<p>I would agree with your point if this were a static bar chart. But this is a bake sale. Logically, opponents of AA would see how adversely they were affected and shun the sale. Students supportive of AA or just hungry and want a cheap cookie would likely buy one (a cookie referendum?). </p>
<p>Would you conclude that a Black/Hispanic female is worth only 25% of any white male student?</p>
<p>If you want to compare a student’s race, academic grades and ranking, SAT/ACT scores and record those factors into a chart to stimulate a debate or conversation, great. But a bake sale with arbitrary values assigned to different races does not bring any clarity to the issue.</p>
<p>michuncle, that’s not how it works. Opponents of AA would likely high-5 (do you college aged kids still do that?) the people running the bake sale & buy a cookie or two. Supporters of AA could be offended, insulted, or absolutely furious. THey’d be unlikely to give any $$$ to whatever organization was running the sale. Hopefully, a reasoned & respectful discussion would take place between pro & con. It’s a publicity stunt with a serious purpose. </p>
<p>If one were hungry & didn’t feel strongly either way, he’d find a black female friend & give her $$$ to buy lots of cookies at a discount. It’s really not a cookie referendum. And the organizers do not consider a black/Hispanic female to be worth 25% of any white male student. No such idea is even implied. They are pointing out that they find AA to be an odious practice that assigns enormous value to race & gender in college admissions & careeer employment.</p>
<p>While you are at it, why don’t we take it a step further… Look up the amicus brief of schools in support of Michigan, and then tell students do not apply to or if admitted refuse to attend these schools. </p>
<p>My guess is that it will never happen because the amicus brief was submitted by Harvard University, Brown University, the University of Chicago, Dartmouth College, Duke University, the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, Princeton University and Yale University in support of the University of Michigan</p>
<p>“Cookies are $1 for White males, $.75 for White females, $.50 for Black and Hispanic males, $.25 for Black and Hispanic females, and $2.00 for Asians.”</p>
<p>The price of admission for a white male (according to the bake sale…nee “publicity stunt” model) is $1.00. For Black/Hispanic females, the admission price is .25 If you have four .25 boxes, a white male applicant needs to have all four checked off to be considered for admission. If you’re a Black/Hispanic female applicant, you only have to have one box checked off for consideration. AA opponents demand that any and all applicants need to have at least three boxes checked off (to better accommodate white females under the Bake sale scenario) and all four boxes would be ideal. </p>
<p>While I’m not a white female, knowing that I only need to come within 25% of a typical white male for consideration to a college or university is comforting? And, if I were Asian, I would have to have all four boxes checked off twice. As for the hungry, disinterested uninvolved, but accepted student who bribes “a black female friend”…where did she come from? By the rules of the Bake Sale scenario, any and all Black/Hispanic women benefited from AA. I didn’t see the cookie marked “I’m a URM and my grades/SAT/ACT scores are equal to or better than the average white male student at this institution”. </p>
<p>AA is far from perfect, but as I (and Sybbie719) pointed out you need not support educational institutions or corporations that support AA. You need not indicate your race or ethnicity on your application. And on your personal essay, you should fully spell out your objections to AA. </p>
<p>By the way, I’m part of the parent/family brigade…college for me was part of the Jurassic age.</p>
<p>The point I want to make is that the “Bake Sale” model is deeply flawed. I’m not suggesting that any posters has a particular vested interest one way or another in this matter.</p>
<p>I’m a data guy by nature. There’s a lot of data minning that can be done to support or challenge AA. Creating valid baselines and subsets should be the jumping off point for a debate on AA’s merits. And taking into account the role of public policy is an important factor to consider as well.</p>
<p>Reducing everything into five cookies obsures more than it explains.</p>
<p>personally, i don’t see how such a bake sale SHOULD be outrageous. if the american society has become so paranoid that a bake sale mocking AA would be classified as racist and sexist, then we have a problem (and we do). hypocrisy is what i think it is. you can have an organization with an unspoken rule of “blacks only” and that would be mostly fine with the public. but if someone establishes something with an unspoken rule of “whites only”, everyone starts jumping and yelling. in college, there can be “hispanics club” or “asian club”. but if some white guy tries to register for a “caucasian club”, do you think no one will label the members racist?</p>
