Another Prop. 209 article in the UC Davis newspaper, the California Aggie:

College is often touted as a place full of potential for personal growth and educational immersion, however, a recent study shows universities across the nation might not be as accessible to racial minorities as they once were.

UC Davis sociology professor Eric Grodsky and graduate student Demetra Kalogrides found the acknowledgment of race-based admittance practices in both public and private universities decreased from the mid-’90s to 2003.

Using data from the responses of over 1,300 institutions to an annual survey conducted by the College Board from 1986 to 2003, Grodsky and Kalogrides contrast the recent decline in race-based affirmative action policies with the increase that occurred from 1986 to the early-’90s.

First of all, let’s let out a collective groan in response to that wonderfully biased introduction. *groan* Now, here’s what the study told us about affirmative action: there used to be a lot, and now there’s not. Any BAMN member could convey that fact by yelling at your face. Tell us something we didn’t already know.

Rahim Reed, associate executive vice chancellor for campus community relations, said various state legislation has made it more difficult to enable postsecondary institutions in California to target racial minorities.

Reed cited Proposition 209, passed by California voters in 1996, as having an adverse impact on UCD’s ability to enroll underrepresented minority students.
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“It is difficult with Proposition 209 [to enroll minorities], but it is not impossible,” Reed said.
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“I would say that the numbers speak for themselves,” Reed said. “We could do a much better job at enrolling minorities.”
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[H]e would like to see the racial composition of college students in the state mirror that of high school students.

Say ‘minority’ one more time… I wonder what Reed’s original quote was. Maybe it was this: “It is difficult with Proposition 209 [to enroll anyone who does not meet the minimal requirements to be a student at an institution of this caliber. I mean seriously, should we be expected to enroll someone with a subpar GPA and SAT score just because there aren’t that many people who share his skin color here? Because if we did, someone with higher scores, and most likely also a minority, would have to find somewhere else to go. And how fair is that? So really, this whole thing isn’t about minorities at all. It’s about acknowledging that colleges have certain standards, and if you can’t meet those standards don’t point at your skin as an excuse. Maybe you should’ve studied more? Seriously.]” No, that would have been too honest.

The French people have apparently decided not to ratify the EU Constitution:

French voters rejected the European Union’s first constitution Sunday, a stinging repudiation of President Jacques Chirac’s leadership and the ambitious, decades-long effort to further unite the continent.

Chirac, who urged voters to approve the charter, announced the result in a brief, televised address. He said the process of ratifying the treaty would continue in other EU countries.

“It is your sovereign decision, and I take note,” Chirac said. “Make no mistake, France’s decision inevitably creates a difficult context for the defense of our interests in Europe.”

With 92 percent of votes counted, the treaty was rejected by 56.14 percent of voters, the Interior Ministry said. It was supported by 43.86 percent.

Treaty opponents chanting “We won!” gathered at Paris’ Place de la Bastille, a symbol of rebellion where angry crowds in 1789 stormed the Bastille prison and sparked the French Revolution. Cars blared their horns and “no” campaigners thrust their arms into the air.

Apparently, the conservative party leader, Jean-Marie Le Pen, who campaigned vigorously for the constitution’s defeat, has called for President Jacques Chirac’s resignation.

Chirac “wanted to gamble … and he has lost,” Le Pen said, alluding to Chirac’s decision not to submit the charter to sure approval by parliament. The EU constitution can be adopted either by a referendum or a nation’s legislature.

So, I have two talking points - Would Le Pen be Chirac’s replacement, and, if so, how would that affect relations with the US? Secondly, how will the fact that France isn’t entering the EU affect the economy of Europe and the rest of the world?

If anyone could start some discussion on this that would be great …

The Sacramento Bee has a great piece on how 9/11 affected the lives of our most recent graduates. It’s framed by a profile of Kelly Coyne, our editor-in-chief for the 2004-2005 school year. Read the whole thing [Bugmenot]. Here’s a bit:

Kelly Coyne, like most of us, remembers exactly where she was when news of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, shook the world - and woke her up….

“I remember waking up because you heard all the phones ringing down the hall; all the moms were calling,” she says. She and other students on her floor crowded into the room of a student who had a TV. “We saw the second plane hit the building on live TV,” she says quietly. “It was really scary.”

