In Words or Deeds?

Three years from now, Harvard Law School will graduate more than 50 black lawyers in a class of almost 550. That same year, the University of Texas Law School will not graduate a single black lawyer.

Only one black student out of the 11 admitted to the University of Texas Law School's class 2,000 accepted an offer to join a class of roughly 500 in the fall, but he backed out, intimidated by the media attention surrounding his decision.

Last year, however, the law school had 40 black students. The drop comes a little over a year after the fifth circuit of the Federal Court of Appeals prohibited the racial preferences Texas used in admission.

Leaders in higher education including President Neil L. Rudenstine are now struggling to stave off the so-called whitening of higher education. Rudenstine has committed himself to this movement, but his efforts prove more complex for him than for most.

Among universities, Harvard has one of the oldest of diversify. For nearly 125 years, the University has reached out to a wide variety of students, but Rudenstine's efforts on diversity this year are a response to political circumstances as well as part of his struggle to don the heavy mantle of Harvard's leadership on this issue.

The Reticent Bully

High-ranking administrators describe Rudenstine as "Charming" and "warm and compassionate." These traits have--some say for worse infused Rudenstine 's leadership style on the diversity front where his method has been one of quiet persuasion, often one-on-one with other academics.

As Harvard's president, he has access to a bully pulpit with a political voice as strong as the phrase implies. But observers often conclude that Rudenstine should tread less softly and do more with the University's big stick.

Only recently Rudenstine has begun to follow this advice.

His most recent work on this front was orchestrating a three-quarter page advertisement for diversity in The New York Times, published under the auspices of the American Association of Universities (AAU) and signed by its 62 member-schools.

The advertisement gives no sign that Rudenstine was behind it, an anonymity typical of Rudenstine's leadership on this issue.

Until the advertisement, all of Rudenstine's work on this front has been the quiet, contemplative efforts of a man who modeled himself more as an academic than a political leader.

He has lectured he American Council on Education, the Massachusetts Historical Society and Princeton alums on the subject.

Typical of Rudenstine's style, he attended a small dinner party this winter in California to discuss his views on diversity with educational leaders in the state which sparked much of the current controversy over diversity. (Please see side bar.)

He authored his second President's Report to the Board of Overseers on the educational significance of diversity and Harvard's history of promoting it. The report was distributed by the AAU to member presidents.,

Although Harvard president's reports, particularly under former president Derek C. Bok, have often been used as a forum to address the national politics of education, Rudenstine, true to his academic roots, grounded his case for diversity not in terms of current political exigencies, but in philosophy; he addresses the views of John Stuart Mill, not Newt Gingrich.

Those who have worked with Rudenstine say that demagogue is a hard role for him to fill.

"He is more likely than most presidents to work behind the scenes with other presidents and members of Congress, and he believes that can be more effective than speeches," says provost, adding that he approves of Rudenstine's efforts to avoid becoming a "single-issue" president.

Professor of Law and Director of Harvard's Civil Rights Project Christopher F. Edley Jr. praises Rudenstine's "quiet leadership" role on this importance there is more to do.

"This issue is critical...and in that respect these presidents need to find a way to crawl out of their ivory towers and make it to the public megaphones," Edley says.

Many see a void nationally which university presidents need to fill.

"Twenty years ago there were a number of [university presidents] who were great public leaders, who helped shape the public agenda with respect to higher education," recalls L. Steven Zwerling, a senior director at the Ford Foundation.

"They not only ran their own institutions, but also saw their presidencies as a bully pulpit from which to talk about higher education at large. Today we have very few people thus inclined," he says.

Living up to History

When Rudenstine became Harvard's 26th President, he inherited the University's 125-year concern for diversity and one of the most influential seats in higher education. The two could prove a powerful combination.

Harvard's presidents have nearly unmatched and undisputed public influence on issues of higher education which, in turn, creates high expectations.

"As a general proposition, when the President of Harvard speaks, people listen," says Dean of the School of Education Jerome T, Murphy.

On diversity, Harvard's presidents have said a great deal.

President from 1869-1909, Charles W. Eliot, class of 1853, was the first Harvard president--and one of the first people in the nation--to argue that a diverse student body improves education. Eliot said he wanted students from various "nations, states, schools, families, parties and conditions of life."

"Diversity" now also connotes ethnicity, but Eliot's words served as a foundation for an obligation Rudenstine says he feels today.

"If we cannot keep a fully-diversified set of higher educational institutions, we're going to be in substantial trouble--educationally and in terms of the society we live in," Rudenstine says. "So there's a lot to be done there, and we'll have to keep doing it."

Harvard also played a critical role in higher education's most important legal battle since Brown vs. Board of Education.

