Ebert Letter to 118 Med School Deans Asserts 'Competence' of Harvard Grads

The dean of the Medical School yesterday sent letters to 118 medical school deans asking them not to interpret "irresponsible statements" by Dr. Bernard D. Davis '36 to mean that the Medical School has lowered its standards to graduate unqualified minority students.

Dr. Robert H. Ebert says in his letter that the Medical School faculty will continue its commitment to minority programs, and that the school "vouches for the competence of all its graduates."

Davis, Lehman Professor of Bacterial Physiology at the Medical School, this month published an article in the New England Journal of Medicine in which he says the Medical School recently graduated a student who failed the first part of the National Medical Boards five times.

In his letter, Ebert says the student was allowed to graduate only after he completed a year of "highly satisfactory clinical work" under close supervision.

Ebert said yesterday the letter is a sign to medical school deans that Harvard feels minority student recruitment is an important part of the Medical School program, despite the recent controversy resulting from Davis's article.

No deans have approached Ebert about what his letter calls Davis's "thinly veiled criticism" of the Medical School, he said.

Ebert said Medical School faculty often worry about whether or not the school's standards have fallen, but that only Davis has tied the concern to minority students.

However, Ebert said he does not believe Davis was trying to discourage minority student recruitment, as many students have charged since the article's publication.

"But certainly such things could be read into" Davis's comments, Ebert added.

In a statement at a rally at the Medical School last week, Ebert said Davis's comments in the article were irresponsible "because of the general implications about the professional acumen of all minority students."

Davis declined last night to comment on Ebert's letter because he had not yet read it.

Ebert said he has already written to the New England Journal in an effort to offset the effect of Davis's article.

Davis "is a bit uncomfortable, but he'll survive," Ebert said, adding that he is presently more concerned with the future of medical school minority recruitment programs.

At the end of his letter, Ebert says he hopes the deans will continue their efforts on behalf of minority students and "will not permit the pronouncements of Dr. Davis" to alter their present admissions policies.

Davis issued a public apology for the controversy created by his article on Saturday. He also said last week that he would not have published the article if he knew it would provoke such a controversy.