On that day, Coyne became a member of the “Class of 9/11,” the group of students whose start of college was shadowed by the attacks on the World Trade Center.

Four years later, Coyne and many others in the class are graduating.

And a little more:

“I think 9/11 put the focus on service,” says Linda Hughes, program manager for the Internship and Career Center of the University of California, Davis.

Shortly after the attacks, there was an increase - about a doubling, Hughes says - in participation in the center’s Human Corps Community Service Program. The levels of participation have remained fairly high, though often inspired by different catastrophes, including the Asian tsunami last December.

Back in 2001, Coyne was moved to action and displays of patriotism by 9/11, particularly because so much campus reaction was openly critical of the United States.

Theodore Hasse, a fellow Berkeley Blogger, has a detailed writeup of Condoleezza Rice’s speech in San Francisco on Friday. It’s worth reading for anyone interested in current events and foreign affairs. And since he was in attendance, you can be sure that it’s filled with more details and a better perspective than the mainstream media coverage. Here’s an bit:

It was also about at this point two people in the audience cloaked in black with pointed hoods stood on their chairs performing the “Abu Ghraib” pose. Rice continued speaking as a few audience members shouted for them to “sit down” and a rank of police officers filed down the aisle toward the protesters. The protesters did not resist their removal by police, though they began chanting as soon as police made physical contact with them:

“Stop the war! Stop the killing! U.S. out of Iraq!”

Several audience members clapped when the protesters began chanting. As the first two were being led out a similar disturbance occurred on the other side of the hall, none of the protesters deviated from the scripted slogan:

“Stop the war! Stop the killing! U.S. out of Iraq!”

Moments after the second disturbance began the audience spontaneously gave a standing ovation to Rice until the protesters were removed, apparently to drown out their slogan. Protesters could be heard shouting the slogan intermittently throughout the speech in the lobby outside of the auditorium.

As bloggers embrace their roles as citizen journalists, it’s great to see that we no longer have to view the world through the eyes of the mainstream media.

You might remember this symbolic resolution that Berkeley passed a few years back:

This week the city also made a move to support Kucinich’s federal legislation known as the Space Preservation Act, which protests deploying weapons into space. The city’s resolution to side with Kucinich’s cause is the first formal support the Congressman has received.

Councilmember Dona Spring, who sponsored the Berkeley resolution, hopes the city’s support will help propel the debate about weapons in space to the forefront of national and even international politics.

“Our resolution is a model for the country,” Spring said, adding that she believes weapons in space is a bad idea.

Well Berkeley may be a model, but not for the United States. At least according to this opinion piece, “Berkeley 2002 Resolution Sweeps Through Canada“:

Berkeley is the only city in the United States with its own Foreign Policy
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After the Berkeley City Council had passed a resolution in 2002, “ENDORSING THE SPACE PRESERVATION ACT AND COMPANION SPACE PRESERVATION TREATY TO PERMANENTLY BAN THE WEAPONIZATION OF SPACE” (2), the historic resolution swept through cities in Canada and helped gather thousands of signatures opposing Canada joining NMD [National Missile Defense]. When citizens appeared in the Canadian Parliament with piles of paper covered with thousands of signatures, Martin was forced to reverse his secret agreement with Bush and the Canadian government rejected NMD.
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I was unaware of the impact the Berkeley resolution had on the Canadian decision to reject NMD, and how it tied into the minority government crisis. But a few days later during my visit to Bowen Island, I discovered just what role the Berkeley resolution had played in Canadian Foreign Policy.

Hopefully this news won’t raise the already high self-importance of the Berkeley City Council. But wow. Canada. Taking its cues from our little city. I don’t know which side more deserving of my disapproving sighs.

Bad news: AB 1452, the anti-209 bill that I have blogged on before, has just passed the Assembly Appropriations Committee. The vote was 13 to 5, a party-line vote. Sad to see that no Democrat was willing to do the right thing. We’ll have to wait and see what happens next.

Ayes (Dems):
Karen Bass
Patty Berg
Ronald Calderon
Judy Chu
Betty Karnette
Johan Klehs
Mark Leno
Gene Mullin
Joe Nation
Jenny Oropeza
Mark Ridley-Thomas
Lori Saldana
Leland Yee

Noes (Reps):
William Emmerson
Ray Haynes
Alan Nakanishi
Sharon Runner
Mimi Walters

If any of these people represent you, or you’d just like to bug someone, and you want to express your support or disappointment regarding their decision, contact information is available here.

