WHITE PLAINS, HARVARD

To the Editors of the Crimson:

Many people at Harvard have been upset because the Afro-American Studies Department has no white professors in it. They argue that the "exclusion" of white scholars is due to the "militants" in the department and that this "exclusion" weakens the department academically. The department is not weak academically, as anyone who has had dealings with it can testify. But there is another important question with which I would like to deal. If these people are so concerned about integration in Harvard's departments, why don't they scream and holler about the fact that the Biology department has no black people on its faculty? It does not even have a black instructor in Biology. The same is true, that there are no black faculty or instructors, in the Physics, Chemistry, Biochemistry, English and many other departments here at Harvard. What is the reason for this? Have these departments made a concerted effort to find qualified black people to teach on their faculties? Or do they believe, as many whites have expressed the sentiment to me, that since there is an Afro-American Studies Department here, blacks at Harvard have their fair share?

I would suggest that, if integration is the ideal in academic departments, those departments at Harvard which still remain in white plains take steps to remove themselves from it immediately. Harold F. Cottman III, '73