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'U' prof. testifes that affirmative action fuels racial hostility

LANSING (AP) -- Affirmative action fuels racial hostility, a University professor testified yesterday before a legislative subcommittee reviewing measures to ban affirmative action goals and timetables.
Carl Cohen, professor of philosophy, told members of the House Judiciary subcommittee that affirmative action causes resentment among whites.
"Racial tension in our country today grows ever more pronounced; since the early 1970s, when racial preferences began in earnest, race relations have been going downhill," Cohen said.
But Gloria Woods, president of the Michigan chapter of the National Organization for Women, said racism is responsible for increasing racial tensions, not affirmative action.
Woods disputed Cohen's claim that affirmative action programs humiliate those they are supposed to help. Woods said routinely being denied a job because of one's gender or race is humiliating.
"This man (Cohen) comes from a position of privilege," she said.
"I don't think people in positions of privilege can make decisions for others on how those others are humiliated and are benefited by programs that help them become middle class."
The panel took no action on the bills and plans more hearings within a month.
Cohen argued that giving preference to individuals because of their race or gender is morally wrong. He said efforts to make up for past discrimination are flawed because most often those who benefit from affirmative action were never the ones discriminated against.
"We do not, we cannot right the wrongs of times past by engaging now in the same invidious practices that engendered those wrongs," he said.
Cohen also said affirmative action was wrong because it was aimed at groups, not individuals.
"Slavery was not defined based on individual characteristics," responded Brent Simmons, an associate professor of law at Cooley Law School. "It was a group characteristic."
Simmons said individuals discriminated against today are turned away based on group characteristics before their individual characteristics are ever considered.
He said federal law already bars the kind of naked preference Cohen was attacking.
Addressing past wrongs is only part of the goal of affirmative action, he said. It also is aimed at eliminating systemic discrimination.

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