First Annual White Heterosexual Male Scholarship
Katherine Mangu-Ward | April 30, 2007, 12:31pm
A while back, the College Republicans at the University of Rhode Island tried their hands at a wee bit of social satire: They inaugurated the First Annual White Heterosexual Male Scholarship[PDF of application]. "Applicants were asked, first, to certify that they were indeed white, heterosexual, American and male and then to answer two questions: 'In 100 words or less, what does being a White Heterosexual American Male mean to you? As a White Heterosexual American Male, what adversities have you had to deal with and overcome?'"
The inevitable occurs:
The student senate was not amused, and in February the Student Organizations Advisory and Review Committee demanded that the College Republicans: A) not award the $100 scholarship, B) apologize in writing for having violated the anti-discrimination section of the senate’s bylaws, and C) seek permission from the senate before mounting any programs in the next 12 months. The group cheerfully agreed to A – why not? – and declined to comply with B and C.
In response the Advisory and Review Committee exercised the nuclear option and voted to derecognize the group, in spite of the fact that Robert Carothers, the university’s president, had declared on April 6 that it was unconstitutional to require the College Republicans to “make public statements which are not their own.” (The relevant First Amendment category is “compelled speech.”)
The student senate backed down on Thursday. Stanley Fish blogs on the resolution and does some deepthink about FIRE's role in the controversy.
More on FIRE here and here. The founders of FIRE write in Reason here and here.
tlxtftrf | April 30, 2007, 2:21pm | #
Kind of reminds me of a stunt that the college republicans at my college attempted. There were two events as I remember, both set up to make a point about illegal immigration:
1. They set up a section of chain link fence for students to crawl under, after which they had to put on shirts saying "illegal immigrant," then grabbing welfare checks and food stamps along a course to the finish line. The winner of each heat would receive $20
2. Their was a white guy dressed in a white t-shirt that said "illegal migrant" on the front who would run around campus during class hours and whoever "caught" him first got a free meal at a Mexican restaurant courtesy of the college republicans. I believe they had to give up on this one after no one even attempted to catch the guy.
The president of the university wrote an angry notice to everyone on campus, telling us about the virtues of diversity...etc, etc. The Mexican restaurant owner went on tv saying the college republicans weren't welcome anymore.
Around the same time as this a gay member of the student senate claimed an irate redneck beat him unconscious with a baseball bat late at night for "being a fag." There was a criminal investigation, the student senate and college democrats issued releases condemning the "homophobia of conservative students" which "caused all this," the college president issued a shocked release praising diversity, and the gay senator finally admitted that he was lying and his injuries (stitches on his head, concussion) were self inflicted by cutting himself or (in the case of the concussion) faked by lying about symptoms to the doctor.
The senator resigned in shame. The liberals wrote an article condemning the senator and the college republicans again saying that if something like this were to occur, than it would be the CR's fault. The senate didn't apologize to the the conservative students, there was no new presidential message condemning lying to the police.
Their both just retarded.
bzial | April 30, 2007, 2:43pm | #
Personally, I think all race based scholarships are silly and I say this as a minority that would actively benefit from them (I've recently returned to university after some time in the corporate and military worlds).
Anyway, there ARE Italian American only scholarhips. Heck, here are just a couple I found off my first hit:
https://www.niaf.org/scholarships/index.asp
- The Emanuele and Emilia Inglese Memorial Scholarship - $2,500 scholarship for an Italian American undergraduate student who traces his/her ancestry from the Lombardy region and is the first generation of his/her family to attend college ...
- The Eleanor and Anthony DeFrancis Scholarship Fund - Scholarships for Italian American undergraduate ...
Here is one for Irish Americans: http://www.irishsummerfest.org/html/scholar.html
First hit and what not.
Here ones for Polish american:
http://www.polishcultureacpc.org/
Now, I personally am not too fond of race based scholarships for various reasons, though the idea that is no ethnic scholarship opportunities for 'white' types isn't really true.
Though I guess the Libertarian question would be more be focused more on things like affirmative action (another bad program for multiple reasons) and governmental giveaways. I mean if some private group wants to give money to only one race or whatever. That is kind of their choice. I mean, personally, if say David Duke wants to make the David Duke Aryan Purity Scholarship, as long as he isn't doing it with tax dollars,...well his choice.
Mr. F. Le Mur | April 30, 2007, 3:22pm | #
"The following are privately contributed loan and scholarship funds. For federal programs and general student aid information, see the Enrollment Services section of the URI Catalog."
http://www.uri.edu/catalog/cataloghtml/loansscholarshipawards.html
Each line is a separate scholarship:
-preference to female residents
-scholarship in men’s basketball or men’s track
-a scholarship awarded annually to an African-American student
-with preference to Armenian students
-endowment for scholarships to minority students.
-awarded annually to woman
-with preference to African-American or Hispanic students
-students of Italo-American descent
-awarded annually to a woman student
-preferably African-American,
-awarded annually to a minority student
-Awarded to female student-athletes
-Annual grant awarded to ... a Native American.
