House Actions May Mean End to Affirmative Action

Two separate legislative developments in the House of Representatives this month may lead to the outlawing of federally-enforced affirmative action hiring policies in colleges and universities.

Harvard officials said last night and over the weekend that they are "unaware" or "have received almost no information" on the two events. The first, an amendment to an educational appropriation act, passed the House October 1. In addition, a special House subcommittee concluded its hearings on hiring goals earlier this month.

The amendment, proposed by Rep. Marjorie S. Holt(R.--Md.) and sent on to the Senate by a 220-169 vote, prohibits the Department of Health, Education and Welfare from requiring schools to keep "any records, files, reports, or statistics pertaining to the race, religion, sex or national origins of teachers or students."

The hearings, conducted in the Special Subcommittee on Education, were the first "comprehensive re-evaluation" of affirmative action in institutions of higher education, a spokesman for the subcommittee said Friday.

James Harrison, staff director for the subcommittee, said that chairman James G. O'Hara (D.--Mich.), ranking minority member John Dellenback (R.--Ore.) and "a majority" of the 13 members are convinced that there is "little difference" between affirmative action "goals" and employment "quotas."

Harrison said that O'Hara, convinced by the testimony of college administrators and educational lobbyists that HEW's voluntary hiring-goal program is "subterfuge," will try to rewrite the 1965 Higher Education Act when Congress reconvenes so as to outlaw such "reverse discrimination."

The Holt amendment provides that federal funds be withheld from school systems that classify, assign or their teachers or students by ethnic standards. During debate on the amendment, Rep. Bella S. Abzug (D.--N.Y.) and others attacked the rider for not defining "school system." Without further working, the bill could be interpreted so as to make Title IX and other affirmative action programs that relate to colleges illegal, Abzug said.

Barbara B. Schlech, legislative assistant to Holt, said last night that "to my knowledge, the bill applies only to elementary and secondary systems, not post-secondary."