How Many Marxists on Faculty? SFAC Debates Course Diversity

The Student-Faculty Advisory Council (SFAC) yesterday debated whether the University should offer courses and teachers with more diverse points of view.

The argument in the Winthrop House Junior Common Room centered on the lack of Marxists in the social science departments here.

"There aren't any Marxists on this Faculty with the exception of three or four lonely and under-paid teaching fellows," said George Ross, teaching fellow in Government. "Why is this true?"

Oscar Handlin, Charles Warren Professor of American History, countered: "The last time I encountered this argument was from William Buckley, who was complaining about the lack of followers of Adam Smith in the economics department at Yale."

Phlogiston

"I read Marx," he continued. "I have been significantly influenced by the Marxist tradition ... But to ask why there are so few Marxists here is to ask why there are no chemists here who teach the phlogiston tradition."

Barrington Moore, lecturer on Sociology, added, "I suspect the practical reason we don't have Marxists here is that they can't get visas."

Merle Fainsod, Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor, attacked those who were pushing for more Marxists:

"I think we can claim considerable diversity in the government department. What you're really asking for is not diversity but homogeneity of your type.

"If you could remake it, the University would sing one song--your song."

Encounter On Marxism

The encounter on Marxism came near the end of a two-hour debate on the role of the University in society. The debate was begun by three representatives from the Seudents for a Democratic Society, who had been invited to appear at the SFAC meeting by the members.

SDS charged Middle South Utilities and its subsidiary Mississippi Power and Light Co. with discriminatory hiring practices.

Frances L. Ansley '69, co-chairman of SDS, read with a mock Southern accent from an interview with a Mississippi Power director. The director admitted that his firm hired very few "colored folks."

Asked how they would change the University's investment policies, the SDS representatives failed to provide specific answers. They stressed that change should come "from below."

"We have to press the University until it's falling over backwards," Miss Ansley said.

Asked what he thought the role of the SFAC should be, David P. Wofsy '68, another SDS co-chairman, said:

"You should pressure the University into doing something radical. The University will then say, 'Shhh!' That serves the most important function. It makes students aware that the University cannot respond because of the way it fits into society."

In other action, the SFAC passed a motion encouraging its student members to initiate polls of student opinion on matters before the Council. The polls would be taken after the Council passes a resolution and before the resolution goes to the Faculty.

Such polls, the members reasoned, would give added weight to SFAC resolutions before the Faculty.

Under the motion passed yesterday, polls would also be encouraged before the Council votes on important issues.

The Council voted to table a proposal that would have broadened the University's recently-reaffirmed guidelines on television coverage of Harvard events.

For nearly an hour, the Council debated minor points in the proposal (What does "rally" mean? Does a question period have to be included in a broadcast?).

The proposal, which will be reconsidered at the Council's next meeting on March 26, would have asked the University to replace its present criterion of "balance" and allow non-commercial TV and radio to cover speeches, debates, public meetings and the like "without discrimination on any ground of political content.