"NO LONGER PLACATED BY RHETORIC"

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

President Nathan M. Pusey's remark that he "regrets and feels sad about black student's dissatisfaction with Harvard," is touching indeed. University officials have nonetheless decided not to act on any of Afro's four requests: 1) Black professors; 2) more courses relevant to Blacks; 3)more lower level Black Faculty members, and; 4) the admission of Black students proportionate to our percentage of the population as a whole.

The proposal to establish a program of African and Afro-American Studies would not be unfair to other Harvard students, nor would it be a separation of some sort. As it stands, Harvard is virtually a program of European and Euro-American Studies. This is unfair to us; it is a separation through exclusion and non-recognition. It is past time for Harvard to recognize the presence and significance of Africans in America--and to include us in its University.

We are no longer placated by the hypocritical rhetoric used by the administration to mask the institutional racism on this campus. The college is turning its back on the black students, as though we should be "grateful" just to be at Fair Harvard. "Veritas" as a motto is a farce. There has been a failure of those in academia to come to grips with the substantive issues in reality, without some form of condescension or patronization; they say that progress has been made, while defining that progress themselves. We are no longer fooled.

It is time for Harvard to rise up and stamp out discrimination and racism on its own campus before sending its professors off to condemn it elsewhere. This University must take a long agonizing look at itself, and set its own house in order. Perhaps then it can help us keep the faith. Charles R. Williams '68   Lester A. Knibbs '66-4