Bucknell Race-Based Bake Sale National News
In April, Bucknell University deans shut down a racial preferences bake sale that a conservative student group hosted to illustrate the unfair and demeaning nature of lowered admissions standards based on race. The school cited a discrepancy between prices at the time of application and at the time of sale. A technicality.
After almost three months, the issue’s still hot. The story recently was covered by the Associated Press, Wall Street Journal, and the Philadelphia Inquirer. From the Inquirer:
The “affirmative-action bake sale”…was shut down by the administration in April. But it didn’t end there…Bucknell president Brian C. Mitchell has received about 100 letters, e-mails, and phone calls protesting the administration’s response.
The controversy at Bucknell – a 3,500-student liberal arts university in Lewisburg, Pa., about 75 minutes north of the state capital – is not unique.
College campuses across the country frequently must deal with delicate issues of free speech, political posturing, and race relations.
Affirmative-action bake sales, usually held by conservative groups, have been cropping up on campuses for years, much to the chagrin of many administrators – although Kutztown University a few years ago let one go on and used it as a “teachable moment.”
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) became involved after the school shut down the bake sale. The organization successfully defended the free speech rights of student groups who held similar demonstrations at the College of William and Mary, Northeastern Illinois University, DePaul University, the University of California at Irvine, and the University of Colorado at Boulder. FIRE is on fire. Keep up the good work.
