Members of the Berkeley College Republicans were excluded from the town hall meeting of a coalition of UC Berkeley students seeking to promote multiculturalism and open dialogue on Friday night.
The coalition was meeting to discuss a response to the highly controversial “Increase Diversity Bake Sale” being organized by the campus Republican organization.
The bake sale plans to incorporate a sliding price scale, with students being charged based on their race and sex. Prices begin at $2 for whites and drop incrementally based on race or ethnicity down to 25 cents for Native Americans.
The meeting originated in the Rochdale Village Apartments and was subsequently moved to the Multicultural Community Center in the Martin Luther King Jr. Student Union, where over 200 people were in attendance.
According to Berkeley College Republicans President Shawn Lewis, a member of the Republican group who gained access to the meeting later that night in the campus multicultural center, an announcement was made barring admittance to Republicans and members of the press.
“We were told that we were not part of the community that needed healing and refused entrance to the meeting,” said Mia Lincoln, external vice president of the Berkeley College Republicans.
Salih Muhammad, one of the leaders of the student coalition, said the Republicans were in fact asked to leave because the meeting was meant to be a venting opportunity for the community.
“If someone slapped you in the face and you were gathering with your family to grieve and cry, then it would be hugely inappropriate for the person who slapped you to show up and try to explain it,” said Ruben Canedo, another leader of the student coalition.
Muhammad added that the Berkeley College Republicans had not shown disrespect at the meeting — rather, the reason for their exclusion was the bake sale itself.
The bylaws of the multicultural center state that “events must be open to the entire campus community.”
Muhammad said it was important for attendees to feel comfortable at the meeting, which they could not if the Berkeley College Republicans were present.
“We were told by Salih that this meeting is for their community, not ours,” Lewis said. “I am totally comfortable saying we were very respectful and not disruptive.”
According to the center’s official website, its goal is to “Provide an educational space for the critical study and practice of multiculturalism.”
Although Canedo said that excluding certain groups may have violated the center’s policy, it was the correct course of action at the time.
“The most important part of the meeting was the security and health of those involved, so we feel like we made the correct decision,” he said.
Comment Policy
Comments should remain on topic, concerning the article or blog post to which they are connected. Brevity is encouraged. Posting under a pseudonym is discouraged, but permitted. The Daily Cal encourages readers to voice their opinions respectfully in regard to the readers, writers and contributors of The Daily Californian. Comments are not pre-moderated, but may be removed if deemed to be in violation of this policy. Click here to read the full comment policy.
I’m very progressive, and yet when I read this kind of exclusion, and the comments, I find myself on the side of the Republicans on this one. I’m so tired of seeing this kind of hypocrisy.
I don’t agree with the affirmative action bake sale because I think it’s divisive and leads to more strife (such as this particular event).
But it also is clear to me that the people promoting “tolerance” are some of the most dogmatic of folks.
Really what needs to happen is that everyone needs to take a deep breath and talk to each other with respect. The supposed tolerance promoters need to stop bashing white people at every turn but the College Republicans need to take it down a notch too.
UC Berkeley denies admission to qualified instate Californians for a $50,600 payment.
University
of California Berkeley Chancellor Robert J Birgeneau
($500,000 salary), displaces qualified for public university education at Cal.
Californians with $50,600 FOREIGN students.
Ranked # 70 by Forbes, the University of California
Berkeley is not increasing enrollment. $50,600 FOREIGN students are accepted by
Birgeneau at the expense of qualified instate students.
UC Regent Chairwoman Lansing and President Yudof agree
discriminating against instate Californians
Your opinion makes a difference; email UC Board of
Regents [email protected]
Would you all please direct your attention where it will do some good? Sacramento, perhaps? If you want to get to the root of the problems at UC, head up to see the governor. Nothing will happen by jumping up and down on the campuses…lots will happen if the arrow is pointed at Gov. Brown and state legisilators. Think about it.
Most of the funding problems start and end with University of California.
I love the University of California (UC) having been a student and lecturer. But today I am concernedthat at times I do not recognize the UC I love. Like so many I am deeply disappointed by the pervasive failures of Regent Chairwoman Lansing, President Yudof and the ten campus Chancellors from holding the line on rising costs.
Californians are
reeling from19% unemployment (includes those forced to work part time, and
those no longer searching), mortgage defaults, loss of unemployment benefits.
And those who still have jobs are working longer for less. Faculty wages must reflect California’s ability to pay, not what others
are paid.
Pay increases for generously paid Faculty is arrogance.
UC Berkeley (ranked #
70 Forbes) tuition increases exceed the national average rate of increases. Chancellor
Birgeneau has molded Cal.
into the most expensive American public university.
President Yudof and Chancellor
Birgeneau have dismissed many much needed cost-cutting options. They did not
consider freezing vacant faculty positions, increasing class size, requiring
faculty to teach more classes, doubling the time between sabbaticals, cutting
and freezing pay and benefits for all chancellors and and reforming the pension
system.
They said faculty such
reforms “would not be healthy for University
of California”.
We agree it is far
from the ideal situation, but it is in the best interests of the university
system and the state to hold the line on cost increases. UC cannot expect to do
business as usual: raising tuition; granting pay raises and huge bonuses during
a weak economy that has sapped state revenues and individual Californians’
income.
