LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Michigan’s 14th President and 13th White Male

Cordial greetings. I appreciated the trial subscription to The Ann Arbor Independent. Ann Arbor is in need of an independent newspaper, providing careful and in-depth reporting about local affairs, and I had looked forward to becoming a regular subscriber to your paper. But I have decided not to subscribe, and I feel obliged to tell you why.

I read with care the editorial page of your issue dated March 4, 2014. It was very clear that, in the opinion of the editors of The Ann Arbor Independent, the principal considerations in the selection of a president of a great university are sex and skin color. Any person appointed having truly outstanding scholarly competence, long experience and high intelligence cannot be at the cutting edge, in your view, if he is a white male.

I urge you to re-read your own editorial about the selection of a new President for the University of Michigan. Much of it, perhaps half, is concerned not with learning or research, but with the percentage of persons in various categories who are members of certain ethnic or gender groups. A newspaper whose editors are plainly committed to thinking in that spirit is not likely to provide the unbiased reporting that I would hope to read in my newspaper.

I send your cordial greetings and wish you well.

Carl Cohen

Ann Arbor, Michigan 

Editor: Unsigned editorials represent the collective opinion of the newspaper’s Editorial Board, but may not necessarily represent the opinion of every Editorial Board member. Signed editorials and op-ed pieces represent the opinions of those authors. The editorial referred to in this letter was an unsigned editorial.