One thing people know, or are realizing is that we still have unsolved issues when involves the topic of race. It has driven conversation across the nation especially since the start of the 2016 election, and the revolutionary Black Lives Matter movement. This past week the “Affirmative Action” bake sale put on by the Young Conservatives of Texas group at UT Austin was the top of my twitter feed. YTC was trying to show what affirmative action does in the admission processes through this very inaccurate representation.
Looking through my feed I was disgusted by what I was seeing. The prices depended on your race and wait for it…yes, your gender as well! Here is a picture of the prices that YCT so proudly paraded on the UT campus.
Once students of UT saw what was occurring, there was an understanding uproar and protest of the sale of racially priced bake goods. Alumni were involved, enrolled students, and even Austenites stopped to chime in. See it live on Periscope!
Now, this was not the first-time UT Austin was faced with these problems concerning the understanding of affirmative action. In 2008, Abigail Fisher, daughter of a UT grad and white female who was extremely involved in school, believed that affirmative action discriminated against her. Fisher brought the case to the Supreme Court multiple times, once it was finally seen the answer was given.
“It’s equally settled that universities may use race as part of a holistic admissions program where it cannot otherwise achieve diversity.” – Judge Patrick Higginbotham, U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit
Affirmative action does not accept based on skin color. It is not a “free pass” for someone who is “not smart enough” or “didn’t work as hard”, and it does not lower the standards for anyone. What it does is give HIGHLY QUALIFIED minorities a fighting chance to compete in the world dominated by students like Abigail Fisher, who believe that they deserve the luxury of any higher education institution they want because of their lineage, or maybe their ability to sue anyone who might do them wrong, including the admissions board of UT Austin. Not all think this way, but some firmly believe in the idea that since they have these abilities (or dare I say privileges), they get what they want without question. In this case, Fisher was just not happy that for the first time in her life things didn’t go her way.
I applied to UT Austin, and did not get accepted. I had no strife with the decision made. I knew I did not work as hard as others, though my extracurricular activities where up to par; I was a dancer, yearbook editor, in a highly regarded magnet program, I knew that my grades were not the greatest. I gave it a shot because I thought what the heck, the worst that can be said is “no”. After I was rejected, I didn’t feel any sort of discrimination against my Hispanic ethnicity, even though most of the campus is white, 43 percent to be exact. I didn’t feel cheated. Many people in my graduating class where accepted to UT, some who had the same color skin as I did, and some that didn’t. Some who possessed last names like Benavidez, and others who possessed last names like Howard. I was proud to even know people to get accepted to such a great university, and I was even prouder to see them happy for each other.
Facts show that Fisher was not in the top ten percent of her class for automatic acceptance to UT Austin. And the YCT bake sale shows that some turn a blind eye to things they don’t understand, and don’t bother to try to understand them. Let this be a lesson to not only UT Austin, but to all college campuses, workplaces, subway trains and buses, to the newly renovated classrooms and the ones who are still trying to get computers in theirs. Discrimination is something we cannot live with, stereotypes are something we are taught, and the feeling of inferiority cannot be felt unless you let someone make you feel inferior, and lastly, ignorance is bliss.
So never live blissfully.
