Black Students Meet Mansfield

In what officers say will be its last such effort, the Black Students' Association (BSA) met with Professor Harvey C. Mansfield '53 yesterday to discuss his statements linking grade inflation at Harvard to the influx of black students in the 1970s.

BSA President Aaliyah N. Williams '02 said she was satisfied with the results of the almost two-hour long meeting, held in the Adams Upper Common Room.

"He clarified his point of view, which was that his main issue was with white professors and white guilt," Williams said. "He needs to communicate that more, that his issue is with the professors and not with us."

BSA Treasurer Brandon A. Gayle '03, who worked on coordinating BSA's various responses to Mansfield's comments, said he was also satisfied with the discussion.

"Our main point in having this meeting was to give BSA members an opportunity to confront him," Gayle said.

Williams and Gayle opened the meeting with three questions of their own, and then took questions from audience members for Mansfield.

Besides grade inflation, affirmative action was also discussed at last night's meeting, BSA members said.

Mansfield is a long-time critic of affirmative action.

Several BSA members who attended the meeting said they were frustrated because Mansfield did not support his claims with evidence.

Some members also said they were bothered by Mansfield's continuous reference to the BSA membership as "you people."

While Williams and Gayle said the meeting was "very civilized," one BSA member said there were periodic snickers at some of Mansfield's statements.

"He said some pretty surprising things," the student said.

Williams and Gayle said the meeting, which was closed to the press at Mansfield's request and restricted to BSA members, will be the last step the BSA takes in responding to Mansfield.

In the past week, the BSA has met with several University administrators and staged a sit-in at one of Mansfield's government classes. The BSA also called upon President Neil L. Rudenstine to issue a public statement regarding Mansfield's statements.

Rudenstine, on Thursday, publicly denied Mansfield's statements linking grade inflation to the increase in black students at Harvard in the 1970's, while defending freedom of speech.

"Nothing I have personally observed, and nothing I have read or heard, leads me to believe that grade inflation resulted from the enrollment of greater numbers of minority students," Rudenstine wrote.

Mansfield declined to comment for this article.