Submission: Opposition to race-based admissions demonstrates ignorance

The “affirmative action bake sale” on Friday, sponsored by the Young Americans for Liberty, was a misguided attempt to publicly display its opposition toward the consideration of race in admissions. A testament to its false perception of affirmative action was the pricing of the baked goods: $2.50 for Asian American students, $2 for Caucasians, $1.50 for Latinos, $1 for African American students and $0.50 for Native Americans.

Bruin Republicans, who originally sponsored the event but later withdrew its affiliation, released a statement on the original Facebook event page saying that the supposed intentions were to create dialogue among students. Young Americans for Liberty felt that its arbitrary, race-based prices equated to the reality of race-conscious admissions.

However, this fraudulent attempt to express a political stance merely exposed their ignorance on topics of socioeconomic status for minority populations, the inconsistencies of access to social, political and academic opportunities between the privileged and disadvantaged, and the misconception that affirmative action is solely based on race.

It is no secret that the majority of underprivileged and underrepresented communities – both on campus and across the country – are Black or Latino. Within the confines of this institution of higher learning, the community disparities are too drastic to ignore. For example, in fall 2012, the total undergraduate enrollment for black students at UCLA was 801 students, or only 2.9 percent of the 27,941 total enrolled students.

Moreover, of the 5,621 students in the class of 2016, only 2 percent, or roughly 113 students, are black. Regardless of Young Americans for Liberty’s arguments, these numbers don’t lie. Only 74 percent of black students graduate from UCLA, one of the lowest graduation rates among high-ranking institutions. These statistics predict that only 84 black Bruins will graduate in 2016.

When a university has more NCAA national championships (109) than graduating black males, we as a university, state and society have wholly failed.

Young Americans for Liberty fails to realize that not everyone on this campus has experienced privilege similarly and that each individual has a unique story laden with distinct opportunities and disadvantages.

A leading myth perpetuated by fear and racism is that with affirmative action comes a quota system: The incoming first-year class must have X amount of Latino students, for example. Rather, affirmative action seeks to compare students of similar academic performance on the basis of their life stories and the hurdles they’ve faced, many of which are byproducts of the color of their skin.

A ban on affirmative action is a ban on consideration of race, sex, national origin, ethnicity or color. Quite simply, it’s a ban on one’s identity. All students’ true experience on this campus is jeopardized when we deny students of color. Everyone on this campus, including faculty and staff, benefit from the stories, culture and experiences that students of color share.

Furthermore, our culture of mass imprisonment, similar to the ban on affirmative action, quite literally locks students of color out of and away from our university. With unprecedented resources spent on building prison facilities, codifying oppressive policies and criminalizing California youth, most of which are young boys of color, the state has given clear signal that it prioritizes incarceration over education. Whereas the ratio of Whites to Blacks in California is nearly nine to one, Blacks are incarcerated at nearly double the rate of their white counterparts.

IGNITE, or Invest in Graduations, Not Incarcerations; Transform Education, a campaign of the University of California Student Association, aims to end this perpetual cycle by dismantling the school-to-prison pipeline and instead replacing it with a diversity pipeline. By advocating for pieces of legislation that support reentry and rehabilitation; restrict school expulsion policies, which favor students of color; and seek to overturn Proposition 209, IGNITE seeks to redress the ever-present problem of California’s institutionalized racism.

The more youth are criminalized, the less of a chance they have at reaching the university. Race-conscious admissions processes recognize this injustice, amongst many others, and simply level the playing field. Young Americans for Liberty, in trivializing and manipulating the facts of affirmative action, were unable to capture the reality of California’s unspoken racism that funnels students of color into prison cells, not classrooms and libraries.

To deny students of color is to deny history, diversity and culture. We must break from California’s misaligned priorities that lead to community inequity and realize that it is time to put students first.

Stokes is a third-year Afro-American studies student and a student researcher at UCLA’s Black Male Institute.

