Draft Debate Results to Go To Gov't Study Committee

The results of the Faculty's debate on the draft will be forwarded to the presidential commission now studying an overhaul of the Selective Service system, Dean Ford said yesterday.

Ford said that he hoped the Faculty would take a clear position against computing class rankings as a permanent policy. He withheld an opinion, however, on whether it should actually advocate ending the present use of ranks as a criterion for student deferments. "I'm still mulling that over in my own mind," Ford declared.

It is on this question, Ford indicated, that a split within the Faculty might develop. The central issue would be whether Harvard has the "right" to go on record against classrankings, leaving the draft test--which "is certain to make Harvard students look very good"--as the only criterion for deferment.

Another Ivy League college, Dartmouth, has already condemned the use of rank-in-class, although it has continued to supply the ranks as long as local boards demand them.

Ford indicated that any vote of the Faculty is not likely to change University policy. Most lawyers, he said, believe that colleges are required to supply the ranks, although at least one school, Haverford, has already declined to do so. The Corporation, Harvard's highest governing body, would have to make the final decision.

The Faculty debate will begin next Tuesday, and be continued at a later meeting this fall. Ford said he wanted the University to express its general opposition to ranking so that ranks wouldn't become "locked in" the educational process once they are no longer required for draft deferments. Harvard's opinion, he said, should be forwarded not only to the presidential commission, which will report next January, but to other colleges and universities.

The results of this week's student poll on the draft will also be forwarded to the presidential commission. Ford said that he was surprised at the low turnout--only 43 per cent of the undergraduate body voted. "It was a hard poll to read as saying anything in one direction," Ford said.

In the poll, students favored ending the use of rank-in-class, but also voted against using a lottery or having the test as the sole criterion for judging student deferments. Detailed results of the poll appear on page eight.