There is no
question the necessary realignments with economic reality are painful. Regent Chairwoman Lansing can bridge the public trust
gap with reassurances that salaries and costs reflect California’s economic reality. The sky above UC will not fall
Opinions? Email the UC Board
of Regents [email protected]
As a Multicultural Community Center Intern, I have to clarify that our policies were never broken. The MCC hosted a private event, to which admission was given with invitation only. The decision to exclude certain groups was a decision made by the event organizers, not the MCC itself.
It is imperative to understand that the MCC welcomes everyone from every community, and everyone who applies to collaborate with us goes through the same application process.
Really? So presumably the MCC would be be able to offer proof of these “invitations”?
And if that’s the case, can you publish the event organizer’s contact info, as well as their application form?
And if, at some point in the not too distant future, a group wanted to organize a private meeting only for “white Aryan males” in your facility… you would accommodate them?
[It is imperative to understand that the MCC welcomes everyone from every community]
Unless they disagree with you. Hypocrites.
Go Ruben!
I applaud freedom of speech regardless of whether I agree or disagree with the content. Exclusion has been known to promote fear. Fear is the foundation for endless and senseless acts of violence.
The prices are wrong. It should be:
Gender – Male – Female
Race -
White $2 $4
Asian $3.5 $6
Hispanic $1 $1.75
Black $.75 $1.25
Native $.25 $.75
Women
LOSE in affirmative action on colleges, because more women than men
apply to colleges, and colleges don’t want it to be too imbalanced with
women
And Asian Americans LOSE as relatively more Asian Americans apply to colleges
Asians don’t lose at UC’ since UC biased its admissions to favor Asians to pacify pacify the Asian Coalition’s demands twenty five years ago. The Asian Coalition asserted that UC admissions discriminated against Asians: 1) by considering the SAT Verbal score, now called the Cr but without the Analogies, since English was a foreign language to many Asians; 2) that requiring a minimum 400 Sat Verbal score at Berkeley discriminated against Asians; 3) requiring 4 years of one foreign language or two years or two foreign languages discriminated against Asians; 4) since there were no Achievement tests(Sat Subject Tests) in Asian Languages.
The Sat verbal score(Cr) was and is far more heavily weighted in admissions at most highly selective universities than the Math score for all but potential Engineering majors; the gap has narrowed in the twenty five years but Whites still outscore Asians on the Cr, but nothing like the Asian advantage on the Math section.
UC’s response was to start double counting Sat Subject Test scores minimizing the Cr score, no longer requiring four years of one foreign language or two years of two languages, lobbying the College Board to offer Achievement tests in Asian languages, and a myriad of other changes, after which Asian enrollment soared.
Under Comprehensive Review, Asians are favored since GPA is now the overriding factor with test scores a relatively minor consideration. Lower income Asians tend to have high GPA’s at relatively uncompetitive public high schools and since the GPA is not normed to the competitive level of the high school, this greatly disadvantages students with lower GPA’s and higher test scores at highly competitive middle class/upper middle class/upper class high schools.
Leave it to the Berkeley College Republicans to turn this too into being about them and how they are victims.
The BCRs have done a great job, even if unwittingly, pointed out the fascist tendencies of the Berkley student leaders.
The Height of Arrogant Irony:
They exclude the views they do not like.
They exclude those views from the “town hall”, ie from the public square!
In the name of democracy, it is done!
Yea, in the name of diversity even, it is done!
The Grossest Hypocrisy!
What is revealed by common sense is by them reviled.
They cannot admit – but do not understand - the obvious,
that SB 185 allows preference by consideration of race!
It is the very epitome of racism.
Are the supposed leftists/Democrats on campus racist?
No, only willfully blind.
The pain of admitting views dearly held but ill-considered is too much for them.
Minds beholden to the indoctrination of “WASP guilt”!
They cannot cut against the grain.
Can you pity them? Perhaps, until…
They Manifest The Tyranny Of The Majority!
““If someone slapped you in the face and you were gathering with your family to grieve and cry, then it would be hugely inappropriate for the person who slapped you to show up and try to explain it,” said Ruben Canedo, another leader of the student coalition.”
Are college kids really this weak and vulnerable? Good God man, grow a pair.
Yea about that, this new generation of Berkeley students are the biggest sissies, how many of these losers cry themselves to sleep?
The fact that we have so-called “student LEADERS” who are so thin-skinned to criticism that they feel compelled to use the force of law to silence opposition is not a healthy sign. It is suggestive of individuals suffering from Narcissistic Personality Disorder, a known trait among some of the more notorious dictators and despots of the last century.
Oh, poor babies got excluded.
Payback is a bitch, ain’t it.
The “poor babies” are the ones who have to run to the ASUC to have opposing views censored.
The bylaws of the multicultural center state that “events must be open to the entire campus community.
“The most important part of the meeting was the security and health of
those involved, so we feel like we made the correct decision,” he said.
It was not the correct decision. In fact there was no decision to be made. No member of the campus community can be excluded.
Although Canedo said that excluding certain groups may have violated the center’s policy, it was the correct course of action at the time.
sometimes you’ve got to break a law to do the right thing.
You mean like using a satire on racism for the greater good? Isn’t that the same argument that would be used for the bake sale? And Civil Rights in the first place?
So you’re arguing on one hand that the BCR should be punished because they broke some law, while at the same time arguing that it’s OK for your side to break the law when it suits your own purposes?
Spoken like a true fascist.