Revolutionary Moderation

Worst. Protest. EVER.



Young Republicans as Southern Methodist University tried to highlight their concern about affirmative action through a preferential-pricing bake sale this morning.

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.

First of all, a dollar for a cookie is a pretty cheap. But just like college admissions, there's a whole lotta white guys here complaining about already getting a pretty sweet deal.



You know, back in my day at college, we used to do something similar. We charged men a dollar for a donut that only cost sixty-nine cents for women, illustrating that working women earned, on average, sixty-nine cents to every dollar a man earned.



And look! It's still true.

Women earn 72 cents for every dollar earned by men, according to the Census Bureau. African Americans are paid 78 cents for every dollar earned by whites and Latinos earn 67 cents, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics(These are all American statistics, but it was a US university, so I'm going to go with them - Don)

It seems the women, at 75 cents a cookie, were still getting ripped off! Huh! Perhaps the discount was too deep for black and latino students, but hey, it's not an exact science.



All of this is to illustrate the point of affirmative action. Opportunity is not equal for all people, for reasons quite apart from merit. Like those tasty Republican cookies, a college admissions system which recognizes and attempts to balance those discrepancies looks like an advantage for the otherwise disadvantaged. Like the donuts, it's really only an attempt to bring the scales closer to balance.



I saw, but didn't hear, some black students reacting to the protest during a CNN walkabout. Here's what I hope they said:



"You know, since I'm over six times more likely to be incarcerated than those pasty fellows at the table, since my children are far more likely to die as infants, and since I can expect to die six years earlier, I'm gonna have me a cheap cookie."