Investigate Hiring

LAST WEEK THE Union of Radical Political Economists presented the Commission of Inquiry with a charge that the Economics Department's hiring policy is biased against radicals. The Commission should decide to investigate the Department's hiring policy.

The Commission is now the only official outlet for student complaints. Before this month hardly anyone at Harvard knew it existed, and as a result the cases it has handled have been personal complaints rather than matters of University-wide importance. Now, for the first time, it is faced with the case that could make it an important force at Harvard.

The Commission can only make recommendations on the cases it investigates, not order direct action. In the case of the Economics Department, its recommendations would concern general hiring policy rather than specific appointments. Nonetheless, its recommendations have in the past been carried out by the dean of the Faculty. Even in a matter as important as Faculty hiring, its recommendations would carry considerably more weight than individual student complaints, which Dean Ford has repeatedly ignored.

The Economics Department's decision last December not to rehire Samuel Bowles and Arthur MacEwen drew a storm of complaints from students who charged that the Department was biased and that they had no voice in their education. Those complaints have gone without any official answer from the Department or the Administration.

Faculty hiring policy needs a thorough examination. And the Commission, by taking on the Economics Department investigation, can assert itself as an effective channel for complaints about important University policies.