Afro Worries About Black Admissions

The Harvard-Radcliffe Association of African and Afro-American Students (Afro) called this week for an increase in the number of black graduate students and tenured Faculty members and endorsed wider recruiting of black applicants by the Admissions Office.

Afro's resolution on undergraduate admissions, passed at a Tuesday night meeting, came in response to a 17.5 per cent decline in the number of blacks admitted last month to the next freshman class. Members of the Admissions Office blamed the decline on a somewhat larger decrease in the number of blacks applying to the Class of 1977.

Keith E. Butler '75, chairman of the Afro meeting, said Tuesday that the Admissions Committee must assume a more active role in black admissions. "Black undergraduates do not hold all the responsibility for recruitment of blacks to attend Harvard," Butler said.

Black applications to Radcliffe also declined significantly, but the number of black women accepted to the Class of 1977 did not fall.

The Afro motion to increase black tenured Faculty members included a request that the Afro-American Studies Department receive first priority for the additional black professors.

Blacks hold 13 of the 749 full professorships in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, according to Afro. Ewart Guinier '33, chairman of the Afro-American Studies Department, is the Afro Department's only full professor, and he will have to step down as chairman in two years when he turns 65.

A four-man Faculty committee was formed last week to seek new tenured members of the Afro-American Studies Department. The committee, appointed by John T. Dunlop, former dean of the Faculty, and mandated by the Faculty last January, includes Guinier, Dean Rosovsky, Robert J. Kiely, associate dean for Undergraduate Education, and Kenneth Dike, professor of History.

Afro's third motion concerning blacks in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences follows the acceptance of 7 of the 117 blacks who applied to GSAS, according to Afro.