Harvard Hosts Third NAACP Forum

University President Neil L. Rudenstine expressed his support for the work of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) as he welcomed the group to its third-annual Harvard-based conference yesterday.

He said he shares the NAACP's worries about legal challenges to affirmative action.

"We're very concerned about the cases at the University of Michigan...to do away with affirmative action," he told the group.

And he emphasized the benefits that Harvard reaps from hosting the conference.

"I'm glad indeed that you're back for a third year," he said. "[While] I hope your meetings here are useful to you...[this conference] is a two-way street."

The conference will bring together senior Harvard Faculty members from the business and law schools and NAACP leaders for three-days of workshops and study.

Charles J. Ogletree, Climenko professor of law at Harvard Law School, introduced the dignitaries present at the event, including NAACP Chair Julian Bond and other board members.

In his brief remarks, Ogletree went on to compliment Rudenstine for the work he as done to provide more equal opportunities for minorities at Harvard.

"He has diversified the faculty throughout the University," Ogletree said.

Bond thanked Harvard for hosting the event and explained the importance of the conference.

"[Harvard Business School Professor] Jim Austin has led us through case studies of other organizations...and we have seen ourselves [and] ways we might work through our problems," Bond said.

He said the conference has also allowed the national board members to forge closer personal relationships.

"These events have made us a more collegial body," he said. "At this occasion, we are both students and a circle of like-minded people."

Austin, who is McLean professor of business administration, emphasized the mutually beneficial nature of the conference.

"We've learned a considerable amount about the challenges of governing a national organization," he said.

Kathy A. Reddick, current president of the Cambridge NAACP, which co-hosted the event, said the association is active in the area.

"We have an aggressive agenda, mainly relating to the education of youth," she told the national leadership.

The group paused for a moment of silence in honor of Alvin Thompson, a former Massachusetts state representative from Cambridge, who died yesterday morning. Thompson was a past president of the Cambridge NAACP, and a person who Ogletree described as an "an old-time politician, un-bossed and un-bought."