Minority

To the Editors of the Crimson:

As a Black academic and alumnus of both the College and GSAS, I can certainly sympathize with the concerns of the Harvard Minority Student Alliance as expressed in the front page article of April 11. Unfortunately, the students are bound to remain frustrated for at least three reasons.

First, Harvard departments, like those in most universities, are notoriously autonomous. They simply do not easily surrender discretion (even to deans, much less to students) over matters that they believe to fall within their legitimate province. Hiring and promotion are two such matters. If I recall correctly, even getting the departments to raise the priority of recruiting minority graduate students proved a daunting task to those administrators charged with prodding the beast back in the 1970s.

Second, every lifetime post on the Harvard faculty, at least within Arts and Sciences, tends to be the occasion for a national, even international, search. Without a tenure track system, as exists at most universities, the vast majority of junior people have little choice but to emigrate. At the second-tier state university where I teach, the question generally asked about an assistant professor is: "Has he/she published enough to be a reasonable candidate for tenure?" At Harvard, and the handful of similar schools around the country, the question is: "Is this person the very finest we can get from the known universe?" The Harvard faculty is simply a tough crowd to please. So, I might add, is President Bok.

Finally, when it comes to minority (and especially Black) faculty, the entire American college and university community is in the grips of an intractable long-term supply problem. There just aren't enough bodies to go around. Black students perennially push to see more Black faculty, but almost none of them want to become Black faculty. And who can blame them, when the Sirens of Wall Street beckon so seductively?

What is to be done? I've two pieces of advice, the first tame, the second rather radical. First, continue the pressure on the administration; if it produces even one new minority hiring, that will be a victory. Second, if its role models that you're after, break out of your ethnic shell a bit and look to the white faculty along with those few who are not. That's a big part of what Harvard is about. Christopher H. Foreman '74   University of Maryland