In a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, disgruntled high school senior Suzy Lee Weiss discusses how the college process is unfair. In the op-ed, Weiss connects how colleges tell applicants to “just be yourself” to how these three words break the backs of all college seniors who do not have Read More…
If impulsive California legislators and the money-hungry National College Players Association have their way, UC Berkeley athletes may soon be going pro. The Sacramento Bee reported Saturday that California State Assembly Bill 475, currently being considered in committee, would require UC Berkeley and UCLA to pay student athletes an annual Read More…
Progressives are bracing for a devastating defeat in the Supreme Court’s upcoming ruling on the affirmative action case Fisher v. University of Texas. If the justices restrict race-based affirmative action, they will “erase 50 years of progress,” one activist declared in The Nation. That’s an overstatement, but there is wide Read More…
Last month, the gatekeepers to some of America’s top colleges gathered at a four-star hotel in Los Angeles to discuss what The Chronicle of Higher Education called “the next frontier” in college admissions: the evaluation of applicants’ “noncognitive” attributes. Put less glamorously, the assembled admissions experts brainstormed ways for the admissions process Read More…
Almost 30 years ago, after claiming he had lost a teaching position to a woman of color, Thomas Wood turned his private frustration in to a public crusade in the form of Proposition 209, a California initiative that ultimately abolished affirmative action in education, employment and contracting in the state. Read More…
While I wholeheartedly agree with Cruz’s goals of increasing diversity on college campuses, and making college campuses more representative of the overall population, I must emphatically disagree with his assertion that the “ten percent plan is, by far, the most democratic, equal, fair and transparent admissions system of any elite university in the country.” Instead I wish to offer an alternative method, which, in my opinion, is much fairer than drawing an arbitrary cut-off line. That method can be described as affirmative action based on socioeconomic status, and not race Read More…
BAMN agrees with UC President Mark Yudof, the other UC chancellors and other university administrations nationwide who have taken a stand in defense of the University of Texas affirmative action plan. The Daily Californian editorial from Aug. 20 ignores the entire reality of the resegregation of the UC Berkeley campus Read More…
California voters took to the polls on Nov. 5, 1996 and passed Proposition 209, which forbid state government organizations from considering race, ethnicity or sex in areas that include public education and employment. Suffice it to say, Prop 209 banned affirmative action in the state. Despite constant protest and legislative proposals to amend the law for public education, it still stands 16 years later — and that’s the way it should be. Read More…
Setting prices for baked goods based on race is blatantly discriminatory — in the same way that using race to judge college applicants would be discriminatory. The Berkeley College Republicans oppose any policy that treats one racial group different from another. Some people would call treating one ethnic group different Read More…
If we want to make a point by holding bake sales with differential pricing based on race, let’s get the prices right. It is empirically well established that blacks and Hispanic Americans pay more for goods and services, while getting less than white Americans. As I described in a recent Read More…
