kennedy presidency?

  • Dbet

    It’s interesting that they allowed $0.25 off for women.  According to recent articles in Time Magazine and other national news sources, it’s blys that are getting affirmative action from colleges and universities who are trying to keep even gender ratios.

  • Dbet

    It’s interesting that girls are given $0.25 off.  It has been reported in Time Magazine and other national news sources that it is BOYS that are being given affirmative action in most colleges and universities in order to keep a somewhat even numbers of both genders on campus.  Why isn’t that discussed more often?

  • http://twitter.com/kolonelpanik Kolonel Panik

    Another example of Republicans having their cake and not only eating it, but getting paid for it and free media exposure too.  Their motto “Let them buy cake.”