The case was Bakke vs. California, and the Supreme Court ruled that while strict quotas were illegal universities could use race or ethnicity as "plus factors" in admissions, that is, if two equal candidates are competing for one slot, race can be the deciding factor.

Though the University did not use the system of quotas under attack in Bakke, it submitted a friend-of-the-court brief defending institutions' right to use non-metric qualities including ethnicity and gender in selecting students.

Harvard was cited in a majority opinion as a model of how to obtain diversity through admissions. It is this legacy that Rudenstine has defended and Harvard has pursued.

The efforts of Eliot, Bok and former president A. Lawrence Lowell, class of 1877, as well as Harvard's other 20th century presidents, served as the grounding for the Diversity Report which Rudenstine says--besides publicizing Harvard's efforts--was his own reckoning of Harvard's long history with the subject.

Stories Without Numbers

While social scientists and educators almost unanimously hail the benefit of a diverse student body, Rudenstine's efforts to champion the cause of diversity are further hindered by a lack of empirical evidence that variety is educational.

Using race is "no more rational on its own terms than would be choices based upon the physical size or blood type of applicants," reads the opinion in Hopwood vs. Texas, a challenge to Supreme Court Justice Powell's 1978 opinion in Bakke that diversity is beneficial.

According to Gary A. Orfield, professor of education and social policy at the Graduate School of Education, who recently helped organize a conference on affirmative action, academics have neglected to gather the research necessary to support Powell's assertions under the "strict scrutiny" that federal courts are applying to racial preferences.

"Most social scientists thought the benefits of diversity were self-evident," he says.

"College consider themselves normal and the rest of the world that is in need of study," he jockes lamenting that academics have neglected to research and present to the public the "tremendous energy" in a diverse student body.

This lack of evidence leaves affirmative methods to obtain diverse populations in a precarious legal position as conservative benches roll back methods of racial remediation.

"It's hard to overstate how valuable [empirical evidence] could be," Edley says.

He cites the plethora of research on how to make diversity more effective--as opposed--and says, "That's important work, but it doesn't help me with the legal need or the public need to explain.

Glass House?

For all Rudenstine talks about the importance of diversity, Harvard's faculty recently pointed out the mote in Rudenstine's own eye. Without his house in order, some question how much force Rudenstine's words to the nation can carry.

Since 1991, 20 of the 84 Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) appointments--24 percent have been women, still only represent 11.5 percent of the FAS's senior faculty.

For many women across the University, Rudenstine's decision to deny tenure to Associate Professor of Government Bonnie Honig, a woman scholar who is widely well-regarded by her peers, was proof that the president's private commitment to diversity does not match his public stance.

"Your decision to refuse Professor Honig tenure has been greeted with shock and disbelief across the University and beyond," 15 senior faculty women wrote in a letter of protest to Rudenstine after the decision.

"It is especially incomprehensible given your publicly stated commitment to equality for women," they continued.

This sentence has become a mantra for those concerned with Harvard's commitment to faculty diversity and a springboard for newspapers across the nation to point out Rudenstine's perceived hypocracy.

The subhead on an article in section A of The New York Times about the controversy, for example trumpeted "Rejection From Leader Who Vows Diversity."

Assistant to the President for Affirmative Action James S. Hoyte admits Harvard has not been as progressive in its tenure policy as in its admissions policy, but he still contends Harvard is committed to tenuring more women and minorities.

"[The] University has been determined that in seeking diversity of the hiring practices that exist here," Hoyte says.

He says that Harvard's approach to tenuring women and minorities cannot be described as "bold" or "creative" but has been "thoughtful"and "sincere."

In other words, Rudenstine has remained committed to the institutional framework for tenure that the University handed him when he became president in 1991,

This "other" mantle complicates Rudenstine's efforts to promote and protect diversity.

"To what extent to we do what we ought within our own communities to shape these values?" Edley asks. "Sometimes I have my doubts.... One of the ways an institution can lead externally is by demonstrating internally how best to engage a community in controversies of this sort."

When asked if there were a "tension" between his public commitment to diversity and his denial of tenure to Honig, Rudenstine says, "That's a question for you to answer," referring to evidence that he says indicates his comment to increasing Faculty diversity.

Conclusion

For the first time since Bakke, academics are circling their wagons and starting to question the premises they have held for years so as to provide the answers skeptics demand.

Rudenstine has responded to his call--gradually--by increasing his efforts outside Harvard's iron gates. But he is challenged by the University's tenure policies, his own modesty and the lack of a solid body of research to support his convictions.

"Race-based admission practices and scholarships are in deep jeopardy, and anybody who cares about diversity and doesn't want to see these advances rolled back has to lie awake at night and worry about this--and I do," Zwerling says.

"The political tide is running against those efforts," he adds.