600 Students Support Petition Seeking Promotion for Nolan

Students yesterday submitted a petition to President Bok, Dean Rosovsky, and Wallace T. MacCaffrey, chairman of the History Department, demanding that the History Department promote Mary F. Nolan, assistant professor of History.

The petition, which was signed by 600, states that the History Department's recent decision to deny Nolan promotion and to terminate her contract is "representative of Harvard's continuing policy to deny the promotion of qualified women and to show intolerance for dissenting political views."

Alison Dundes '81, who submitted the petition with Alouette Kluge '81, said yesterday, "We would like to have some response from the administration as to why there are so few women in the Faculty, and why there are none in the History Department."

MacCaffrey yesterday acknowledged receiving the petition, but refused to comment on why the department denied Nolan promotion.

The University has not planned to respond to the petition, Bok said yesterday, adding, "There is no evidence that there was a violation of law or a breach of University policy."

"I would like to see more women in the Faculty, but there is no reason to believe that the History Department is guilty of discrimination," Bok said.

Rosovsky and Nolan could not be reached for comment yesterday.

New York University and the University of California at Irvine have both offered jobs to Nolan. Nolan teaches History 1333, "The Crisis of Liberalism and Capitalism in Western Europe."

Dundes said that she expected response within a week. She added that if the University did not reply to the accusations of discrimination, she would consider alternate forms of protest, including inviting the federal government to intervene and writing to major newspapers outside the University