Attacks on Connerly unfounded, use double standards
By Daily Bruin Staff
March 7, 2001 9:00 p.m.
Massey is a first-year history student.
By Drew Massey
Two recent opinion pieces from the March 5 edition of the Daily
Bruin were astonishingly hypocritical. First there was a column by
Michael Weiner (“Connerly blatantly misuses UC to further his
ideology,” News) and then a submission by Antonion Sandoval,
(“Connerly’s proposal serves only his right-wing
agenda,” Viewpoint). Both of these pieces cite everything on
the right as evil and monstrous, while the left is simply advancing
its own views.
Weiner attacks Connerly’s previous campaign against
affirmative action, calling it an “injury” to the
university while calling Proposition 209 the “insult”
that followed. But Weiner then proceeds to use rhetoric that
demonizes anyone who holds an opposing view.
Calling Connerly’s Racial Privacy Initiative
“insidious,” he then moves on to attack Connerly for
using his “position to effectively politicize … this
university by placing it at the center of one of the most
contentious public debates of our time.”
So when Connerly uses his position to implement policy he is
politicizing the UC, but when Atkinson does it, he is simply
advocating his own views. Am I the only one seeing this double
standard?
If there was any doubt as to Weiner’s thoughts about
Republicans, it comes when he describes “Reagan and his
minions” as being horrible to the UC.
Yet Weiner himself admits that the UC is “fully owned and
operated by the citizens of the state.” If this is true then
the passage of Proposition 209 by the citizens of the state should
be implemented at the UCs as well. He also espouses the noble goal
of the UC being open to anyone, “without regard to race or
class.”
Well, someone who doesn’t want race to be an influence in
admissions should support Connerly’s measure.
Sandoval makes all the same arguments. He says, “It is a
system into which they pay taxes and from which they are
systematically excluded.” Again, taxpayers passed Proposition
209.
But the real kicker comes with the large quote at the beginning
of the submission. “The overall result of Connerly’s
tenure has been the decreased presence of people of color at the
UC.” This seems to imply that Connerly wakes up everyday and
tries to figure out how he can screw over minorities. While he
dawdles on the phone he secretly wonders how he can further
discriminate.
That view is foolish and naive.
The truth is that affirmative action is racist. Not racist
against whites, as was argued in the Bakke case, but it is racist
““ racist against minorities. Affirmative action says,
“Ah, that’s cute that you thought you could be as good
as the white kid or the Asian American, but we all know
you’re not as good. That’s why I’m here to help
you, because you need it. You can’t perform as well as those
white kids on tests.”
That is extremely racist and I cannot believe that minorities
stand for that kind of intolerance of their abilities. We should be
saying, “Work hard, study and you can be just as good or
better than any white kid.”
In any event, the call at the end of both pieces for Connerly to
resign is childish and immature. He is advancing his own views just
as Atkinson is.
Or, if you like, he is serving his right-wing agenda, just as
Atkinson is serving his left-wing agenda to drop the SATs and
create a color-coordinated campus.