It’s a bridge to our tomorrows,
our happiness and sorrows,
it’s a bridge of fate,
the Golden Gate.

—The Bridge: Golden Gate / Noah Griffin
The Official Ballad of the Golden Gate Bridge

A fitting song, if nothing else. The bridge is, once again, in the news:

The West’s signature bridge is the No. 1 destination for suicide in the world. About 20 people a year, or some 1,300 in all, have taken the fatal leap since the bridge opened in 1937.

There have been efforts in the past to drum up support for a barrier, but proposals in the early 1970s and again in 1998 failed amid public controversy and concerns about aesthetics and effectiveness.

The issue grabbed the attention of the public this year after a filmmaker told authorities that he had recorded 19 suicides off the bridge. It has since grown into a Bay Area-wide morality play.

Grieving relatives have inundated district officials with wrenching testimony about their dead loved ones. Meanwhile, opponents have blasted the idea as an unnecessary cost being forced on them by the self-destructive acts of a tiny minority, who, they insist, would simply kill themselves elsewhere if a barrier were built.

Some UC Berkeley Civil Engineering students have come up with designs for the proposed suicide barriers. One of the students weighs in:

“Showing him some of our designs kind of quieted him,” said Stauffer, who also graduated Saturday. “The important thing, really, is that it gets the debate going. It is ultimately society’s decision whether they want to trade their view on the sidewalk for 20 lives a year.”

Meanwhile, a survivor tells his tale to the London Times:

The world’s most popular suicide destination, the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, may lose its macabre status after a campaign led by one of the 16 jumpers to have survived the 220ft (67m) fall.
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Part of this is the work of John Hines, 23, who suffers from bi-polar mood swings and tried to kill himself by jumping from the bridge. He said that he knew that he had made a mistake the moment he catapulted over the 4ft high railing and began his freefall into the water 220ft below. He was 19 at the time.

After a mid-air change of heart, Mr Hines managed to get his body into an upright position and came to under the water, with a fractured ankle and two shattered vertebrae.

Proponents of this plan say they will save at least 20 lives a year. But the fact is, they’ll only be saving 20 people from jumping off the bridge. Who’s to say that they won’t go and find another way? Hines only changed his mind after jumping. If there had been a barrier at the time, he wouldn’t have had a change of heart. And since he still would have been suicidal, he could have found some sleeping pills, or a gun, or whatever. In fact it’s easier to fix things after you’ve jumped off the bridge than after you’ve pulled a trigger. Mr. Hines is proof enough. But if you have your mind set on something, you’ll find a way.

I’m not trying to be cold-hearted. These people obviously need some kind of help. But millions of dollars for something that really won’t do much, isn’t it. Now this is cold:

The official count of suicides from the bridge ended at 997 because of the media interest surrounding the 1,000th recorded jumper. One local radio station offered a case of Snapple drink to the family of the victim.

Though it is “Made from the Best Stuff on Earth”…

For more Berkeley-based suicide blogging, check CalStuff and BeetleBeat.

From The Progressive’s blog:

The New York Times has been publishing an excellent series on class in America. One quote in that piece particularly stood out for me. Berkeley economist David Levine told the paper that “being born poor in the U.S. gives you disadvantages unlike anything in Western Europe and Japan and Canada.”
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The European and Canadian social democratic model does a better job of taking care of its vulnerable–the poor, the young, and the infirm–than the laissez-faire U.S. approach.

This is just my own personal opinion, but shouldn’t being poor be a bad thing? As in: being poor sucks and I’m going to try as hard as I can to improve my situation? Being poor should be a disadvantage by definition. Does Levine think that there should actually be advantages to being poor? As in: being poor isn’t that bad, as long as my welfare check is in the mail?

Another economist, Walter E. Williams, has a different perspective:

Being first-generation rich is not new for Americans. Drs. Stanley and Danko say, “More than 100 years ago the same was true. In The American Economy, Stanley Lebergott reviews a study conducted in 1892 of the 4,047 American millionaires. He reports that 84 percent were nouveau riche, having reached the top without the benefit of inherited wealth.”

