A group of young conservatives held a bake sale last week, but instead of trying to raise money, they aimed at proving a point about the flaws of affirmative action.
The University of Texas' (UT) chapter of Young Conservatives of Texas (YCT) attempted to display that affirmative action is unfair to minorities and discriminates in reverse. To achieve their goal, they sold brownies for $2 to men, $1.50 to Asians, $1.00 to Latinos, $.75 to black people and $.25 to Native Americans, with a $.25 discount to all women.
Student newspaper the Burnt Orange Report reported UT YCT president Lorenzo Garcia said the sale was meant to open people's eyes to affirmative action. He said he wanted students to think about how the issue affects admissions.
Garcia said the overtly racist signage was part of the campaign to draw attention to what he believes perpetuates racism in America.
Dr. Gregory J. Vincent, UT vice president for diversity and community engagement, was not pleased with the UT YCT's actions.
"Such methods are inflammatory and demeaning. Yet focusing our attention on the provocative nature of the YCT's actions ignores a much more important issue: they create an environment of exclusion and disrespect among our students, faculty and staff," he wrote in a statement. "The choice of a tiered pricing structure creates the misperception that some students either do not belong at the university or do not deserve to have access to our institution-or worse, that they belong or deserve only to a certain degree. Nothing could be further from the truth."
Garcia told Total Frat Move this kind of event is not uncommon for the UT YCT. He said the club's events need to be controversial in order to get the attention of college students. Still, the reaction to the affirmative action bake sale mas mixed.
"Some people looked at our stuff and were horrified as they walked by. Other people actually high fived us," Garcia said. "People bought brownies and other people just laughed and took pictures with us. It's been kind of mixed, but mostly we're just telling people about it, we're informing them about it. A lot of people don't even know that race is used as an admission factor, so that's sort of the point of this. It pisses some people off, some people think it's funny, but it's still educational and intellectual at the same time."
The UT YCT attempted to tackle of major issue in America and they got their share of public criticism. The Horn columnist Pavel Nitchovski called the event a "misguided and ignorant attempt at satire."
The affirmative action bake sale also had at least one supporter. The College Fix's Jennifer Kabbany wrote, "[UT YCT] have been wrongly vilified for creatively and deliciously pointing out the inherent flaws of affirmative action."
Garcia also made sure to state that the YCT club stood apart from any young Republican's club.
"We don't support any particular party, we support the most conservative candidates and the most principled people," he said. "[The Young Republicans] affiliate themselves with whoever has an R next to their name, we affiliate ourselves with whoever stands for what we believe in, regardless of party, regardless of anything."
