Sunday, April 09, 2006

Campus bake sales by conservatives who oppose affirmative-action are cooking up discord -- and complaints about restrictions on free speech.

Organizers charge white students $1 for a cookie, while blacks and other minorities pay 25 to 95 cents. Doughnuts are available for 50 cents to everyone except Asian Americans and whites, who cannot purchase them.

Unfair? So is affirmative action, organizers contend.

"It's a good example of what affirmative action does, judging people based on race," said Jason Chambers, president of the University of Washington College Republicans, which held a sale in October that shut down when some students began attacking the booth.

"People were upset. People did feel offended," said Anthony Rose, president of the UW Black Student Union. "You see something like that, you feel itemized."

In September, Southern Methodist University shut down a similar event by the Young Conservatives of Texas.

The Landstuhl Hospital Care Project added $4,400 to its coffers April 7 to buy items needed by wounded, injured and sick servicemembers at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, Germany, and hospitals in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Karen Grimord, the project's coordinator.

The money was raised during the "Hook & C's Karaoke" 2nd annual benefit, held here this year at American Legion Post 364....