Harvard, Hire Now

"Not only have we not progressed a great deal...--both statistically and attitudinally--but I fear we have moved backward...in a number of areas" said the affirmative action report. The writer of the report criticized the University for its low number of tenured Black professors (1.4 percent) and female professors (3 percent).

That report was issued in 1975.

AT Harvard, wrapped up in three-and-a-half centuries of tradition, times never seem to change. For just last week, Professor of Law Derrick A. Bell issued a similar report documenting that Blacks only occupy 1.8 percent of Harvard's tenured slots. Does anyone hear an echo?

Back then, as now, the University's response to its affirmative action problem was essentially the same: "We'll set hiring goals, but the available pool of qualified faculty is very small. Until there are more Blacks and women with Ph.D.'s, Harvard probably won't meet the goals required by federal affirmative action programs."

We are getting tired of this worn-out rationale, which demands no hiring initiatives from the University, but relies on an amorphous "pool" of Ph.D.'s to increase until Harvard hires anyone. It's obvious that some faculty are becoming fed up with the University's old song-and-dance routine too, as evidenced by Bell's opening (and fictional) scenario to his 13-page report: President Bok and all of Harvard's Black faculty are killed by a bomb, forcing the University to hire enough Blacks to fill 10 percent of its posts by 1990.

It's time Harvard earned its reputation as the leader of American higher education. Harvard, more than any other university, has the resources and reputation to attract greater proportions of the available Black and female pool. In fact, there are many junior professors already here good enough to join the ranks of the senior faculty, Yet no matter how large the pool gets, it seems Harvard is not dipping into it.

In 15 years, the pool of eligible Ph.D. candidates has not expanded enough for Harvard's liking--at least not enough to noticeably raise the number of its minority and female faculty. It's obvious the answer lies elsewhere--in direct and immediate hiring. This produces a beneficial chain reaction: if Harvard hires more minority and women in tenured posts, Harvard will be seen as a comfortable environment for such candidates, making recruitment of more minorities and women easier. These minority and female faculty will then act as role models for undergraduates choosing academia as a profession.

AFFIRMATIVE action's greatest obstacle is not the Harvard administration per se, but the some members of the senior faculty. It's the faculty that proposes and gives preliminary approval to candidates for tenure. And it's members of that faculty who argue that the University cannot be beholden to outside political and ideological pressures, but must use only academic excellence as the basis of its tenure decisions.

This University exists for one purpose--the search for truth. And as history shows, truth is not to be found in ideological rigidity, but in the flexibility of viewpoint and constant questioning of our assumptions that ultimately comes from diversity. Unless Harvard changes course, it will stagnate with a faculty ossified by background and academic standards. Only a school with a more visionary conception of its faculties and the role of minorities and women in them can claim to be the world's greatest university.