College Republicans react to Affirmative Action
Several college Republican groups have recently been taking
measures against affirmative action on college campuses across the
country.
At Roger Williams University in Rhode Island, junior Jason
Mattera started a “whites only” scholarship as a parody addressing
what he sees as affirmative action’s hypocrisy.
Mattera, a journalism and business major, came up with this idea
last summer, when the university sent out an e-mail to the entire
student body that was only applicable to minority students.
Mattera’s reaction to this e-mail was that students should not
be excluded from receiving a scholarship just because they are not
a minority.
Mattera’s scholarship guidelines contained satirical messages
such as “evidence of bleaching will disqualify applicants” and a
picture to confirm “whiteness” must be attached to the
application.
The scholarship application is available at Roger William’s
University College Republicans Web site www.rwucr.com.
“I think it’s very, very, very silly,” Mattera said about the
nationwide controversy the scholarship has stirred up.
“There should be no controversy,” Mattera said. “If they can
have scholarships for just minorities, why is there a fuss over
this?”
Mattera also said the dispute over the scholarship’s ethics
reveal the double standard universities uphold.
Mattera said by setting up the scholarship his hope was to begin
and encourage a dialogue that addressed affirmative action.
His goal has been realized, he said.
The scholarship stands at $250, but donations from around the
country have continued to come in, he said.
The group might set up a national database for the scholarship,
Mattera said. The scholarship is still a work in progress, but it
will definitely be in some form of a Caucasian- only
scholarship.
CSU would have a difficult time stopping a similar scholarship
if one were to come about in Fort Collins.
“There are scholarships that are privately sponsored and
administered,” Associate General Counsel Laurence Pendleton
said.
These are the scholarships that the university has no control
over, as opposed to the scholarships the university funds or
sponsors, Pendleton said. If the university were to sponsor a
“whites only” scholarship, there would be constitutionality
issues.
“Discrimination statutes could potentially prohibit it,”
Pendleton said. “You cannot have a racially exclusive
scholarship.”
The College Republicans at the University of Colorado-Boulder
has also fought against what they view as affirmative action’s
double standard.
Brad Jones, the chairman of the College Republicans at CU,
orchestrated a recent bake sale on the CU campus.
Initially, the bake sale consisted of cookies that were to be
sold at different prices determined by a customer’s race.
Caucasians and Asian Americans were to be charged $1 for cookies
and African Americans 25 cents and Hispanics 50 cents. People who
were categorized as “other” would received cookies for free.
The idea of a bake sale is not new, Jones said. The first one
took place a few years ago.
“(It was) the right event at the right time to make a point
about the university’s discriminatory practice,” Jones said of this
year’s sale.
The “other” classification was to demonstrate that it is very
difficult to determine someone’s race, Jones said.
CU officials contacted Jones prior to the event and told him the
bake sale was against the law because its inherent price
discrimination went against the protections given by the 1964 Civil
Rights Act passed by Congress.
After discussions, CU and the College Republicans came to a
compromise where the bake sale cookies were all sold for the same
price to everyone, but a “suggested tips” could be different prices
determined by race.
“The student union was the major organizer of the opposition
against the bake sale,” Jones said. “There were at least 100
students mobilized (in protest).”
Jones said the protests disappointed his group because the
opposition’s and his messages were partially lost in the mob of
people around the bake sale table.
The bake sale earned $25.54 and the College Republicans are in
the process of donating the proceeds to a scholarship fund in
Denver.
The College Republican group at CSU is brainstorming methods to
get its views on affirmative action out as well.
“We stand by CU in their opposition to affirmative action,” said
Jesse Mallory, co-chair for the College Republicans and a senior
political science major at CSU.
“We like the ‘white only’ scholarship. It reveals how ridiculous
a race-based scholarship is,” Mallory said.
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