Bok & NCAA

To the Editors of The Crimson:

John F. Baughman's article "Bok Committee Reviews Work on Athletics" (May 8) may mislead some readers.

President Bok's Committee on Athletics of the American Council on Education helped pass new rules designed to prevent the exploitation of student-athletes. The idea was to identify academically marginal students who, in their freshman year, would not be allowed to participate in intercollegiate sports.

My work with a team from several historically Black colleges is not, as Mr. Baughman says, "independent of Bok's committee." On the contrary, it is a continuation of work I did with the Committee on Athletics as Special Assistant to President Bok.

All of us are searching for ways to minimize the widespread exploitation of student-athletes, while recognizing that no single minimum test score is a valid index of academic marginality across the spectrum of American colleges and universities. What is remarkable about our current work, I think, is that the ACE, the historically Black colleges, and the testing services are cooperating in this search. And for this constructive step Mr. Bok's leadership is largely responsible. Robert E. Klitgaard