Third World Students Studying Harvard Recruitment Methods

Three Harvard-Radcliffe organizations representing blacks, Puerto Ricans and chicanos announced in a letter sent to President Bok yesterday that they are investigating Harvard's hiring and recruitment of minority students, faculty and administrators.

The students are reading Harvard's five-volume affirmative action plan which was accepted last November by the Department of Health, Education and Welfare to determine if it adequately insures minority recruitment.

The investigation began last week after two chicano and Puerto Rican organizations at Princeton filed a complaint with the New York office of HEW charging that Princeton is not committed to minority recruitment.

"The program in effect now is definitely inadequate for Puerto Ricans and chicanos," Sylvia Balderrama '75, a member of RAZA, an undergraduate chicano organization, said yesterday.

The letter said the investigation was necessary because there are no Puerto Rican or chicano faculty members or administrators, cutbacks were made this year in black admissions, and decreases were made in funds for recruitment of Puerto Rican and chicano students.

Walter J. Leonard, special assistant to President Bok and the University's affirmative action coordinator, called the investigation "good," but said it was "working from the wront end."

Quagmire

"We can get into a quagmire on attempts to revise and reopen the plan. Interested groups should work on having the University implement the plan, which covers everyone," Leonard said.

The two other University groups conducting the investigation are the Organization for Solidarity of Third World Students and the Organization Boriqua de Harvard.

The Princeton groups said their university's plan, which will be submitted HEW this summer, does not provide for the hiring of Puerto Rican or chicano faculty or administrators.

Their letter of complaint said Princeton's lack of recruiting caused there to be no minority faculty or administrators.