What exactly is the definition of a bake sale? Can discrimination charges be based on the prices of cookies? These were two of the questions that members of Associated Student Government debated for almost two hours Wednesday night before finding the Objectivist Club guilty of group and financial misconduct.Despite the spirited debate and political tension in the room, senators voted 5-47 with seven abstentions to uphold the Executive Committee's misconduct and punishments for the Objectivist Club's role in the Oct. 31 anti-affirmative action bake sale.
SAFB (Student Activities Finance Board) found College Republicans not guilty of similar charges because the group did not give permission for its name to be used to promote, publicize or plan the bake sale.
Members of the Objectivist Club and College Republicans sparked debate and investigation by setting up a table at the Rock with a sign listing different cookie prices for various races and genders.
"It was intended to get our point across that discrimination is stupid in admissions processes and cookie prices," said Weinberg senior Jen Martin. She is secretary of the Objectivist Club.
The Executive Committee recommended to ASG that the club should be sanctioned for "ineffectual leadership," "misleading Events Planning," "not using a SOFO (Student Organization Finance Office) cash box, and a lack of "sufficient contact between the Group Executive and the Objectivist Club."
The Objectivist Club's president and treasurer will not be allowed to reserve meeting space or sign SOFO documents. All arrangements must be made through ASG Executive Vice President Bryan Tolles, Group Executive Jonathan Love, or the club's staff adviser.
Off-campus senator Brandon Brooks motioned to amend the finding to include discrimination charges. He recommended that the Objectivist Club be reduced to T-status.
"They would not sell me a cookie," said Brooks about his reason for the discrimination charges. Brooks is an African American male and would have paid 25 cents for a cookie - one of the lowest prices listed.
Group members contend that the prices were only suggested and that the prices were suggested not required. The group gave away 400 cookies and collected only $31.25 in the 2.5-hour span before a university administrator shut down the bake sale.
Senators voted 18-22 against the judgment when including discrimination charges.
The Objectivist Club objected to the findings and facts presented by the Executive Committee and volunteered to give back the 39-cent profit the group made from the event.
The following was written by Igor Dubinsky, president of the Objectivist Club, about the group's beliefs and rationale for supporting the bake sale and opposing affirmative action:
Let me clear up any confusion from the start. We are against racism, we are against affirmative action as it is simply an example of racism, and we will not sugarcoat any issue so that we can fake your reality for you. Reality exists and you have to deal with living in it by using your reason. Affirmative action policies, such as the ones used at this school, are racist. Classifying a person based on a group that one belongs to, but had nothing to do with, is racism at its prime. Affirmative action diminishes the accomplishments of the minority groups, fosters tensions between racial groups because it evaluates them as groups and not individuals, and tells people that they are nothing outside of what their collective stereotype is.
It's what the slave owners of America did, it's what Nazi Germany did, and it's precisely what affirmative action advocates are clamoring for today.
As to the claims that the forum used could have been different...come to one of our weekly meetings comprising open issue discussions or events where university professors and business leaders explain such issues. But people writing attacks only see one aspect of one event, evaluate it through "how it made them feel" and throw together a letter to the Daily condemning us.
If you are under a "glass ceiling," and are tired of people looking at your chest, then study harder and get yourself some new friends. The beauty of a capitalist system is that you are only limited by your abilities and your ambition. Your only claim on your employer and your customers is how much value you can provide them with. When I buy a car, I don't care if a blue transvestite made it, as long as it drives like I want it to.
Objectivists believe that your value is determined by your own actions and ability. We believe that we had nothing to do with the past during which we did not exist; we live in the present by our own efforts and accomplishments, and we believe in making our own future. Apparently you believe otherwise.
