College Republicans should be disciplined for racist bake sale

I was surfing the internet looking for local news when something caught my eye. A group called the Berkeley College Republicans at UC Berkeley was holding a bake sale. The alarming thing was that they were pricing items based on race.

As you can see from the article and the clips on Youtube, the pricing was as follows:

White $2.00

Asian $1.50

Latino $1.00

Black $0.75

Native American $0.25

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I went to UC San Diego for my undergraduate degree. I’ve read about the incidents with nooses and about the “Compton Cookout,” which encouraged people to wear chains and be "ghetto." I never found any of those incidents amusing. This bake sale was so blatently racist that I am appalled to think that any intelligent human being could think that it would accomplish anything constructive and meaningful.  Perhaps I’m giving those kids too much credit. UC Berkeley has historically been a rather liberal, well-respected academic university. I might expect something like this to come out of the deep south, but Berkeley, California?

The Berkeley College Republicans have attempted to justify their actions by explaining that they intended to express their displeasure over SB 185. This piece of state legislation, which is currently sitting on Governor Jerry Brown’s desk, would allow California universities to consider race, gender, ethnicity and national origin as people apply for admission.

During the actual bake sale itself, the Berkeley College Republicans were joined by several hundreds of students dressed in black holding a counter-protest in support of SB 185. They had signs that read, “Do UC us now?”

The Berkeley College Republicans argue that they have the right to free speech. I’m not saying they don’t. But is it right to allow a student run organization to receive funding from the ASUC (Berkeley's student government) when they are creating an environment of racism at the university? I don’t see how pricing a bake sale according to race draws attention to SB 185. I think all that the bake sale did was make some people feel unwelcome at UC Berkeley, offend some people of color, and essentially cause a ruckus. I know that the bake sale offended me.

The university's Principles of Community state, "We affirm the dignity of all individuals and strive to uphold a just community in which discrimination and hate are not tolerated." ASUC bylaws clearly state that “the Senate shall not fund any activity or group which discriminates against any student...in its method or recruitment and acceptance for membership.” There you go. If the actions of the Berkeley College Republicans did not discriminate against any student in its method or violate the Principles of Community, then I don’t know what would.

The Berkeley College Republicans should be kicked off campus and should have their funding revoked. They have clearly created a feeling of hostility by pricing items differently for people of different races at a bake sale.

There is a lesson to be learned here. You may have the right to free speech and you may be allowed to perform actions that offend others in our free society. But you should never forget that there are consequences to your actions. I have a feeling that the actions of the Berkeley College Republicans won’t go unchecked, and I’m not saying this just because Chancellor Robert Birgeneau, Vice Chancellor for Equity & Inclusion Gibor Basri and Vice Chancellor Harry LeGrande sent out a letter to all faculty, students and the campus community condemning the bake sale. Free speech does not make racist actions right.

Jacqueline Cheung is an Elk Grove resident and the Executive Director of Go Jade Solutions.