Carl Cohen

Carl Cohen is a professor of philosophy at the University of Michigan and the author of Naked Racial Preference: The Case Against Affirmative Action. In the following viewpoint, he criticizes colleges for admissions policies that give systematic preferences to members of minority groups in order to ensure a racially diverse student body. Such racial preferences, he contends, are fundamentally unfair, counterproductive, and in many instances unconstitutional. Universities should instead rely on the principle of tolerating no discrimination—either positive or negative—by race, color, or sex in the admission and teaching of students.

As you read, consider the following questions:

1. What are some of the divergent meanings of the term “affirmative action,” according to Cohen?
2. What four groups of people bear the burdens of racial preferences, in the author’s...