NOW Outlines Its Objectives To Harvard Equal-Rights Plan

The local chapter of the National Organization for Women yesterday explained its recent charges that Harvard's affirmative action plan is inadequate for women.

Deficiencies in the plan provisionally approved by the Department of Health, Education and Welfare two weeks ago prompted NOW to file a sex discrimination complaint with another government agency--the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

NOW believes the HEW-approved plan is "insufficient" and "has too many holes," Carolyn Schneider, a spokesman for the Eastern Massachusetts Chapter of NOW, said yesterday. She added, "it is clear Harvard is below national levels" in the employment of women in high level positions.

In an official position released last week, the women's organization claims that Harvard has proposed goals and timetables for hiring and promotion that are too low to compensate for past underemployment of women.

Inadequate

The plan also is inadequate in the following ways, NOW contended:

* Management training programs, which are cited in the plan as efforts to improve the employment situation, are offered only on demand, without attempts being made to encourage employees to apply to the programs.

* Grievance procedures outlined in the plan are cumbersome and intimidating.

* Harvard has given no evidence of conducting rigorous and complete reviews of salary equity.

NOW also asserts that Harvard uses misleading or inaccurate job titles. Terms such as "librarian" and "editor" are catch-alls which can disguise the fact that men might still have most of the highpaying administrative jobs within these categories while women are confined to lower-level positions, NOW said.

The language used in the plan is "vague and obscure," enabling administrators enforcing affirmative action to find loopholes, Schneider said. Often the plan uses words like "should" and "it is hoped" rather than "must" and "it is required," she added.