Making Himself Perfectly Clear

President Bok yesterday elucidated his stance on admissions, minority faculty hiring, and race relations in an eight-page open letter on issues of race at Harvard.

But what remains unclear is whether Bok's letter will have any farreaching impact (aside from national coverage); for the most part, his statements merely repeat what he has said previously.

In the race-relations section, for example, Bok uses several passages from his Commencement address last June, a speech some Third World students have criticized for not stressing the concrete needs of minorities.

These needs, according to Third World student leaders, include more minority students admitted, more minority faculty hired, and a Third World center.

While Bok's letter makes a spirited defense of diversity as a principle for admissions and urges "vigorous" recruitment of minority faculty, he offers no assurance that more minorities will be accepted to or hired by the University.

And as for a Third World center, Bok both rejects the use of "Harvard's resources" to finance one and gives the recently proposed Foundation to improve race relations heavily qualified support.

If there is "genuine interest" in the Foundation project, Bok states that he "will advocate support for the enterprise--modestly at the beginning but more substantially over time if the effort attracts sustained commitment and achieves constructive results."

For Bok, "concrete results" mean increasing understanding among the races and fostering a greater appreciation of various cultural perspectives and traditions. No specific criteria for success of the Foundation are detailed in the letter.

While Archie C. Epps III, dean of students and chairman of the committee which prepared a race relations report last spring, Thursday called the letter a "very fine, thorough and courageous statement," Lisa E. Davis '81 of the Third World Center Organization said yesterday she believes the section on admissions was "kind of insulting."

"In a way Bok is lending credence to the notion that we're only here because of 'diversity,' and I resent that," Davis said.