<p>I agree, the model is deeply flawed. If it’s trying to model the “preferences” given to minorities in college admissions, then the prices should not be so disparate (is it really 4 times easier for an African American women to get into college than a White man with comparable background?).</p>
<p>i think what the bake sale-rs were trying to do is exactly reducing AA to absurdities. some places they sell cookies for FREE for native indians, but that obviously doesn’t mean native indias are infinitely easier to get in than anyone.</p>
<p>Bobert - instead of microfocusing on what is (although I might get lynched here on CC for saying it) one relatively insignificant societal issue, you might consider having an “effort to earn a cookie” bake sale. If you’re Paris Hilton (or fit her profile) - your cookies are free. Because face it, if you’re born into a family with a net worth over $10 million, work is optional. If you are born a white male, cookies would be $.50. Because if you just don’t screw up, you’ll do okay, and be able to buy cookies all your life. If you’re male but not white, your cookies are $1 - you have less margin for error. All other things being equal, boy’s cookies cost 80% of girls cookies. If you’re a good looking guy, your cookies are 10% off - attractive people make more money than unattractive people. Same thing for tall guys. If you are an attractive female, let’s say $.25 for your first cookie, but $2 for the next. Because if you don’t misplay your cards you should be able to work a partnership with someone who can buy you a lot of cookies, but if that doesn’t work out, buying cookies is likely to get harder. (If I’ve failed to offend anyone, I apologize.)</p>
<p>My point is, the college you are admitted to, while it might seem big to you now, is probably among the less significant determinants of your future income. In terms of actual impact on people’s lives, AA is a pimple on the backside of social issues in America. You want a bake sale to make a point? Do some research and then do one based on what really makes for an advantage in life.</p>
<p>Kluge, obviously you have never been an attractive female. If you had, you would know that if you don’t require a partnership in order to get free cookies and in fact, your ability to amass cookies at no cost might actually be compromised by the weight of such a partnership. Attractive females who start off paying $.25 for the first cookie AND who do not seal a partnership for subsequent cookies can actually find that people will beg them to accept cash to eat those subsequent cookies. </p>
<p>So I say the first may well be $.25, but second and all subsequent the attactive female collects along the lines of $1.00 per, and the price goes up over time. Translated, that means if the OP wants me to eat one of those cookies, I’m going to need to be paid about $10.00 per cookie. Wait five more years and it’s going to cost about $15.00 per cookie.</p>
<p>“you can have an organization with an unspoken rule of “blacks only” and that would be mostly fine with the public. but if someone establishes something with an unspoken rule of “whites only”, everyone starts jumping and yelling. in college, there can be “hispanics club” or “asian club”. but if some white guy tries to register for a “caucasian club”, do you think no one will label the members racist?”</p>
<p>Come on Bobert, are you really so blind as to not know the answer to that question? Caucasian is the default status of the majority of students on most college campuses. In fact, these schools were established as “clubs” with only caucasians in mind. And in many cases, especially for those in the South, it was a law—not an “unspoken rule”—that only caucasians need apply. For much of their history, even public schools supported by tax dollars, such as UVA, were only open to those enjoying membership in the “default race”. </p>
<p>Did you know that there’s no such thing as a “Black Student Union” at historically black colleges and universities? Want to have a guess as to why that is?</p>
<p>My question to you is: Why do you appear to be offended by a student organization that caters to the needs of a small minority of a school’s population? It’s not likely to be a closed organization. If you were genuinely interested in African American, or Asian, or hispanic Culture, and wanted to join, I seriously doubt you’d be turned away. Your desire to join would probably shock the **** out of the members of the club (especially the AfAm one. After all, as a member of the default race, the school was designed with you in mind), but then they might actually be flattered and welcome you graciously into the fold. Truth is though, most white students have no interest in joining any these ethnically oriented clubs, just as few whites ever apply to HBCs, despite there often being special scholarships and other financial incentives in place to entice them to apply. How about you, Bobert? Would you be interested in applying to Spelman?</p>
