[Joshua]

SMU shuts down race-based bake sale

DALLAS, Texas (AP) --Southern Methodist University shut down a bake sale Wednesday in which cookies were offered for sale at different prices, depending on the buyer's race or gender.

The sale was organized by the Young Conservatives of Texas, who said it was intended as a protest of affirmative action.

A sign said white males had to pay $1 for a cookie. The price was 75 cents for white women, 50 cents for Hispanics and 25 cents for blacks.

Members of the conservative group said they meant no offense and were only trying to protest the use of race or gender as a factor in college admissions.

Similar sales have been held by College Republican chapters at colleges in at least five other states since February.

A black student filed a complaint with SMU, saying the sale was offensive. SMU officials said they halted the event after 45 minutes because it created a potentially unsafe situation.

"This was not an issue about free speech," Tim Moore, director of the SMU student center, said in a story for Thursday's edition of The Dallas Morning News. "It was really an issue where we had a hostile environment being created."

The sale drew a crowd outside the student center and several students engaged in a shouting match, Moore said.

David C. Rushing, 23, a law student and chairman of Young Conservatives of Texas at SMU and for the state, said the event didn't get out of hand. At most, a dozen students gathered around the table of cookies and Rice Krispies treats, he said.

"We copied what's been done at multiple campuses around the country to illustrate our opinion of affirmative action and how we think it's unfair," he said.

Matt Houston, a 19-year-old sophomore, called the group's price list offensive.

"My reaction was disgust because of the ignorance of some SMU students," said Houston, who is black. "They were arguing that affirmative action was solely based on race. It's not based on race. It's based on bringing a diverse community to a certain organization."

The group sold three cookies during its protest, raising $1.50.

In June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled universities could use race as a factor in admissions under limited conditions. In Texas, universities had been banned from using race as a factor under a 1996 decision by a lower court.

As a private university, SMU isn't bound by the first amendment, but ending this bake sale / protest because it creates a "potentially unsafe situation" seems like a lousy excuse to suppress an unpopular viewpoint. So much for academic freedom.

[Spliffdaddy]

The same students that complained didn't have any problem when similar criteria was used to admit them to the campus.

[christ]

Originally posted by Spliffdaddy:
The same students that complained didn't have any problem when similar criteria was used to admit them to the campus.

Isn't that what "it was intended as a protest of affirmative action" means?

[zigzag]

I thought this line was pretty funny:

"The group sold three cookies during its protest, raising $1.50."

I disagree with their view of AA but if the bake sale concept gets people to think about the issue from a different perspective, good for them.

[CRASH HARDDRIVE]

The group sold three cookies during its protest, raising $1.50.

So I wonder was that two hispanics and 1 black person, or 1 black person, 1 white female and 1 hispanic, or 1 white guy and two black people?

[thunderous_funker]

Originally posted by Joshua:
As a private university.....<snip>.....So much for academic freedom.

See, you had the answer all along.

If the protest created a scene which threatened to turn ugly, the Uni is perfectly justified in shutting it down.

You know, like the hippie-dippy anti-war protestors who blocked traffic and smashed stuff which everyone around here loved to complain about and demonize.

P.S.

Why where there no cookie prices for legacy students and others who receive preferential treatment for admission?

[CRASH HARDDRIVE]

Originally posted by thunderous_funker:
Why where there no cookie prices for legacy students and others who receive preferential treatment for admission?

There were. The price for one of those cookies, was daddy building the school a new gymnasium!

[thunderous_funker]

Originally posted by CRASH HARDDRIVE:
There were. The price for one of those cookies, was daddy building the school a new gymnasium!

Then I sure hope it had macadamia nuts and great big chocolate chunks in it, otherwise they got ripped off.

[christ]

Originally posted by CRASH HARDDRIVE:
So I wonder was that two hispanics and 1 black person?

Um, isn't that $1.25?

[CRASH HARDDRIVE]

Originally posted by christ:
Um, isn't that $1.25?

Whoops, make that three hispanics.

I can't add today.

[finboy]

Originally posted by Joshua:
SMU shuts down race-based bake sale



As a private university, SMU isn't bound by the first amendment, but ending this bake sale / protest because it creates a "potentially unsafe situation" seems like a lousy excuse to suppress an unpopular viewpoint. So much for academic freedom.

"Unsafe situations" and "can't guarantee your safety" worked for years in the South to deny equal treatment to people of all "races." Funny how it's turned around over the years.

It's also strange how conservative groups get folks shouting at them and have to be shut down, when we had plenty of campus events last year protesting the war that weren't shut down when they devolved into shouting matches. Downright weird.

[thunderous_funker]

I guess you can add Southern Methodists to the list of Commie subversives trying to destroy our way of life and poison our Precious Bodily Fluids.

[BRussell]

I like it.

But I also like thunderous's post:

Why where there no cookie prices for legacy students and others who receive preferential treatment for admission?

I'd also ask if they had laws for a couple hundred years that denied blacks the right to the cookies.