DALEY'S LETTER

To the Editors of the Crimson:

An open letter to Derek Bok

I was shocked and appalled to learn in last Saturday's Crimson that Vice President Daly, on behalf of your administration, had written to the U.S. House of Representatives in opposition to an amendment to the current higher education bill requiring that coeducational colleges eliminate sex as a factor in their admissions policies. (The amendment was subsequently defeated by the House.)

I believe that you gave an interview to the Crimson earlier this fall in which you stated that you would be speaking out relatively infrequently on public issues because such interventions by high officials of an institution like Harvard--despite their strong initial impact--would likely suffer severely diminishing returns upon frequent repetition. Yet I can hardly think of a less appropriate use of your administration's prestige than Mr. Daly's letter to the Congress.

It is one thing to oppose internal pressures by stating that if the university's administration itself were to eliminate Harvard's sex-discriminatory admissions policy by accepting otherwise qualified applicants regardless of sex, too many male alumni would retaliate by cutting back on gifts. It is quite another thing to oppose a law which would (apparently) apply equally to every coeducational private college and university in the nation! Are Harvard alumni seriously likely to hold your administration responsible for an act of Congress? And even if alumni at every private college and university in the U.S.A. "retaliated" by blaming their institutions' administrations for an act of Congress (!) Would this possibility justify continued grants of federal funds to foster (in effect) sex discrimination? Should a racially moderate local school board oppose nation-wide administrative action to curb racial isolation on the grounds that too many white parents might withdraw support from the public schools? (Not a perfect parallel, but perhaps apt.)

As for Mr. Daly's argument that an increase in the percentage of women at Harvard "might underutilize our science facilities" etc., this is rather sharply undercut by the Harvard Admissions Department statistic quoted by the Crimson, indicating that a higher percentage of women than men are now coming to Harvard intending to major in science. If the Crimson accurately reported this information. I wonder why it was not available to Mr. Daly?

A further irritating detail in the Crimson article is clearly not primarily your administration's fault, although I hold you partially responsible. The Crimson headline last Saturday was "House Deletes 1:1 Ratio Clause." I fail to understand how the Crimson's editors concluded that an amendment requiring elimination of sex as a factor in university admissions policies would establish a "1:1 ratio," or any other ratio. Depending on the respective numbers of adequately qualified men and women who apply to Harvard in any given year under a wholly now-sex-discriminatory admissions policy, there might in one year conceivably be as many as twice as many women in the freshmen class as men, and the next year thrice as many male freshmen as female.

I know that you and Mr. Daly understand this perfectly well, but I wonder if it might not have been helpful in your earlier statement proposing a new 2.5:1 ratio of men to women to point out that the altering of ratios and the total elimination of discrimination are two very clearly distinct concepts. The latter is "sex-blind;" the former, not at all. The Crimson might then have been less likely to fall into the rather remarkable error of confusing the abolition of sex discrimination with the establishment of a "1:1 ratio."

Finally, I would like to know what basis--other than speculation--Mr. Daly has for his projection of a significant falling-off of alumni support if sex discrimination were eliminated in Harvard's admissions policies? I will provide him with one minor datum: I personally do not intend to contribute further to Harvard until the university administration fundamentally alters existing patterns and policies of sex discrimination on all fronts. I invite other alumni with similar views to make their voices heard.

I am sending copies of this letter to the Crimson and to Representative Griffiths. Richard B. Child '65, Law '68