Group holds controversial sale

Students crowded around a folding table Wednesday afternoon in Dunn Meadow where the Committee for Freedom, a new student group at IU, held a bake sale to protest affirmative action. At the sale, chocolate chip cookies were sold, but everyone was charged a different price, depending on their race and gender.\nWhite males paid $1 per cookie, white females paid 75 cents, Hispanics paid 50 cents and African Americans paid 25 cents. The set prices reflected what the Committee for Freedom thinks are the inequalities of affirmative action, said sophomore Stephan Jerabek, who organized the event.\n"I believe all are created equal, and they should be treated equally," Jerabek said. "This is to illustrate the point that people are not treated equally." \nThe Committee for Freedom, which started at IU a month ago, held the anti-affirmative action bake sale to begin its campaign to persuade IU to ban the use of racial data, particularly in the admissions and hiring processes.\nGraduate student Dietrich Willke said despite his mixed feelings about affirmative action, the bake sale was the wrong way to discuss this topic.\n"I would rather have a panel or discussion about this rather than something like cookies," Willke said.\nSenior Eric Williams said he had a problem with the price breakdown.\n"As black people, we don't get more benefits than Hispanics," he said. "That's how misconceptions get spread."\nFreshman Evan Rosenberg said he might not have encountered a lot of the people here just because of his own internalized racism. \n"Now that I am here, I'm starting to interact with a lot of people that I might not be able to on an everyday basis because of my own inherent racism, which I acknowledge and am trying to combat by coming to events like this," Rosenberg said.\nBake sales like the one in Dunn Meadow Wednesday have been held at colleges across the country, such as Southern Methodist University, the University of California-Berkeley, the University of Texas at Austin, Texas A&M University, Northwestern University and the University of Washington-Seattle. At Southern Methodist, the bake sale had to be shut down after only 45 minutes due to the stir it created.\nVice President of Student Development and Diversity Charlie Nelms said the people who are against affirmative action have every right to protest because democracy allows citizens to voice their opinion. \n"When we have bake sales like this we should use these opportunities to try to learn something," Nelms said.\nJerabek said some pretty good questions were raised and the conversation had been very interesting. \nJunior Amber Garcia said she believes the reason that so many people are against affirmative action is because they do not understand the technicalities. \n"People don't understand the concept of 'white privilege' that is taught in the classes," Garcia said. "Personally, I feel sorry for these guys out here that are trying to argue their point because I think it is all about ignorance." \nFreshman Allan Hall said he didn't know if the bake sale made its point in the right way. \n"If nothing else, it is going to inform people more, educate people more, and that is why I stopped by," Hall said. \nJunior Isaac Kinsey said the people in attendance had nothing to back up their argument.\n"The University failed because they did not educate these people who don't understand what affirmative action is," Kinsey said. \nGarcia said the people who are against affirmative action have no idea what it is like to be a person who is in the minority. \n"They don't know what it is like to go into a classroom and be the only person that looks different." \n-- Contact staff writer Mike Malik at mjmalik@indiana.edu. Senior writer George Lyle IV contributed to this report.