The University of Illinois Illini Republicans have received a lot of heat recently due to their “Affirmative Action Bake Sale.” Fox News Illinois recently published an article covering the topic.
The bake sale will charge customers based on ethnicity or gender. “True equality cannot be achieved so long as we are judging individuals not by concrete qualifications or character traits,” the club quotes on their facebook page.
I personally do not agree with affirmative action. However, I think this bake sale is not the right way to draw attention to the issue. The Illini Republicans have definitely drawn attention to affirmative action, but I think they approached it in a way that many found offensive. There also seems to be a mistranslation between what affirmative action actually is and the way the bake sale is being handled. Overall, I agree that affirmative action is an issue that needs to be addressed, but the bake sale does not seem like the right way to do it.