Black Deans at Yale and Harvard Charge Agnew Speech Is 'Racist'

Alvin F. Poussaint, associate dean of the Medical School, charged Friday that attacks by Vice President Agnew on recruitment by medical schools of students from minority groups are "irresponsible at best and racist at worst."

In a statement released to the New York Times, Poussaint and James A. Comer, associate dean of the Yale Medical School, who are both black, said that Agnew "owes an apology to every minority group medical student in the country."

In a speech before a Republican group Thursday in Chicago, Agnew said that demands for open admission policies at graduate schools are being made by "supercilious sophisticates."

"When next you are sick, do you wish to be attended by a physician who entered medical school to fill a quota or because of his medical aptitude?" Agnew asked.

Agnew charged that minority students recruited by medical schools are less qualified at graduation. "The same pressures which operated to bring about the favored admissions status of those admitted because of race, socio-economic class, or ethnic background continue to operate in favor of their successful completion of studies undertaken," he said.

The statement by the two deans says that Agnew's "implication is erroneous, unfair, and racist in context" and that it "casts the veil of suspicion on every black medical student in the country."

Competent Physicians

"The purpose of the recruitment of minority group medical students is to overcome the widely held and previously realistic belief that minority group students would not be accepted at predominently white schools," the deans' statement says adding, "black medical students are competent and will be competent physicians."

"[Agnew's] administration has been responsible for cutting back the funds which would make it possible for more competent but poor students to become doctors," the deans' statement says. "The question a responsible Vice-President should pose is 'when next you're sick, will you be able to find a doctor?"

The statement-written by Comer and approved by Poussaint over the telephone-was omitted from Satur-day's Times by a typographical error.

Poussaint said yesterday that Agnew was "playing racist-type politics" in an "appeal to backlash-not just conservative backlash but moderate backlash."

"It's another form of the dirty pool that they play," he said. "Agnow said nothing about discrimination against blacks because of 'ethnic quotas' of whites."