Negligent Recruiting

HARVARD'S PLEDGE at the end of the '60s to bring minority representation here up to a level proportional to the population as a whole was nothing more than hollow words and empty rhetoric. Since 1971, the number of blacks admitted to the College and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences has fallen steadily, and figures released last week suggest that this year will be worst of all. In a year when applications in general have remained substantially the same as last year, the number of black applicants to the College has plunged 25 per cent and at the GSAS an appalling 36 per cent. At the most, only 12 black students--a drop of 50 per cent from last year--will enter the graduate school next year. And although Harvard admissions officers are still in the process of choosing the Class of 1979, they said last week that the substantial drop in applications will inevitably result in a decline in minority acceptances. Other Ivy universities reported no such decline.

The large decreases in minority admissions are particularly shameful and peculiar, because this was the year when the College devoted more money than ever before to local recruitment efforts. Between $2000 and $2500 was channeled through the admissions office to a special subcommittee of the Association of Afro-American students for undergraduates to recruit. This was also the year when the GSAS specially appointed a minority recruiter to visit numerous colleges and universities, trying to persuade qualified minority candidates to apply here. For the first time, the GSAS this year made use of the Minority Students Locater Test Service, which provides names of minority students at universities for a fee. The statistics indisputedly prove that the recruitment plans of both admissions offices are dismal failures.

The culprits can be easily identified. At the College level, they are the local alumni recruiters working for the Harvard Clubs of major metropolitan cities who for some reason believe that Harvard is admitting unqualified black applicants in favor of what they say are more qualified white applicants. Some alumni representatives recruiting for Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Md., New York City, Detroit, Chicago, New Jersey, Delaware and Indiana--areas with large black populations where applications have decreased this year--are engaged in "an active effort to discourage minority students from applying here." David L. Evans, associate dean of Harvard admissions, said last week. And the alumni recruiters from Detroit and Delaware contacted after Evan's criticized them said that in fact some members of their staffs believe in the reverse discrimination myth, that less well prepared blacks are being admitted to Harvard while better qualified whites are being rejected.

At the GSAS, the culprits are the individual departments' faculties, which are ultimately responsible for admitting graduate students. Phillip T. Gay, the minority recruiter for the GSAS, realized the departments would be problem when he took the job, but because he was not involved in the admissions process, he could not do anything about it. The 48 departments of the GSAS each admit their own graduate students, and any centralized recruiting effort was bound to fail. But a centralized recruiting policy is not so much to blame as the faculty members who make decisions on admissions. According to Gay, Peter S. McKinney, administrative dean of the GSAS, sent out letters to all department chairmen advising them of the need to recruit. Gay said that he got back no positive responses from anyone.

When these department chairmen sign their letters of acceptance this week, they should think about how they could have improved the situation. If they had attempted to go out and conduct a search for qualified black candidates they would have had a larger pool to chose from, and consequently more blacks may have been admitted.

President Bok and Dean Rosovsky, who last week said they were so "gravely concerned" about the problem that they wanted a careful review of recruitment methods at the College and the GSAS, should also do more thinking and less committee forming. Harvard Dean of Admissions L. Fred Jewett, '57, the man they tapped to study the problem at the College level, can do little except replace the negligent alumni recruiters with new ones who are more committed to recruitment.

Andrew F. Brimmer, chairman of the DuBois Advisory Board and Ford Visiting Professor of Economics, has even less power to do anything about the problem than Jewett. It is apparent that the only reason Bok and Rosovsky sanctioned him and members of the DuBois Advisory Board to aid McY inney in developing more effective recruitment methods was because, in the words of one committee member, they were "the only critical mass" of blacks in the University. The board can do little more that sit there and say to prospective applicants that Harvard does have a few people who care. For one, most of the board members come from the social sciences, and therefore are unlikely to have any influence on the natural sciences and the humanities. This second part of the Bok-Rosovsky appeal is not only an insult to the advisory board members, who have no connection with minority recruiting other than their race, but will also further delay the crucial work that still needs to be done concerning the DuBois Institute itself.

Furthermore, the call on Bummer and the call on Jewett are an attempt to suppress the entire problem of why blacks and other minority groups does not apply to Harvard the problem is complex and committees will not find the answers. But some harsh words from Harvard stop two administrators that would place the blame should be--with alumni recruiters and department chairmen--may be a start.