This points to one of the most unique features of our nation. Just because you know where a person ended up in life is no guarantee that you can tell where he started. In other words, there is so much economic mobility in our society that starting out with modest means or even being dirt poor does not prevent one from ending up at the top.

According to IRS tax data, 85.8 percent of tax filers in the bottom fifth in 1979 had moved on to a higher quintile, and often to the top quintile, by 1988.

So yes, being poor sucks. But you don’t have to stay that way. Socialism will only hamper our most cherished freedoms; namely, the freedom to get rich. Williams ends with this quote, which I like too:

Personally, I like evangelical minister Reverend Ike’s response when asked what should we do about the poor. He said, “The best thing you can do for the poor is not become one.”

Chancellor Birgeneau hosts his first episode of Bear in Mind on Berkeley’s NewsCenter. He discusses a variety of issues with his roundtable of yes-men (and women), including Boalt Dean Christopher Edley. I have provided a partial transcript and added commentary below. I mostly focus on the diversity related issues, so watch the whole thing online if you care about the other topics. I also have the approximate times if you want to follow along. Pop some popcorn while you’re at it.

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More Berkeley TV stuff, because TV rocks. Tonight, PBS will be airing “Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst.” The film has received decent reviews. It’s showing at 9 PM (sorry about the short notice), but check your local listings. Check it out for some footage of Berkeley at its craziest.

The quality of television drops down yet another notch… Just as ABC finishes up an awesome season of scripted drama, they drop this bomb on us. “The Scholar“: a new reality show where ten high school seniors compete for a full ride to college. And now that it’s summer and I have nothing much better to do, I guess I’ll watch it.

Marquesa Lawrence, a Berkeley outreach officer, will be one of the three judges on the show. The other members of the “Scholarship Committee” are from generic Ivy Leagues. Lawrence seems set to play Paula Abdul to Peter Johnson’s Randy Jackson and Shawn Abbott’s Simon Cowell. The photo makes this clear.

There is an interview with Lawrence on Berkeley’s NewsCenter. Here’s a snip:

Q: How did your participation in “The Scholar” come about, and what was your initial reaction?

A: I received a message from (UC Berkeley) Associate Vice Chancellor Richard Black asking if I would like to participate in something “fun.” He notified me that there was a “reality” show focusing on a competition for a full scholarship for college.

He made sure that I knew it was not a “reality” show where the participants had to do anything quirky or disgusting. It was presented to me in a way that was very low-key and easy. I was also told that the show would really be about what I do as an admissions counselor already and basically that I would just be auditioning.

I love the quotation marks around “fun” and “reality.”

Now to the contestants. They’re all a bunch of kids with near perfect grades and SAT scores, with a tear-jerker story of some sort as backup. Here are a couple:

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You may not know the guy, but you probably have heard the story about him:

Dr. George B. Dantzig, a mathematician who devised an algorithm that helped create linear programming, now a vital tool in computing, industry and other fields, died on May 13 at his home in Stanford, Calif. He was 90.

Before turning to the dark side, he was a Berkeley grad student. You may recognize his story (via Slashdot):

George B. Dantzig, then a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, arrived late for a statistics class one day and found two problems written on the board. Not knowing they were examples of “unsolvable” statistics problems, he jotted them down and solved them as a homework assignment. (The equations Dantzig tackled are perhaps more accurately described not as unsolvable problems, but as unproved statistical theorems for which he worked out proofs.)
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This legend is used as the setup of the plot in the 1997 movie Good Will Hunting.

Decent movie, I must say. Dr. Dantzig, your story has been an inspiration to all us engineers who struggle through even the “solvable” problem sets. May you rest in peace and your legend live on forever through Matt Damon’s acting.

Actor/activist Warren Beatty addressed graduates of UC Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy this Saturday. What should have been a motivating speech turned into an assault against the Governor and Republicans in general. Of course, leftist political speakers are what we have come to expect from Berkeley’s graduation ceremonies. But just when we thought that no one could top Benjamin “the source of manipulation is the market economy” Barber’s fanatical rhetoric, Warren Beatty comes along.

A transcript of Beatty’s commencement speech is available online. Some of the lowlights are below:

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