An affirmative action group will be hosting a conference at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor today, Saturday and Sunday.
The U-M chapter of the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary will be holding its Second National Conference of the New Civil Rights Movement to discuss tactics.
“The central goals are fixing the affirmative action issue, the fight for real integration and social equality,” BAMN member Agnes Aleobua said.
Members of BAMN estimate about 200 to 300 students from 23 schools, including MSU, will take part in the conference.
Aleobua, a no-preference junior at U-M, said BAMN is pushing for a more fair society.
“I think there’s a society plagued by racism and sexism,” Aleobua said. “There’s been a movement to eliminate that and it’s up to us to realize and expand those gains.”
But political theory sophomore Marc Stemmer said BAMN’s vision is clouded.
“They are a communist group that stands for racism,” said the president of the MSU chapter of Young Americans for Freedom, a conservative student organization. “It does that by separating people into groups based on color.”
The state of Michigan’s YAF Chairman Doug Tietz said true equality comes from unity, not separation.
“We find it absurd to judge people based on the color of their skin rather than their intelligence,” the U-M history junior said.
But Aleobua said issues of race are more important in light of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
“After Sept. 11, there has been a backlash on civil liberties and there has been open racial profiling and that’s something we need to stop,” she said.
Dean Wang, a biology and political science senior at U-M, said BAMN is just pushing an agenda and its tactics will not solve the greater problem.
“They are just trying to further a communist revolution,” Wang said. “They are a militant group, and they can get violent.”
Michigan Executive Director of YAF Chip Englander said the two groups have had conflicts in the past, most recently at the Martin Luther King Jr. march at U-M.
“They tore down our signs including one that had the First Amendment on it,” the U-M philosophy and political science junior said.
For more information about registration, go to www.bamn.com.
