Talk:Affirmative action bake sale/Archive 1

Membership demographics

I removed the phrase "composed of mostly economics, business, law, and conservative students" from the opening graf. Until there's hard data on the membership of sponsoring groups, this statement seems unnecessary and speculative. Feco 01:12, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

--- Really? And I guess I need a statistical study done to discover the Swedish Bikini Team is comprised of all Europeans? Most of these sponsering student groups indeed have websites, some of which have pictures and member lists. The demographics of these groups is obvious. Your denial only serves to further weaken your credibility. -anon

Can you provide these websites? If we could look at them it might benefit the article.--Nectar ^T 02:30, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

Lets hurry and get that data so someone can modify this nonsense: "Participating students have been from various racial backgrounds." If I lived in a cave with my fingers in my ears and this article was my first exposure to such practice, I'd think blacks participated just as much as whites. How about some percentages?

    D

NPOV

At the current moment, this article does not conform to a NPOV. The last paragraph, added completely by 66.20.37.226 refeclts opinions of the author. While I believe the author may have a valid point to be made, it needs to be removed in its current form. I will remove it if it is not rewritten or if the Wiki community decides it should stay (by discussing it here). Badammcqueen 20:57, Jun 6, 2005 (UTC)

I am removing the recently-added disputed section and placing it below. It is an original argument, not made by any notable references, which is something considered by Wikipedia Policy to be inappropriate for encyclopedia articles. Regarding the soundess of its argument, there are a number of weaknesses. Absent any studies at hand, my memory is that IQ is a better predictor of academic success and eventual income than parent education level, contrary to the implication (unreferenced) in the argument. This is especially true in adoption studies, which better isolate the environmental influences under discussion. Additionally, the application of the analogy makes a number of subjective assumptions, including the assumptions represented in the decision to apply the entire history of race relations to a single body of students over a month long period. Please discuss if its inclusion is desired.--Nectarflowed ^T 21:35, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. Badammcqueen 22:16, Jun 8, 2005 (UTC)

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Text under discussion:

""Of course, in order to have an accurate historical context, these sales would need to include 2-3 months of bake sales where only white males would be allowed to purchase food at all followed by weeks of only male sales, a few days of sales for all and then, for a single day, minority-favored prices. The historical context is imperative considering that family socio-economic class (often determnded by education) and highest degree attained by parents are the most vital indicators of an idnividual student's chance to successfully atain a degree of higher learning. A bake sale held in the proper context would yield many more cookies for white males than for minorities - which is in line with current opportunities for minorities in the United States.""

I think this quote is worth including. It adds something to the discussion, just as the bake sales do. It's too bad so many people have taken one-sided views on this subject; I think that both sides make good points that can contribute to our understanding of the issue. Too often we debate from a limited (often emotional) viewpoint rather than benefitting from considering a variety of ideas.24.64.223.203 01:30, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

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The entire article is imbalanced and has no NPOV. I have tried to add some balance to the subject. E.g., the "critics" section seems more to buffer the opinions of the author than to present criticism of the subject. The paragraph above should rightly be put in that section, as a POV of a critic of bake sales. I have put it back.

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The "of course, in order to have an accurate historical context" language proposed above is itself POV, as it's nothing more than editorializing on the subject. User:Andrew Levine has just made some modifications which greatly strengthen the Criticisms section, and incorporate the historical context argument. Therefore I'm taking down the NPOV flag, which has sat around for a long time. PubliusFL 21:29, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Republican category

Why is this article classified under Category:U.S. Republican Party? The article makes no connection to the GOP. Gentgeen 1 July 2005 18:00 (UTC)

I'd guess that the main opponents of AA are conservatives and libertarians. That might explain why, but I agree w/ you that it is not implicity related to republicans.

'Similar tactics by leftists' section

There is a small section at the end of the article called 'similar tactics by leftists' with the following text:

The political left has sometimes engaged in similar forms of price discrimination by race or sex to make its own points. For instance, a 1968 feminist tract entitled Notes from the First Year stated its cover price as "$.50 to women, $1.00 to men".

First off, this is a poor example of 'similar tactics.' The Affirmative Action Baksesale tries to re-create the admissions practices of universities in economic terms by pricing goods based on race. A '1968 feminist tract' being priced less for women is not analagous to this, because the pricing stucture is not related to any real policy. I would also think that an old 'femenist tract' from the late 60's is in any way reflective of the left today (oh boy, can't wait to hear the reactionaries on that one).

I don't think that this article frames these events as being right-wing, and if it does I think that's wrong. There are people on the left who oppose Affirmative Action, but I think the person who wrote this section felt it was portraying conservatives badly and wanted to 'level the playing field' with this.