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22 Comments

  1. Rosa Parks had to give up seats for the White people in 1955 –> Racist.
    White kid has to give up his college admission ticket to a Black kid in 2010’s–> Not Racist.

    In America, everything needs to be doubled up. Cheeseburger needs to be doubled, student loan rates need to be doubled, and the ethical standards need to be doubled too!

  2. What are the racial percentages on the football and basketball teams, and how do they compare with the undergraduate population as a whole?

    Different people excel at different things, for many reasons. The best rise to the top because they’re the best… not because of fairness, or quotas, or diversity. Why should academics and athletics differ in this?

  3. This author writes that people of color are dis-proportionally restricted to opportunities because of a lack of socioeconomic power. This is absolutely true. But why then would you not go to the root of what is holding people back, economic factors, and instead go to race which has no CAUSATION but is merely CORRELATED with success. You can’t tell me Michael Jordan’s black kids are disadvantaged from the poor single parent white family.

    Furthermore this author mis understands the protest by saying they do not understand that affirmative action is not only race base. They well know that affirmative action can be for a lot of other things including economic factors; they just aren’t protesting that, because that makes more sense and is race neutral. They could have given a discount for being low income (which would protest that part of affirmative action) but they didn’t. Because that part is more logical and less racist.

    Lastly, youth aren’t criminalized for no reason like the author would have people believe. They are criminalized because they did crimes, they did crimes because they came from poor areas and had nothing else going for them. This author seems to focus on the fact that people are colored are disproportionately put in jail, which is true, but thats because it is a correlation, a more basic CAUSATION is that they come from low income communities with a troubled past.

    I recommend you take a class on statistics, it will teach you all about how just because something is correlated doesn’t mean there isn’t something else that is the causation; also diversifying your friend group because I wouldn’t doubt for a second all or almost all your friends are of the same identity (certainly your closest ones). Don’t preach diversity when you yourself haven’t embraced it, who knows, you might expand your world view and can take a step to ending the racism in this world which you’d perpetuate.

    1. Considering how many students on campus self-select into culture-based student organizations and niches, you might be on to something in the last paragraph.
      As for your lesson on statistics…the vast majority of US media could learn from you.

  4. As a minority UCLA student, I consider any use of race to help my college admissions demeaning and an insult to my work ethic. Obviously there are problems that disproportionately affect minorities, but the solution isn’t affirmative action. The solution should be judicial and correctional reform, better funding of primary and secondary education, and case-by-case analysis to see if a minority student is truly “disadvantaged.”

  5. The entire point of the bake-sale was to engage in conversation of the following question:

    Why would “race-conscious admissions” be better than the current holistic admissions which already takes into account socio-economic status?

    This article doesn’t address this question at all. It does mention that across America Black and Latino communities are underprivileged — but the current holistic admissions does take this into account.

    “Rather, affirmative action seeks to compare students of similar
    academic performance on the basis of their life stories and the hurdles
    they’ve faced, many of which are byproducts of the color of their skin.”

    The hurdles the underprivileged students have faced have been due to their poverty and underprivileged schools and communities; whether this is a byproduct of their skin color is irrelevant because the holistic admissions already judges a student’s performance in the context of his socio-economic status.

  6. “When a university has more NCAA national championships (109) than graduating black males, we as a university, state and society have wholly failed.”
    Huh? Why is this fact a condemnation of society?
    Perhaps UCLA can be so successful in athletics because affirmation action does not apply in athletics. If you support race-based admissions in academics then why don’t we also apply this to athletics as well. I don’t see any Asian basketball players on the UCLA team. Why don’t we try to make sure that we have at least 13% Asian players on the team to reflect the racial demographics of California since UCLA is a state institution? Yeah right.

  7. should we also give those kids with a low IQ score a higher admission rate? because they didn’t have the advantage that we had?

    1. You are making the assumption that IQ (and in turn intelligence) is a fixed measure, and not a changing measure of a person’s capacity to learn.

