A Quietly Run Program

Brenden A. Maher, chairman of the Psychology and Social Relations Department and the instructor of Social Sciences 15, unwittingly disclosed the existence of a two-year-old program of minority review sessions at the end of a lecture last Monday, when he told his class that one of the sessions would be held that evening.

Maher's announcement touched off a storm of protest from white students who thought--mistakenly--that they were being excluded from the special section. Their resentment was apparently aggravated by a rumor that the announcement was some kind of experiment--the lecture for the day had been on labelling and stigmatization.

Archie C. Epps III, dean of students, who has administered the program since the fall of 1973, started a controversy of his own by saying he had kept the program under wraps because he didn't want to add to "a general impression in the community" that blacks at Harvard were in need of remedial help.

Officers of the Association of African and Afro-American Students charged that Epps's secrecy was every bit as enforcing of stereotypes as the attitude he said he was trying to discourage, and criticized his statement that the program was aimed at redressing a gap between the academic performances of blacks and whites at Harvard.