Cookies not a treat but a bad trick
Halloween came early to the SMU campus in the form of the YoungConservatives’ bake sale. As parents warn their children,this batch of goodies came laden with dangerous contents. With theseemingly trivial act of charging African Americans 25 cents forcookies that cost white men $1, the Conservatives evoked painfulmemories and experiences from our nation’s history and ourtumultuous present.
Racial and ethnic minorities have been treated unequally,sometimes in the form of law and social policy, such as slavery andsegregation, then sometimes in the form of petty, insultinggestures like suspicious looks and cruel snubs.
The French existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre wrote,”I refuse to characterize as opinion a doctrine that is aimeddirectly at particular persons.”
He meant that our tolerance of the views of others should belimited by our respect for persons and our desire that they not beattacked. Of course we should excuse Sartre’s desire to placerestrictions on our acceptance of others'”opinions” since he was writing in the aftermath of theHolocaust. He had witnessed the annihilation of millions. Sartrealso observed that the ground for such genocide had been laid byhate-ridden and demeaning speech.
In the present historical context, United States law hasconsidered it desirable to eliminate certain behavior which makesit difficult and sometimes impossible for some of us to liveproductively and constructively. Thus racial and sexual harassmentin the workplace and in schools has been rendered illegal. Thecourts are fleshing out how creating a hostile environment forcertain persons of a particular gender, race or ethnicityconstitutes harassment. Arguably, the bake sale created a hostileenvironment for minority students, faculty and staff.
For this reason, and because a private university has anoverriding interest in protecting the safety of its students, SMUadministrative officials were right to close down the bake sale.But the bake sale “treats” contained not only thepoison of racial insult but razor blades as well. Crude instrumentscut out the complexities of the issue of affirmative action andleft a garish, simplistic distortion.
The Supreme Court decision that the Young Conservativesprotested was thoughtful and subtle. It rejected the admissionscriteria of the University of Michigan undergraduate school whileaffirming that of the University of Michigan Law School. Thedifference is that the undergraduate school granted points tostudents because of minority status, while the law schoolconsidered race as one of many factors in evaluating the student.The law school argued that it had an interest in creating a diversestudent body, and its admissions procedure served that interest.The Supreme Court concurred with this argument. As we all know, orshould know, no admissions procedure is a strict meritocracy— other factors such as geographical distribution and studenttalents influence student admission. The cookie protest cut fromthe issue most of the relevant considerations.
Does and should SMU support freedom of speech? Of course —especially when demonstrations remain in designated forums. But letus hope that when the Young Conservatives exercise their rights offreedom of speech again, they do so without the poison of racialvenom and without the razor blades of simplistic thinking.
