d

icli VOLKSWAGEN

Drivers Wanted.°

1999 Jetta

z.

..

~ wwavaatfia"
~ so9e.

Automatic Transmission

$22 9 1 n ekth

*42 month lease based on 12,000 miles per year and approved credit. Requires $999 down
payment. plus tax, title, plates & DOC fees. $1934 total due at signing. Expires 4/30/99

VOLKSWAGEN

Mon. & Thurs. 9-9
Tues., Wed. &
Fri. 9-6 pm

Drivers Wanted®

(248)

471-0800

37911 GRAND RIVER (west of Halsted) • FARMINGTON HILLS • www.billcookauto.com

GREAT LAKES YACHT CLUB
OPEN HOUSE
SUNDAY, MAY 16

Join us for a complimentary lunch and
explore our facilities starting at 11:00

Great Lakes Yacht Club is a family oriented club founded in 1952 by
members of the Detroit Jewish Community. Our members now include
diverse backgrounds, both sail and power boaters, young and old, active
and social.

If you are a boater seeking a better place to call home, you owe it to
yourself and your family to consider GLYC membership and the advantages
of our facilities which include extensive landscaped areas, clubhouse and
restaurant, supervised swimming pool, full service wells, 30-ton haulout
and on-grounds storage. We have an active racing program, weekend
rendezvous and boating activities, and social events for the entire family.

If you and your family are interested in meeting the Great Lakes
family, please call our office for reservations. 810-778-9510.
Near 9 Mile and Jefferson in St. Clair Shores.

4/23
1999

CPR
can keep your love alive

18 Detroit Jewish News

American Heart
Association,,

Fighting Heart Disease
and Stroke

kosher or regularly attend services.
Currently, Cohen is weathering
divorce proceedings initiated by his
second wife, Jan. Cohen said the
squabbling over parenting arrange-
ments and other marital problems has
caused him severe distress and "sapped
some of my intellectual energy."
But on a recent visit to his lovely,
terraced home overlooking the
Arboretum, it wouldn't have seemed
so. He came to the door nattily
dressed in gray wool pants and a red
sweater, wearing a hearing aid.
For a few moments, he talked
about his children — Jaclyn, 9, and
Noah, 7 — calling them a "special
blessing" for a man of his age.
His study is papered with snapshots
of the kids. Before the divorce action,
they went everywhere with him, he
said. Their computers and printer sit
on his living room table, in a clutter
of their work.
Raised in Brooklyn, N.Y., by
"Roosevelt Democrats," Cohen spent
his boyhood in Miami and attended
undergraduate school at the University
of Miami, He earned a Ph.D. at
UCLA. Cohen pulled a stint in the
U.S. Army and found time for a cou-
ple of visits to Israel.
After U-M hired him in 1955,
Cohen quickly gained a reputation as
an outstanding, challenging teacher
and an eloquent philosopher. Though
a Jew, he has defended the right of
Nazis to speak. He has argued the mer-
its of university speech codes and ani-
mal rights and long pointed out the
drawbacks of using racial preferences.
Cohen has written six books, and
aired his views in national magazines,
speeches and legislative hearings, as
well as the classroom.
In the early 1990s, Cohen read an
article that stated "select" universities
used race to guide their admissions
decisions. When he asked U-M
administrators about their practice, he
was rebuffed. Having served on the
Admissions Steering Committee of the
College of Literature Science and the
Arts (LS&A), Cohen didn't see why he
shouldn't be entitled to the informa-
tion. So, using the Michigan Freedom
of Information Act, he pried it loose.
What he learned was stunning.
The university had a two-tiered
admissions system for admissions in
LS&A and other schools, under which
the minimum grades and standardized
test scores required to admit minority
applicants were lower than those
required for white students.
Cohen publicized his findings in a
1996 talk he gave to the local chapter

of the American Association of
University Professors.
Word spread to state lawmakers, who
in turn asked for his testimony before
the Legislature. Cohen said some of the
lawmakers, in turn, contacted the Center
for Individual Rights in Washington,
D.C. In 1997, two lawsuits were filed,
challenging the law school and the lib-
eral arts college at U-M.
The suits vex Cohen. "I would
rather the university recognize it was
unjust and change themselves," he said.

Reading Room Ruckus

Cohen said the controversy prompted
some colleagues to renew old friend-
ships, even as others "in some small
degree" feel estranged or think him
racist.
Collegial relations were further
strained by a second controversy, over
a plan to name a reading room in his
honor at the Residential College, a
small unit for liberal arts students that
Cohen helped found.
When the plan surfaced last year,
protests over Cohen's role in the affir-
mauve action debate prompted
Residential College Director Tom
Weisskopf to put the plan on hold.
He blamed procedural irregularities
and inadequate fund-raising for the
stay. U-M President Lee Bollinger
undid the stay in December, in part
because he didn't want it to appear the
university was punishing Cohen for
his political stance.
Bollinger revealed, however, that a
$10,000 donation in support of the
naming had come from Cohen.
The professor said he made the
pledge impulsively after a Residential
College fund-raiser. "I got caught up
in the honest enthusiasm," Cohen
said, insisting he was not trying to
"buy" the room, which was already
complete when he made his donation.
Even as his difficulties continue,
Cohen remains busy — traveling, writ-
ing and taking walks, sometimes
accompanied by his dog, Charlie. His
energy explodes in the classroom, where
he paces the floor while note-taking stu-
dents struggle to keep up. Tell a joke,
and Cohen can still roar with laughter.
But return to the controversies sur-
roundinc, him, and he turns serious.
"I'm still a loyal son of the universi-
ty," he said, and he vowed to continue
his fight for "equality and fairness" as
long as he has the energy.
"I'm a local heavy only if you
believe in discrimination by race," he
said. "You don't end racism by doing
it. It's profoundly wrong."

