Cohen Room Sparks Debate

by Lee Bockhorn

On October 20th, Residential College Director Tom Weisskopf announced that plans to dedicate an East Quad reading room in honor of RC professor Carl Cohen had been canceled. This announcement provoked angry reactions on campus from friends and colleagues of Cohen, a prominent figure in the current debate over affirmative action at the University of Michigan. It was Cohen who used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain admissions data which has since become the basis for the lawsuits challenging U-M's affirmative action policies.

The timing of the announcement has raised questions about the motivations for the cancelation. Some believe that Cohen's outspoken opposition to the University's affirmative action policies led the administration to scrap the honor, fearing a public backlash from minority students. They cite the fact that the plan to name the room after Cohen, which was over a year in the making, was dropped only after a public campaign against it was begun by Kevin Jones, a U-M student and former East Quad Resident Advisor. In an October 15th letter to the Michigan Daily, Jones asked, "What person deserves a room dedicated to him who constantly tries to segregate our university community through his 'doctrines'?" He urged students to "research the climate that [Cohen] has created for some of the students of color in his classes," and also quoted Black Student Union Speaker Ju Juan Buford as saying that Cohen "'has expressed blatantly racist views concerning African-American students on this campus and around the nation.'" Jones did not respond to an email request for an interview. Because Weisskopf's announcement came after Jones's email campaign began, many assumed that Cohen's political views had something to do with the cancelation, and that Jones's protests were the impetus behind it. However, Weisskopf denies this notion.

"The truth is that the plan was rejected after a small number of individuals protested; that is correct. The implication that it was rejected because of that small number of individuals is erroneous," he said. In his October 20th statement, Weisskopf asserted that the plan was revoked because "standard procedures for raising funds, as well as standard procedures for making a decision to name a University space, were egregiously violated in this case." He went on to say that those procedures are "not simply a matter of bureaucratic propriety; they [reflect] safeguards of the fundamental values for which the University of Michigan stands."

If anything, however, Weisskopf's initial statement raised more questions than it answered. In it, he detailed the chronology of plans to name the room after Cohen, which began after the RC received an anonymous donation of $10,000 towards that specific purpose. He went on to say that with the guidance of the LS&A Development Office, the RC sought and received additional donations toward the naming of the room, and that in the spring of 1998 "we [the RC] were advised that we could proceed to dedicate the 'Carl Cohen Reading Room,' and the date for the dedication ceremony was subsequently set for November 20th." The dedication was publicized, invitations were printed, and the plaque for the room was actually even raised.

So what went wrong? Acording to Weisskopf, in late September he began to receive word from the Office of the Vice President for Student Affairs that there might be problems. They said they had heard rumors that the room was to be named after Cohen, and that they assumed it must be early in the process, as they had heard nothing about it. They asked him to provide more information. University Housing policies state that any plan to name a space in a residence hall must be approved by students living in the dorm in question, and this process eventually goes through the office of the Vice President for Student Affairs.

In response to their inquiry, Weisskopf told them he was "stunned and amazed that you're just learning about this now," and that "not only is this a rumor, but this plan is essentially completed, and we're all set to dedicate the room on November 20th."

At this point, in early October, the LS&A Development Office told Weisskopf that this was a minor problem. However, later that week (around October 7th or 8th), they told him that there were more serious problems than first believed. Not only were Housing and Student Affairs unaware, but the new Vice President for Development, Susan Feagin, had not been informed, and U-M procedures stipulate that the Vice President for Development must review fundraising and donations in cases such as this. Many have questioned how the office of the Vice President for Development could be unaware of the reading room plans when the LS&A Development Office had approved it last spring. Weisskopf could only speculate on this, saying that at that time the sitting Vice President for Development was preparing to leave the post, and that the LS&A Development Office probably decided to wait and present the reading room matter to the incoming person to that job, Susan Feagin. He went on to say that because Feagin's agenda was probably full at that point, the matter did not reach her until October.

Another question prompted by Weisskopf's announcement was prompted by this sentence: "... Questions have been raised about the circumstances under which funds were raised for this project." The obvious questions are: who raised these questions, and what were they? Unfortunately, the desire of the original donor to remain anonymous prevents the administration from clarifying these important points, as they cite confidentiality requirements. However, Weisskopf pointed out that, in fact, the Cohen Reading Room was not the only donation matter that had come up for review. "A number of senior officers were troubled not only by this particular fundraising case, but by a bunch of others as well ... as many as half a dozen." Because of this, said Weisskopf, the whole process of handling donations and naming procedures will be coming up for major review by the administration.

Last Tuesday, MSA passed a "Resolution In Support of Ideological Freedom" in response to the reading room decision by a 16-9 vote. It called on the administration to provide more answers about why the plans for the Cohen room had been dropped.

"I saw the resolution as a way of saying to the administration that we [MSA] were unhappy with what was going on," said Mark Sherer, an RC sophomore and MSA representative.

This past Monday, President Bollinger released his own public statement in the University Record, saying that the greatest problem with the reading room plan had been "the exclusion of individuals - significantly, student representatives within the residence hall - from the decision." He also reiterated that the decision to honor individuals at the University should not be affected by politics.

"I will not permit this question to be decided on the basis of whether Professor Cohen's views coincide with my own or the University's. Participation in public debate must not disqualify one from recognition or honor by the University," he stated.

The appropriateness of honoring Cohen in some fashion has never really been in question. Regardless of his viewpoint on racial preferences, Cohen has given over 30 years of service to the University, and was one of the founders of the RC. Weisskopf said that the RC is actively pursuing another method of honoring him; possibilities being discussed are a Carl Cohen lecture series or classroom in the RC. Whatever the eventual outcome, though, it is clear that the whole episode has been a painful and embarassing one for everyone involved. MR

This article was published in the 18 November 1998 edition of The Michigan Review (Volume 17, Number 4).
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