There were doughnuts everywhere. Well, maybe not everywhere, but there were certainly boxes of them on every table in the cafeteria.

Most people didn't know how they got there. There was a story about two guys who broke open the vault at the local Krispy Kreme and loaded down an old Chevy with as many boxes as the trunk and the back seat could hold. Then they took them to our community college and left them as a gift to the student body. It was a lark - the kind of thing that a couple of stupid college kids might do.

I haven't thought much about that incident in a while, but it crept back into my consciousness when I read about a recent event at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pa. It seems that the school's Conservative Club decided to hold a so-called affirmative-action bake sale.

Kids usually hold a bake sale because they want to raise money for a worthy cause, such as a school trip or a marching band. But the intent of the Bucknell bake sale was quite different.

Affirmative-action bake sales are not a new idea on college campuses. Typically, the prices at these sales vary according to race and ethnicity. During a similar event held at Purdue University, white men were charged $1 per baked good, while white women could get one for 75 cents. Asian men and women paid the highest prices - $1.50 and $1.25, respectively - while the rate dropped to only 50 cents or a quarter for African American and Hispanic men and women. Native Americans got the best deal: They could have anything at the sale free of charge.

I couldn't find out what the specific prices were at the Bucknell event, but I imagine a similar scale was in effect.

There is a purported point being made, of course. The sales are meant to shine a light on the inequities of affirmative action in America.

At Kutztown University, officials had allowed such a sale to proceed, calling it a "teachable moment." Bucknell officials were not as lenient, though. The students there got the attention they no doubt craved when the school administration shut down the sale, saying the pricing scheme amounted to discrimination.

But if the Conservative Club really wanted to show the effects of affirmative action, why didn't it show preference to the people they think are being discriminated against - white men? Perhaps they realized that an almost exclusively white group charging African Americans and Hispanics more than they charged other whites would be even less likely to be looked upon as a "teachable moment."

These poor students, attending a good private university, probably with their parents' money - of course they're going to attempt to prove that, after centuries of discriminatory practices against all kinds of people with darker skin, it is really the whites who are being held down. But I have to think that the likelihood they enjoy better schools, better neighborhoods, and a better set of connections after graduation really does help even up any disadvantages they might suffer as a result of affirmative action.

Of course, when all else fails, they can blame the government for giving minorities a helping hand - you know, the government in which 95 out of 100 senators and 364 out of 435 representatives are white. Yes, the president is African American, but it took 220 years to break that color line.

You know, I thought there would have been at least one smart young student to take the initiative during one of these affirmative-action bake sales. The obvious move was to find a Native American student and persuade him or her to take all of the sweets for free (or at whatever steep discount was being offered). Then do as the petty thieves did at my old school and distribute them as a gift to the masses. Now that's change we can all believe in.

He can be contacted at pmcnally916@comcast.net.