Debating Grade Inflation

The longstanding debate over grade inflation re-emerged at the beginning of this year, in the academic pages of the Chronicle of Higher Education and an internal memo from Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education Lawrence Buell to faculty members.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Thomson Professor of Government Harvey C. Mansfield Jr. '53 quickly entered the debate. Known as "C Minus" to his students, the high-profile crusader against grade inflation was a natural to comment on the question.

In a January 14 interview with The Crimson, Mansfield attributed students' improving marks to affirmative action in the early 1970s.

"I think at that time professors were unwilling to give a C to a Black," he said to The Crimson.

In an article in Harvard Magazine that month, Mansfield was quoted as saying, "Grade inflation coincided with the arrival of large numbers of Black students on the Harvard campus; many white professors were unwilling to give C's to Black students, so they wouldn't give C's to white students."

Mansfield's comments drew the debate out of the genteel world of academic disputes and into the fray of student activism. At first, students mulled the remarks and waited for clarification, but a month later, their reaction was dramatic.

Black Students Association (BSA) President Zaheer R. Ali '94 wrote to The Crimson and a number of Harvard authorities March 2, calling on Harvard to either substantiate or apologize for Mansfield's remarks, which he called "Eurocentric [and] white supremacist-informed."

The lack of an official response to Mansfield's comments demonstrated "Harvard's conditioning to accept and acquiesce to racism," Ali wrote. "It also reflects the degree to which racism at Harvard is institutionalized," he wrote, and he said the BSA "demands that the administration respond to Mansfield's comments, either supporting his allegations or denying them."

After Ali's harsh broadside, reiterated in unison by the newly formed Coalition for Diversity in March, President Neil L. Rudenstine and Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles both spoke out on the issue.

Both said they found no evidence to support Mansfield's link between Black student enrollment and higher marks for students, and Rudenstine linked grade inflation to the general atmosphere of the University in the turbulent Vietnam era and the competitive years thereafter.

Dean of Students Archie C. Epps III and Dean K. Whitla, director of the Office of Instructional Research and Evaluation, also launched separate probes in an effort to resolve the question.

Both investigations were hampered by a lack of adequate records of past grades and grading practices, but Whitla and Epps both disputed Mansfield's explanation.

In fact, students, professors and officials all slowly closed ranks in defiance of Mansfield's comments and furnished alternate theories on grade inflation's origins.

Black students of the late 1960s and early 1970s hotly disputed any link between race and grades. "That's an old racist argument," said A'Lelia Bundles '74, an ABC News producer in Washington. "This is the 'the neighborhood goes to the dogs when you let Blacks in' argument."

Veteran professors supplied a number of possible causes of grade inflation, including the growing competition for professional schools during the era, the general anti-establishment attitudes of the time, and the increased quality of students.

The origins of grade inflation may be murky, but the way to address it is even more so. Buell's call for attention to the issue was a warning, but initiatives are always in the hands of individual professors and teaching fellows.

Mansfield, according to students and his own comments, is doing the best he can to provide the example.