Richardson and Randolph Receive Honorary Degrees at Commencement

Graduating seniors from Harvard and Radcliffe staged an equal admissions demonstration for today's Commencement exercises, making this the third year in succession that Commencement included expressions of student dissent.

About 75 per cent of the Radcliffe Class of 1971 who wore caps and gowns-about 200 altogether-went through with a peaceful protest for equal admissions between Harvard and Radcliffe by pinning silk-screened biological symbols to the backs of their gowns.

Organizers of the protest also furnished 1100 armbands with an equals sign for parents and Harvard seniors sympathetic to their cause. By noon yesterday, less than 100 armbands remained and all were gone by early this morning.

SDS was reportedly planning a separate, disruptive demonstration protesting Harvard's refusal to fill in "Muddy Pond" on University property in Jamaica Plain where two black children drowned in May.

But the University's announcement Monday that it is filling in most of the Pond-to a depth of less than one foot-squelched those plans.

SDS reportedly decided instead to protest the separation from the University of three Harvard students charged with harassing Sargent Kennedy '28, secretary to the Governing Boards, during an earlier demonstration against the pond.

At today's exercise, however, the threatened SDS disruption failed to materialize, and the ceremony came off smoothly.

Elliott L. Richardson '41, secretary of Health, Education and Welfare in the Nixon Administration, and A. Philip Randolph, a civil rights leader and former head of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, headed the list of honorary degree recipients at the 320th Harvard Commencement today.

The University awarded honorary degrees to ten men and two women in the ceremony in Tercentenary Theater. Included in the list were two political-literary figures - one black, one white - from Africa: Leopold Sedhar Senghor, President of Senegal and a widely know poet and essayist, and Alan Paton, South African novelist and outspoken opponent of the policy of apartheid in that country.

Helen Louise Gardner, Merton Professor of English Literature at Oxford University known for her studies of the Metaphysical poets, received the degree of Doctor of Letters, as did Paton and Senghor.

Randolph and Richardson were named Doctors of Laws, as were four men who have played roles in the governance of Harvard. They are: Dr. Dana L. Farnsworth, Oliver Professor of Hygiene and retiring Director of the University Health Services; Henry J. Friendly '23, Federal Judge and - like Richardson - a former member of Harvard's Board of Overseers; R. Keith Kane '22, a New York Attorney and, until last year, Senior Fellow of the Harvard Corporation, and John L. Loeb '24, a New York financier and another former member of the Board of Overseers.

Max Delbruck, professor of Biology at California Institute of Technology who is known for his pioneering work in molecular biology and genetics, received the degree of Doctor of Science. Kenzo Tange, a Japanese architect, was named Doctor of Arts.

And Verna Corinne Johnson - currently administrative assistant to Dean Dunlop, who has served in that capacity for seven deans or acting deans of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences - received the degree of Master of Arts.

Today's ceremony, at which 1066 Harvard and 270 Radcliffe seniors received their degrees, was the second joint Harvard-Radcliffe Commencement. Hundreds of Radcliffe women and Harvard men participated in a peaceful protest asking the University to change its admissions policy to allow enrollment of equal numbers of men and women (See story at right).

Richardson served as Undersecretary of State in the Nixon administration until mid-1970, when he was named head of HEW. He replaced in that post Robert Finch, a close friend of Nixon who moved to the White House to become an adviser to the President. He was frequently mentioned during the fall as a possible candidate for the Harvard Presidency, but some observers felt that his close identification with the Nixon Administration would make him unpalatable to students; also, he lacked the "primary academic commitment" which the Corporation had announced early in the search as a vital criterion for the selection.

The 81-year-old Randolph was a pioneer radical, civil rights, and labor organizer. In 1917 he helped found a Socialist magazine, The Messenger, which campaigned stridently against racism and economic exploitation of blacks.

In 1925, Randolph began organizing black railway workers into the fledgling Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. After a 12-year battle with railroad management, the Brotherhood won recognition in 1937 when it signed the first contract ever negotiated between a black union and white management.

He continued his organizing efforts into the sixties: in 1948, he sponsored a movement for mass refusals of induction into the Army by blacks - a move that was averted when President Truman signed an Executive Order banning segregation in the Armed Forces. He served as director of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. He is currently President Emeritus of the Brotherhood and a vice-president of the AFL-CIO.

Paton served until 1968 as President of South Africa's Liberal Party. His novel, Gry, the Beloved Country, published in 1958, received international acclaim as a protest against the racist system of South Africa. His other writings include Too Late, the Philanthrope and The Land and People of South Africa. Yale honored him with a Doctor of Letters degree in 1968.

Gardner is the author of The Art of T. S. Eliot and The Divine Poems of John Donne. She has been honored by Queen Elidabeth with the title of "Dame" - the women's equivalent of knighthood.

Senghor has been President of Senegal since its inception in 1960; since 1968, he has also served as Minister of Defense. He has published five volumes of verse in French and is the recipient of the Dag Hammarskjold Prize for his writing.

Farnsworth served as a member of the Commission headed by Archibald Cox '34, Williston Professor of Law, which inquired into the causes of the student rebellion at Columbia in 1968. He has headed the University Health Services since 1954, and will be replaced next year by Dr. Warren E. C. Wacker.

Friendly has served as a Federal Judge in the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit since 1959. In 1960 he was elected to a one-year term as President of the Associated Harvard Alumni, and in 1964 he was elected to a six-year term on the Board of Overseers.

Kane was a member of the Harvard Corporation for 20 years, during the terms of Pusey and James Bryant Conant, until his retirement in 1970.

Loeb is know for his strong support for new buildings and endowment for Harvard's Graduate School of Design.

Delbruck is credited with having revolutionized the science of molecular biology by his researches into genetics at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island during the 'Forties, when he was known as the leader of the influential "phage group." He also pioneered modern research into the nature of viruses.

Tange designed the Tokyo City Hall, the Stadium for the 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo, and the Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima.

Johnson, who has worked at Harvard since graduating from Simmons College in 1940, has served as administrative assistant to Deans or Acting Deans William Scott Ferguson, Paul H. Buck, McGeorge Bundy, Nathan Pusey (acting as his own Dean); Franklin L. Ford, Edward S. Mason, and John T. Dunlop.