Laughing at affirmative action

Wish I'd said that!

[Reprinted from Issues & Views February 2, 2004]

When kids get a thing right, they sometimes really get it right. Take the case of last year's "bake sale" spoof at the University of Michigan, where white students offered bagels and muffins at different prices for different students according to their race. Whites and Asians were charge $1.00 per item, whereas minorities, i.e., blacks, Hispanics, et. al., were charged only 80 cents a piece. The organizers of the sale desired to highlight the University's race-conscious admissions policy, which awards 20 out of a possible 150 points to minority students, or more correctly put, to members of particular minority groups.

The "bake sale" satire caught on, and has been enthusiastically copied by students at colleges around the country. Of course, said bake sales have been shut down and banned just as enthusiastically by most college administrators around the country.

This year, in Omaha, Nebraska, some teenagers pulled off a different kind of parody, in order to demonstrate the witlessness of affirmative action policies. Every year, Westside High School offers a special award, the "Distinguished African American Student Award," which is designed to be granted only to blacks. Three students decided to nominate their white friend, Trevor Richards, who was born in South Africa, for the award. They set out on a lobbying campaign in his behalf, plastering posters around the school depicting a smiling Richards, and urging students to vote him the "Distinguished African American Student."

Needless to say, matters did not go well for the merry pranksters, all of whom were disciplined by school authorities, and charged with "inappropriate and insensitive" actions.

Back on the "bake sale" trail, in turns out that not every college administration responds in a knee-jerk fashion by punishing students for their inventive escapades. We learn from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) that Indiana University "held fast to the principle of freedom of speech and resisted pressure to punish the organizers of a bake sale. Damon Sims, associate dean of students at IU, told the Indianapolis Star, 'It is a freedom-of-speech issue ... This is one of the more significant social and political issues of our time ... It is exactly the kind of dialogue that should be encouraged on college campuses.'"

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