Top-tier cake prices for whites as students attack positive action

Republican students at a famously liberal US college have cooked up a storm of protest by holding a “racist” cake sale lampooning positive action – the process of tackling discrimination by giving preference to those disadvantaged by deep-set prejudice.

Conservatives at University of California, Berkeley, were yesterday offering baked goods at different prices, depending on the buyer’s skin colour and gender.

Those behind the sale said it was intended to show favourable treatment of minorities is unfair. But not everyone at the college was impressed.

Civil rights organisations called the baked goods sale “misguided and misinformed”, while other student groups condemned the action as “very offensive”. Organisers received threats as the sale neared.

The “Increase Diversity Bake Sale” was run by members of Berkeley College Republicans.

It followed support by the university’s student council for proposed state legislation which would allow universities to consider race and gender during the admission process.

This, said Republicans on campus, was “intrinsically racist”.

In protest they organised a cake sale during which a sliding scale saw goods offered to different races at different prices. Just yards away, a separate group of students were due to take part in a campaigning event promoting positive discrimination.

White men at the campus were offered products at $2-a-piece. Asian males cakes for $1.50, Hispanic students for $1 and black students for 75 cents. Native American males were being sold goods at just 25 cents each. All female students got a 25 cent automatic discount.

“We agree that the event is inherently racist, but that is the point,” said Shawn Lewis, president of the Berkeley College Republicans in a post. He added: “It is no more racist than giving an individual an advantage in college admissions based solely on their race or gender.”

But Joey Freeman, a spokesman for Berkeley’s student association hit out at the Republican stunt.

He said: “It is very offensive to many communities on campus. We try to promote a healthy campus climate, events like this bake sale get in the way of respect for each other.”

Hilary Shelton, senior vice president for advocacy and policy at National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP), said the cake sale was “misguided and based on misinformation”.

He added: “Equal opportunity programmes such as affirmative action have proved to be successful and are needed now more than ever – it proves we can have a system that isn’t discriminatory and recognises diversity.”

Ethnic minorities are under-represented at university level in America. In 2009, 56.1 per cent of white Americans aged 18 to 19-years-old were in post-high school education. This compared to 41.5 per cent of black school leavers and 32.7 per cent of Hispanics of the same age.

A US government survey in 2007 found that more than three times as many black Americans were living in prison cells as in college dorms.

Despite the criticism, Mr Lewis was busying himself getting ready for the cake sale when contacted by The Scotsman yesterday. “I have been surprised by the attention it is getting,” he said: “The threats were particularly surprising. People were saying they were going to come and burn the stall down.”