Investigate the Charges

THE WAY Harvard is handling allegations of discrimination against Dean of Students Archie C. Epps III should fill no one with pride. President Bok's denial last week of allegations that Epps' race was a factor in the University's search for a dean of the College two years ago has not satisfied those who want the affair investigated. And there can be little question that, in the absence of an inquiry, concern about the appointment is likely to grow more rapidly than knowledge of what actually happened once an account of the appointment is published this summer.

Eugene Rivers, an undergraduate on leave from the College, plans to publish his allegations of discrimination at Harvard in an upcomming book, "How Harvard Rules." The account maintains that Epps' race cost him a fair shot at the College's top deanship and that similar institutional prejudice prevented Senior Admissions Officer David L. Evans from serious consideration as Director of Admissions when that job opened up last summer. Rivers claims that despite 16 years as dean of students, Epps was not even interviewed for the job by Dean of the Faculty A. Michael Spence. The lack of Blacks in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and the administration's top ranks is likely to make the Epps case a matter of particular concern for students.

Bok was correct when he termed the issues involved "important, difficult and eminently worth discussing" in a recent letter to Rivers. The president's suggestion, in the same letter, that Rivers and other concerned students conduct their own, informal investigations of the alleged discrimination against Epps makes it likely that attention will focus on those issues but does not make us confident that much about the Epps and Evans cases will be learned.

These are not trivial matters and those involved are predictably reluctant to talk. If, as Bok has stated, investigations are warranted, then the investigations warrant the attention of the University's highest echelons. If they are to get anywhere, the investigations must take place under official auspices. And they should begin now, before the facts of the cases become more remote.