H-R Committee Insists Hiring Review Be Full

Members of the H-R Task Force for Affirmative Action met yesterday with a group of officials from the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW) who next week will begin a compliance review of the Harvard Affirmative Action program.

Officials from HEW's Office of Civil Rights (OCR) agreed to meet with the Task Force members to discuss a 20-page analysis compiled by the Task Force covering alleged University non-compliance with the 1975 Harvard Affirmative Action Plan in 18 departments of the Faculty, the Medical School, the Business School, the School of Public Health and the personnel office.

The Task Force submitted the analysis to John G. Bynoe, regional director of the OCR, last Monday in order to "give the compliance review team guidance as to where to look" for possible violations of affirmative action guidelines, one Task Force member who attended the meeting with OCR said yesterday.

"The OCR officials in the meeting appeared to consider our analysis of significant value," the member, who asked that his name not be used, said.

The member said the OCR officials seemed to agree with the Task Force that the numbers of women and minority group members available for hiring may be understated in figures used by the University, although not as much as indicated by the analysis.

OCR officials who met with the Task Force refused yesterday to comment on the meeting.

Plans a Demo

The Task Force also announced plans to sponsor a rally to protest Harvard discrimination against women and minorities in front of Massachusetts Hall next Monday, the first day of the OCR compliance review.

The rally will include speeches by representatives from the Task Force, from District 65 of the Distributive Workers of America, and from H-R women's and minority groups, William E. Fletcher '76, a Task Force spokesman, said.

The three-person OCR compliance review team will conduct their on-the-scene investigation in two stages--one next week and one during a week a month later.

OCR officials indicated in the meeting that the first stage will focus on the Graduate School of Design and the personnel office, and the second stage will focus on the School of Public Health, the Dental School and the Medical School, the member said.

"I also got the impression they might investigate the Business School and the kitchen shop, both of which we discussed at length in the meeting," he said.

The Task Force also said it will submit the analysis tomorrow to Walter J. Leonard, assistant to the president and supervisor of Harvard's affirmative action program.

The analysis was prepared from statistics made available from Leonard's office, the group said.