Admissions Dean Defends Policy Against Students' Racism Charge

Chase N. Peterson '52, dean of admissions, last night defended the selection process against charges of de facto race discrimination at a meeting on "The Problems of Black Admissions" at Dunster House.

Students at the meeting charged that Harvard's admissions procedures were geared to admit affluent students. This bias was especially hard on blacks, they said, because they occupy the lower rungs on the economic scale.

Peterson admitted that some aspects of admissions such as favoring alumni sons, may appear to hurt blacks' chances for admissions. But he said that special recruitment plans more than compensated for this effect.

Peterson said that not only were alumni representatives and staff members being sent to poor, predominantly black ghetto areas but that some black undergraduates were being involved in the admissions process. Black students are valuable in recruiting other blacks, he said, because they can speak the language of the prospective students.

He said that Harvard is trying to retain its identity as a New England institution, instead of becoming an homogenized microcosm of America. This partially explains the high number of Harvard sons who are admitted, he said.

Gunness Denies Discrimination

One student claimed economic discrimination was so great that only three per cent of Harvard students come from homes with incomes lower than the national median. Peter K. Gunness '57, director of the Financial Aid Office, said he was not sure of the figure, but he thought it was closer to twenty per cent.

Peterson said that one of his office's most difficult tasks is convincing poor students, usually the products of relatively inferior school systems, that scholarships and other aid make it possible for them to come to Harvard. The school's image as a haven for the offspring of an economic elite does not help, he said.