Replacement For Chairman Guinier?

Even though "I've Got a Secret" has been slipping in the television ratings over the years, various Harvard administrators and faculty still seem to like playing the game. The latest contestant is the Afro-American Studies Search Committee, and what it isn't telling is who the new tenured members of the Afro Department will be, and why it's taking the committee so long to decide.

Despite the search committee's reluctance to tell anyone what's going on, word got out last week that the committee is in the process of negotiating with John W. Blassingame, an assistant professor of History at Yale.

Sources close to the committee say that it is looking for someone who will be able quickly to lift the reins of power away from Ewart Guinier '33, Afro's chairman and the only tenured member of the department.

Two detractors of Guinier's handling of Afro had high praise for Blassingame's scholarly abilities and both were receptive to the prospect of Blassingame's presence here. Orlando Patterson, professor of Sociology, said that Blassingame is a "superior scholar compared to the present members of the Afro Department and compared to Afro-American studies scholars in general." Azinna Nwafor, lecturer in Afro-American Studies, said Blassingame "would probably be a very good choice."

Although all the members of the four-man search committee deny they are meeting any unexpected difficulties, they are evidently working way behind schedule.

Last November Robert J. Kiely, associate dean of the Faculty and a committee member, predicted that the committee--which was appointed last spring by President Bok--would announce its decisions by the end of 1973. Nearly two months after that deadline passed, Dean Rosovsky, another committee member, said that the committee could not announce a decision until mid-March.

The search committee may be facing the same problem that Afro has had to deal with for the last three and a half years: keeping Guinier and the rest of the Faculty happy, all at the same time. Guinier is not looking forward to leaving the chairmanship of Afro, and sources say that he has been trying to get his close friend and associate, historian Hollis Lynch, appointed instead of Blassingame.

That Guinier can prevail in his preference is unlikely, but given the administration's sensitivity to the three-year-old Afro controversy, the committee seems to be taking care not to step on Guinier's toes.