Leonard Will Assume Fisk Presidency

Walter J. Leonard a nationally recognized advocate of affirmative action, will leave his post as special assistant to President Bok at the end of this academic year to become the ninth president of Fisk University, a predominantly black school in Nashville, Tenn.

Leonard, who has been the University's affirmative action officer since 1971, yesterday accepted the offer of Fisk's Board of Trustees, which last Thursday chose Leonard as the university's next president.

With Leonard's departure, Harvard will lose its staunchest and most outspoken supporter of affirmative action. In his years at the University, Leonard has unhesitatingly scored both faculty and administrators for their alleged footdragging in implementing government guidelines.

In a statement released yesterday, President Bok said, "Along with many, many, individuals at Harvard, I regret that Walter Leonard has decided to leave us. At the same time, I am very pleased for him by the great honor and challenge that his new position represents.

"As a friend and colleague," he continued, "I have worked closely with Walter for the past seven years on a wide range of academic and administrative matters. Since he has a particular interest in minority students and affirmative action, he has occupied a position subject to intense pressure and strong feelings of every kind. He has shown a remarkable ability to reconcile the legitimate concerns of minority persons with the requirements and standards of the University. Few people could have done as well, and even fewer could emerge with such widespread good feeling and respect."

Leonard yesterday declined to comment on his decision, except to say he will remain at Harvard through this academic year.

L. Howard Bennett, chairman of the Fisk Board of Trustees, said last night he thinks Leonard will "very definitely bring vigorous leadership" to Fisk, and added, "I think he'll be successful in leading the university. I'm impressed with his career and his total exposure to collegiate administration."

The Fisk Board of Trustees accepted the recommendation of a presidential search committee, which had been looking for a Fisk president for over a year. About 1400 students are currently enrolled in the 110-year-old university.

Fred Houn '79, a spokesman for the Harvard-Radcliffe Task Force on Affirmative Action, said Sunday his organization will try to play a "key-role" in the appointment of a successor to Leonard.

He also said it will attempt to force the University to give the affirmative action officer "real power" rather than the right only to "consult and advise and write reports."

When Leonard assumed his current Mass Hall post in 1971, accompanying President Bok from the Law School, he took on the task of writing an affirmative action plan for the University. At that time, Harvard had no women and only two blacks in the tenured ranks of the Faculty.

Since November 1973, when the Department of Health, Education and Welfare finally accepted Harvard's hiring plan after several rejections and revisions, Leonard has been urging and requiring University compliance with it.

Scored University

In his five years at Mass Hall, Leonard has openly criticized the University for its alleged failure to improve the status of women and minorities in most areas of the University.

Criticizing the Radcliffe administration, the Governing Boards, the History and Literature Department, and other areas in the University, Leonard wrote at the time, "Not only have we not progressed a great deal since 1971 [the start of the affirmative action plan], but I fear we have moved backward from the date in a number of areas."

Leonard came to the Harvard Law School in 1969 where, in his tenure as special assistant to Bok, then dean of the Law School, the number of black students rose from only a few to 151