Daily Cal Counterweight

The Patriot’s Andrew Quinio sets it straight

By Andrew R Quinio
Posted on 09/25/04

As I read through the articles in today’s Daily Californian, September 24, 2004, I became discouraged by the one-sided reporting of the stories. As a compassionate conservative, I will patiently assume that the staff at the Daily Cal is trying to be “fair and balanced,” and they can’t help but appeal to the prevailing liberal attitudes of a majority of their readers. All things, however, should never go unchallenged – especially today’s issue. The following are three front-page stories that are in desperate need of some opinionated balance.

Headline: REGENTS BOOST MINIMUM GPA FOR UC ELIGIBILITY

The University of California Board of Regents voted to raise the minimum GPA for UC admission from 2.8 to 3.0 for fall 2007. Daily Cal reports that the announcement of this decision was followed by tears and shouts from the audience, with the chant, “Education is a right, not for the rich and white.” Here is one non-Caucasian, middle class student who is receiving that same education. To equate race with wealth is demeaning. Believe it or not, there are also poor white people who have GPAs of 2.8. There are even wealthy whites, who have 2.8 GPAs. But according to the opponents of the Regent’s decision, whites like that don’t count because all of them are filthy rich and all minorities are dirt poor. Eligio Martinez of the UC Student Association argues that “a student that is coming from an underserved community that doesn’t have the privilege of the AP classes that inflate their grade are not going to have the privilege of coming into this community.” An admissions board should not assume that a low GPA indicates the lack of AP classes. Each student and his or her respective school should be individually considered. Should a low performing student whose school had AP classes available be admitted along with a student from an underserved community for the sake of diversity? What would that mean for the quality of the college? Even if a student did not have AP classes in his or her school, it would still be possible to pull off a 4.0. The raise in GPA eligibility is a raise in academic standards for the entire UC system. How dare the Regents try to improve things?

Headline: STUDENTS RAIL SCRUTINY OF SIKH

A staff member at the Crossroads Dining Hall disallowed a freshman from entering unless he removed his Kirpan, a 7-inch dagger worn for religious purposes by devout Sikhs. As expected, groups of students yelled discrimination and abuses of civil liberties. Are these the same students crying about the expiration of the assault weapons ban? Did any of them consider the possibility that perhaps that Dining Hall staff member was looking out for the safety of the other students? After all, it is a 7-inch dagger, not a substitute for a butter knife. You can call the dining employee ignorant or uncultured, but intolerant is a major stretch. The Cal Dining Director says that he will make sure nothing like this will happen again and the dining hall welcomes all walks of life. Student groups are pushing for sensitivity training. I doubt that a new religious sect that requires its devoted to carry a hand gun will be considered a “walk of life.” But the sensitivity training will no doubt teach employees to tolerate ROTC officers who may have to carry bayoneted rifles along with their plate of waffles, right? Clearly the Kirpan situation and the hypothetical situations I provided are different in their own ways. Each circumstance would however spur actions motivated by a concern for safety, not intolerance and hate. It is far too easy to let the injudicious witch-hunters cry bigotry where there is none.

Headline: ELECTION ROUSES MUSLIM VOTE

The writer of this article claims that, “Many members of the Muslim community are confronted with repercussions of the Bush Administration’s policies every day.” Hopefully, the next issue of the Daily Cal will offer the following correction: “Many members of the Muslim community are confronted with repercussion of the acts by 19 terrorists who falsely represented the religion of Islam on September 11, 2001.”

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