A conservative student group at the University of Texas is drawing heat for holding an 'affirmative action' themed bake sale.
According to the Daily Texan university paper, the UT chapter of the Young Conservatives of Texas sold brownies and cookies on campus on Sept. 25 and charged students different prices based on their race.
On the group's Facebook page, the sale is listed as a way to expose "the hypocrisy of the liberal agenda, while opening a dialogue about why affirmative action is unnecessary."
A photo from the group's Facebook account shows the brownie prices as $2.00 for white students, $1.00 for Latinos and 75 cents for "black" students. Women were also given an additional 25 cent discount.
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The university's Vice President for Diversity and Community Engagement called the stunt "inflammatory and demeaning." Dr. Gregory J. Vincent said the Young Conservatives also misrepresented how affirmative action truly works, "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 … demographics are just one of many criteria taken into account when applying for admission to UT"
The UT bake sale appears to be a inspired by a similar bake sale at the University of California, Berkeley, in 2011.
The university has been front and center in the debate over the merits of affirmative action.
The university has been defending its race-based admissions policies in court for years, including in the case of Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin which was heard before the Supreme Court. The court ruled in a 7-1 vote to send back to a lower court for reconsideration a ruling that found the policy constitutional.
Both sides of the case claimed the ruling as a victory. However, defenders of affirmative action say that since the court did not reverse current policies in place, they would ultimately successfully defend race-based admissions.
