Backsliding

IF THE OUTSIDE WORLD heard one thing about Harvard this year, it was probably that the University was planning to strip the ivy from its buildings. That decision saddened Harvard sentimentalists, but such feelings didn't affect the ivy's fate. The corrosive plant, after all, threatened to boost renovation costs by damaging University walls.

The ivy caper may have been more humorous than tragic, but it does serve as an emblem of the University's willingness this year to scrap past promises or reconsider time-honored policies that reflected the best of Harvard. On two of this year's signal issues--the temporary decisions to end the University's absolute ban on investment in banks that loan to South Africa, and to cancel the Fogg Museum's proposed new wing. Harvard precipitously discarded earlier promises.

The bank ban was secured as a moral statement, while the Fogg wing was pledged as an addition to academic and artistic resources, but both temporary cancellations dramatized how little weight Harvard chooses to give to important values in the face of various institutional imperatives.

The bank on ban investments was the one concession Harvard made to student protesters back in 1978. a symbolic gesture that to at least some degree--the University would not confer legitimacy on the apartheid regime. Though the ban fell far short of total divestiture, it did put Harvard the institution on the record as opposing the South African regime. The Corporation, though, showed this winter just how tenuous its commitment to the anti apartheid policy was, temporarily lifting the ban when students appeared too docile to care. Only a strong show of opposition prevented a lasting reversal of the symbolic ban.

Nor was the assumption that the University will provide academic sustenance immune to reversal, as shown by the University's decision this February to cancel a badly needed extension to its lamed Fogg Museum. President Bok and the Corporation cited fund shortages when they suddenly announced the wing's cancellation, stunning Fine Arts professors and museum officials, among many others. The extension was planned to give the museum the proper display space for its valuable works and to provide essential office space and studio areas.

But those factors didn't prevent the Corporation from nearly cancelling the extension, failing for one tense week to find the financial flexibility necessary to fund the wing. When pressured, however, Bok took the small step of giving Fogg director Seymour Slive a three-week fund-raising grace period, and--as was predictable--Slive found the necessary $3 1 million. Again, it was only strong outcries that prevented Harvard from giving critical University values short shrift. The Fogg decision, as one professor noted this spring, was "the worst message the University has sent to the academic world in 40 years."

Both temporary faits accompli also seem borne of an objectionably cloistered decision-making process that we hope the University avoids in the future. The imminent choice of a new Corporation member offers the opportunity both to include more people in high-level Harvard decisions, and also to diversity the Corporation by adding a woman or a member of a minority group.

The third principal issue--the fight to save aid-blind admissions--finds the University seriously considering retrenchment on one of its most praiseworthy policies. To its credit, the admissions office has worked vigorously to protect the aid-blind guarantee--Harvard's assurance over the last 20 years or no that it would make admissions decisions without regard to an applicant's financial need.

But the federal onslaught on national aid programs seems certain to jeopardize the University's policy by forcing Harvard to pick up an ever greater share of the aid tab in years to come. We can only hope that the University will continue to give equal access in admissions the heavy weight it declined to accord to the morally imperative loan ban and the academically crucial Fogg wing.

In two traditionally controversial areas--affirmative action in hiring, and relations with Cambridge--the University was not guilty of such backsliding, to its credit. In the troubled Sociology Department, in particular. Harvard took some positive steps towards diversification--offering tenure to a woman. Nancy Tuma, and stepping up formal outside scrutiny of the department. And on the Cambridge front, as art unexpectedly generous settlement with the tenants of Craigie Arms shows, the University was willing on occasion to accommodate its neighbors.

Still, in both areas, Harvard must avoid the temptation towards laxness. In student admissions, that urge may be particularly strong, given the University's generally commendable track record in accepting diverse classes. But last month brought the unwelcome news that, thanks to students who opted to go elsewhere, the Class of 1986 may well have as few as 95 Blacks, the lowest number in 13 years.

If Harvard is as committed to the goal of admitting diverse classes as we hope it is, that statistic alone should provide an impetus for action. Given that admissions committee members believe uncertainty over financial aid was one factor discouraging accepted minorities from coming here, the University should remember that preserving aid-blind admissions and maintaining diversity are but two sides of the same coin, the latter goal unattainable without the former. Harvard should also take a hard look at just why the Black drop-off occurred, examining in particular some students' allegations that an inhospitable racial climate caused the shift.

It is easy to understand the pressures on Harvard to go back on various policies--shrinking federal aid, a tight economy, and faculty salaries that threaten to become uncompetitive are all forcing the University to tighten its belt. It is thus especially critical that alumni--the only people whom Harvard inevitably listens to, and indeed, fears--show the University that certain policies must be beyond compromise. If the Fogg debacle proved anything, it is the very power alumni can wield.

Alumni--those welcomed to "the company of educated men and women" in years past--should send Harvard that message at every turn. They should tell the University that they are uncomfortable giving money to an institution whose investment policies are explicitly amoral. They should remind officials that they resent it when Harvard tries to cancel academic projects because of inflexible funding schemes and institutional infighting. They should show Harvard they feel the College's diversity is worth paying a high price for, that it is a critical enough value not to be squandered because of tight finances.

This week Harvard graduates will be inundated with requests to give money to the University. Whether they choose to give is, of course, a personal decision. But in making that choice, alumni should remember that this year Harvard needs financial assistance perhaps more than ever. And those alumni who do contribute will have better leverage over Harvard expenditures.

Above all, alumni--and all others who care about Harvard's heritage--should remind Harvard that, as one of America's most influential universities, it carries a heavy responsibility to support academic values, to work for diversity and tolerance, and to recognize that its actions do affect the outside world, be it Cambridge or South Africa. It is a responsibility on which Harvard must not retrench.