Full Affirmative Action Plan Still Absent in College Library

The limited success of Harvard's affirmative action program should be blamed on the failure to recruit qualified minority Faculty within the university, Walter J. Leonard, special assistant to President Bok, said yesterday in a special meeting with the college library staff.

Leonard's talk before the group in Lamont's Forum Room was prompted by a letter from University Library workers who complained of the shortage of blacks employed by the library.

"It is the duty of the affirmative action program to insure that those who have been excluded from jobs will now be included in the work force," Leonard said.

"For too long the rule has been to hire certain people because they have potential, but then demand that other people show proof of their ability before you will employ him. We must actively seek to hire the minority," he said.

Discrimination

"There is no affirmative action in the University Library. Discrimination goes on here," Ruth Washington, secretary at Lamont and one of the people who helped draft the letter to Leonard yesterday.

"We could have gone to the Library administration at Widener, but we didn't. Not that we thought it was a waste of time. Rather we felt that we wouldn't get as much done from them as we hope to see done by Mr. Leonard. With him we're more likely to get results," Washington said.

The letter complained that there are only 24 blacks among 280 people on the staffs of Widener, Lamont, Houghton and Fine Arts libraries, and that no black holds a position higher than secretary.

The three-year affirmative action plan, approved by the Department of Health Education and Welfare (HEW) in 1971, ordered the hiring of more members of minority groups in an attempt to increase the percentage of minority workers at Harvard.

Leonard gave a stirring speech on the history of affirmative action, a process he says began early in the history of the country, "long before anybody in this room was born."

"In historical perspective, telling where we are and what we're fighting for," Leonard said, "I can see the blood of my ancestors every time I look at the red bricks of Harvard's buildings."

He urged all the various faculties and departments to unite toward the common goal of hiring minority people on a professional level.