<p>The bake sale idea seems to more mock the idea of financial aid. ONLY in colleges do we see a systematic price discrimination. (Now, this doesn’t mean that it’s invalid, but the validity of something doesn’t mean that practices associated with it cease to exist.) We would all be shocked if McDonald’s charged rich people more for their hamburgers so they could have a diverse clientele. Cookie principle along same lines.</p>
<p>As for the bake sale - better thing for college. I would also strongly suggest actually acquiring some data first. For example, make the cookies 10% of the price of the average SAT scores for each group. That way, you’re bringing to the forefront the strength of the preferences and the way the system works. A lot of data suggest that AA is not a “feather on the scale” or a “tip factor” but, in some cases, is the controlling factor; this is especially true at the graduate level. </p>
<p>If you insist on doing this, don’t do just a bake sale. Combine it with other discussion about the issue (for example, bake sale before/after a panel debate on the issue).</p>
<p>(Once again, I have already found the AA bake sale to be a bad idea given the context.)</p>
<p>kluge’s idea to me is very interesting: it probably won’t offend as many people. although i’ll admit that even after reading it 3 times, i’m still confused by one or two line.</p>
<p>poetsheart: hypothetically speaking, if ten white students formed a Caucasian club in a predominantly Black school to “celebrate” their culture, or better yet, if the school was in Africa, do you think no one would beat them up for being racist? The mechanism is similar: a geographical minority, but still the dominant psychological race. we can change the analogy a bit with Asians – the true majority in the world. </p>
<p>i find it hypocritical that you are persecuted if you are against anything that would benefit URMs and women. people seem to want to find racism and sexism in an American’s behavior and thoughts. any hints lead to mass hysteria: look at Summers. just one comment, media goes crazy. it strangely resembles the old witch hunt.</p>
<p>One last comment about the actual structure of the bakesale – why would women be charged less, instead of more? In most colleges and universities today, Affirmative Action actually makes it more difficult for women to get into college, since women make up about 60% of the undergraduate population in the United States, but most co-ed schools want to get as close to the 50-50 gender balance as possible. At schools like mine (obvious from the username I hope) which appeal particularly to women, this leads to a significantly lower acceptance rate for women than for men, even, I believe (but unfortunately do not have statistics to back this up as of now) controlling for factors such as GPA, SAT scores, etc.</p>
<p>I already weighed in with my opinion that the AA bake sale was a bad idea because it has been done already. So here are a few modifications to spice up the concept and make it your own:</p>
<p>In addition to the AA bake sale table which will be priced along AA lines, have 2 other tables. One you can label “TRADITIONAL” bake sale, for whites only. Supply this table with fresh high end baked goods. Then have the second table labeled “SEPARATE BUT EQUAL” with fresh baked goods labeled “for whites only” and some stale nasty crumbs labeled “for colored.” Why pick on affirmative action without providing an alternative?</p>
NJres, I already suggested that two days ago. The bake sale idea, perhaps overdone, who knows, can be applied to any situation where unequal treatment is doled out to disparate groups. Whatever the reasons. It’s a gimmick that can be a sure way to gain attention & foster discussion.</p>
<p>The original AA bakesale, while held on a campus, was meant to shed light on the practice in college admissions offices, employers, government contracts awarded, etc. So that’s why women still are charged less than men.</p>
<p>Am I the only one who did that brown eyed/blue eyed exercise as a kid?</p>
<p>ariesathena: there are too many areas where systemic price discrimination occurs to even name! Car insurance, cost of credit, senior discounts, veterans’ discounts, even minor areas like cost of admission to the beach. We favor homeownership with our tax codes, cut breaks to married couples in some tax situations, but in other penalize dual income families.The point is, the proponents of each and every favored group can come up with arguments for the discount or advantage. Those picking up the slack, or being disadvantaged, can be equally persuasive. Open discussion and awareness are the only way to determine if these breaks are valid or have outlived their purpose.</p>