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In a preliminary determination, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission found "reasonable cause' to believe that the University discriminated against Ephraim Isaac, former associate professor of Afro-American Studies, on the basis of his race (black) and national origin (Ethiopian) by denying him tenure in 1975. The Crimson recently obtained a copy of the finding, handed down in February.

While both Dean Rosovsky and Phyllis Keller, the Equal Opportunity Employment Officer for FAS, categorically deny that any discrimination occurred, the Isaac case has stirred considerable controversy since 1971 when a departmental student-faculty committee recommended Isaac for tenure by a margin of one vote.

The Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination joined in EEOC's judgment, and in March told Harvard that uunless the University can agree with Isaac, the commission will itself enter negotiations and if necessary hold a public hearing.

The University is now waiting to hear from the EEOC. Diane Fraser, attorney handling the case for the University, said the EEOC is now "considering whether or not to reconsider their February determination in light of the University's reply in June, which included information that wasn't originally reviewed."

Rosovsky said last week the usual criteria was used in judging Isaac's candidacy: "scholarship, teaching, and the needs of the Afro-American Studies Department in the long run."

The Isaac controversy reflects a larger debate over substantive issues critical to the future of Afro-Am itself, issues that the current executive committee charged with governing the department will have to resolve.

One of Isaac's most hotly contested charges is his statement that the ad hoc committee refused to tenure him because they would only make joint appointments.

Rosovsky counters that while the use of joint appointments was preferred by the Faculty Council and the Committee that reviewed the department in 1972, he personally placed Isaac's name before the ad hoc committee. "If no joint appointments were possible," Rosovsky asks, "Why would I have submitted his name?"

The arguments go back and forth, but the intense controversy over such a seemingly technical question reflects its deeper significance. The issue of joint appointments is linked to what critics say is Afro-Am's unequal status within the University.

The Isaac case also brings the disagreement over the Department's intellectual focus to light. Isaac charged, in a letter to President Bok in 1975, that the ad hoc committee which considered his tenure was told not to appoint Africanists, although Isaac's field is Ethiopic languages and literatures and church history.

In a 1976 statement on the Isaac case, Rosovsky noted that the 1972 review committee recommended emphasizing the hiring of Americanists rather than Africanists for the department.