      Of people without mental deficiencies or severe mental developmental disorders, IQ can change over time based on how a person exercises their mind. It’s just like that old saying, “How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice. Practice. Practice.”

      Sure, there are people who have an innate talent in a given field that most of us will never measure up to, but when it comes to higher education and learning, capacity for learning, hard work, and dedication are often more important.

      1. More important? Which you are saying is as long as it is technically possible that they can make it up, it is not a significant disadvantage? How much effort they have to give to achieve the equal success. Do they have to work harder? Is that not their disadvantage? How are they different?

  8. A similar bake sale was held at UC Berkeley in 2009, where former UC regent Ward Connerly made an appearance (2011 too). Prior to the 2013 bake sale, the last sale at UCLA was in 2003 where Bruin Republicans wore such labels as “Uncle Tom” and “Hispanic Race Traitor” on them, among others.

    These events happen every once in a while, always stirring up controversy and never actually confronting the problem–a conscious, transparent awareness of ALL the entitlements and privileges that certain people have (& don’t have) on account of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, wealth, orientation, citizenship, etc. In predictable conservative fashion, these issues are blanketed yet again under the veil of icing on a cupcake.

    When events like these happen, it’s easy to want to shout “racist!” Instead, seek dialogue, and learn from one another. Take an open stance that enhances their awareness AND yours, about the many different identities that exist both inside and outside UCLA…even the ones you don’t always like.

    1. Claiming someone else has privilege is to diminish their accomplishments. You think similarly situated white and Asian students have done less than you to reach your place in life? Here’s the new flash. Because of AA, they have done more than you. You are the privileged one, at least in the university context.

      1. Claiming someone else has privilege is to be REALISTIC. Many people are born into privileges of all kinds. What matters most is to acknowledge that privilege, and then use that privilege to improve the human condition.

        I am privileged in many ways, and I use it to help others, as everyone should do. Unfortunately, people often acknowledge the former and don’t commit to the latter. To see it as “diminishing their accomplishments” is the selfish, non-humanitarian point of view that I oppose.

        I don’t get what your “White and Asian students” point has to do with anything. How are you assuming that I am not a White or Asian student?

        1. You don’t help others, you demand others help you. If you really have privilege you should ignore the boxes on those forms that ask your race. Because by selecting Latino, you are placing yourself in line before others who don’t have your special privileges.
          .

  9. I AGREE.

    I think people need to understand that socioeconomic status isn’t the only factor that make People of Color “disproportionally restricted to opportunities”. There are institutionally racist policies that exist (you won’t really see that they’re racist until you either experience it or learn about it in Education or Ethnic Studies classes) that continue to decrease POC’s access to higher education.

    1. Is there a reason that judicial reform, correctional reform, improvements in primary and secondary education, and case-by-case analysis of ALL incoming students isn’t sufficient? I find it hard to believe that any statement can be applied to *every* member of a given race/ethnicity.
      It seems that affirmative action doesn’t undo the problems you and the author cite in support of affirmative action. Instead, it tries to balance one alleged disadvantage against an institutionally-provided advantage.
      I argue that it makes sense for college admissions to consider how much access to “opportunity” any individual had, regardless of race, rather than assuming they were denied “opportunity” by their skin color.

  10. Terrible article. I’m pretty indifferent on this whole political debate (I can see the points of both sides), but this article made me feel like people supporting affirmative action don’t know what they are talking about.

  11. Ah, a new definition for the term “criminalize.” We should end racism by buying these students some dictionaries.

    1. It’s a move in the right direction..privileged Uni. students don’t see the very visible effects of the school-to-prison pipeline which systemically oppresses communities of color from a very early age stunting their dreams and expectations. We as university students need to be the voice of reason in affecting and influencing the status quo through our collective bargaining. Yet how can we move forward if we can’t seem to agree on essential patterns of racialization which have undermined POC by typecasting them though a “postracial” paradigm that veils ignorance on actual lived realities..

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