-awarded annually to a worthy male student
-equally between men’s crew and men’s tennis
-awarded annually to a woman
-worthy and needy female student.
-awarded annually to American-born undergraduate
-awarded annually to women athletes
-awarded annually to one or two undergraduate women
-students in the women’s studies
-awarded annually to women students
-majors or minors in women’s studies.
-awarded annually to a female student
-awarded annually to women students
-to minority students
-Preference will be given to students of Italian heritage.
-scholarship in women’s studies
-female premedical student
-awarded annually to a female student
-awarded annually to an African-American student
-awarded annually to one male and one female minority student
-awarded annually to “women in transition”
-to a female student
-awarded annually to an African-American
-Preference to a first-generation American
-awarded annually to a female student
-minorities, and/or women will receive preferential consideration.
-awarded annually to Rhode Island female students
-Preference given to a woman
-to a female pharmacy student
thoreau | April 30, 2007, 3:48pm | #
The difference between the College Democrats and College Republicans:
Most liberal activism on college campuses is done by single-issue groups. The College Democrats are largely invisible, in my experience, with their main activities being to support candidates for office and try to get internships. The liberals with signs standing in front of the Student Union to raise money and/or "raise awareness" are generally not with the College Democrats. And while there will be dumb left-wing stunts done on campus, they won't (usually) be done by the College Democrats.
The College Republicans are also interested in internships and campaigns, of course. But they take on the additional task of engaging in stunts to get attention for some issue. And a lot of these stunts seem to relate to affirmative action and/or immigration.
To the extent that a lot of their stunts pertain to issues with ethnic/racial and/or gender (at least for affirmative action) components, I'd say that they are no different from their counterparts on the politically correct far left: They're obsessed with ethnicity. They're just the right-wing mirror image of a Womyn's Studies major.
So I'll take a College Democrat (not to be confused with a college student who votes for Democrats) over a College Republican (not to be confused with a college student who votes Democrat) any day of the week, because the odds are that the College Democrat is more about resume-building (which can admittedly be annoying in its own way) than axe-grinding, while the College Republican probably has an axe to grind.
It's unfortunate, really. Dumb right-wing college students with grievances have nowhere to go but the College Republicans, while dumb left-wing college students with grievances have a wide range of outlets. The result is that the Republican Party is represented on campus by a bunch of jackasses (ironically enough, given the mascots), while the Democratic Party is (usually) represented by some more sane, mainstream students.
If Republicans want to improve their image among college students, they should secretly fund some kooky right-wing organizations to compete with the College Republicans and drain away the zanier elements, leaving behind an organization with fewer image problems.
thoreau | April 30, 2007, 10:18pm | #
The fact remains, as a quick look at the laundry list of university funded student groups readily reveals, that the CR's tend to be just about the only game in town for right-wing advocacy at most schools.
Yep, which is why the Campus Democrats tend to avoid stunts (liberal students who want to antagonize other people have plenty of other groups to choose from) while the College Republicans tend to revel in stunts (conservative students who want to antagonize other people have no other choice).
And, once again, as far as I'm concerned there's no excuse for what the student government did. They should
ignore the College Republicans.
JH:
So, does your dictionary have this listing: "asshole, n., one who effectively, wittily, and cheaply publicizes their point of view while getting their opponents to look like, well, assholes"
Here's the thing: They aren't interested in debate, they're interested in provoking a response. And once they provoke that response they get to claim that they've been victimized by an oppressive liberal campus. On the surface, this may look like the sort of thing that is potentially thought-provoking, depending on how it's handled. But in practice, College Republicans
organizations (not to be confused with individual students who voted Republican) almost never handle these things well.
In the past several years there have been numerous events like this, including "affirmative action bake sales", on a variety of college campuses, and usually they provoke a negative response. Now, I'm not here to excuse anybody who gives the negative response. I'm just here to suggest that when chapters of a national organization keep doing the same thing and getting the same negative response, maybe, just maybe, the agenda here isn't about starting an insightful dialogue. Maybe, just maybe, it's about provoking a response and then talking about how victimized they were.
A similar dynamic played out several years ago with David Horowitz and his reparations talk. Yes, I'm against reparations. Yes, I think the responses on campuses were wrong. But I also think that he knew exactly which buttons to push, he knew he could get speaking fees once he'd pushed those buttons (various foundations helped College Republican chapters pay for him to visit campuses), and when all was said and done he even wrote a book (which you can read, for a fee).
There's a dynamic among conservative student
activists: Push the right buttons, then cry out "Help! Help! I'm being oppressed!" If something interesting and thought-provoking came out of it, I'd applaud their "civil disobedience." (OK, maybe not quite the right word when you're going up against campus authorities rather than legal authorities, but you get the picture.) But it isn't about that. It's about creating excuses to whine about victimhood.
At least the Original Recipe Thoreau wanted to make points about war and government, and wrote a popular and insightful essay about his experience. The same cannot be said for the College Republicans.
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