Rudenstine's Report Is Unacceptable

President Neil L. Rudenstine's new report on "Diversity and Learning," spanning the years 1993 to 1995, is an immaculately written and researched piece of work. It begins with Mill and Milton and goes on to discuss the views of Harvard presidents on the subject of diversity. It even makes for interesting reading.

Yet for all its scholarly merits, the report has one overwhelming flaw: it focuses on analyzing the past at the expense of the present and the future. Forty-three of its 58 pages describe historical events. And even in the last quarter of the report that does discuss the present and the future, Rudenstine does not propose new directions for Harvard but comes down firmly on the side of the status quo.

The report centers upon the question of admissions: how does one choose a class of religiously, ethnically, racially and geographically diverse students without sacrificing fairness in the process?

Rudenstine relies heavily on the idea of the admissions process being more than a game of numbers: "Any definition of qualifications or merit that does not give considerable weight to a wide range of human qualities and capacities will not serve the goal of fairness to individual candidates (quite apart from groups) in admissions," the report reads. In other words, a 1580 on the SAT and a top GPA aren't enough: admittees must possess "character" as well.

We agree with Rudenstine's belief that diversity itself produces valuable results. "Such diversity is not an end in itself, or a pleasant but dispensable accessory. It is the substance from which much human learning, understanding, and wisdom derive," the report says. Having a diverse group of students on campus, thrown together by extracurricular activities or other events of their own choice, can indeed foster wisdom in the best of cases.

But we disagree with the implications that statement makes about the current state of the Harvard housing lottery. Although he does not come out and say it, the substance of the report and statements in an interview show Rudenstine is without doubt in favor of the decision of former Dean of the College L. Fred Jewett '57 to randomize the first-year housing lottery. When he began writing the report, the issue had not yet become hot, he said, and so he did not include it in the report.

This is unacceptable and wrong. Randomization has been on the table for years, most recently as a result of the Maull-Lewis report, which was written 18 months ago. Eighteen months. For Rudenstine to write a long and comprehensive report on diversity and fail to address perhaps the primary diversity issue on campus illustrates to us that he is out of touch.

And diversity on campus can only go so far. While diversity does helps fulfill Harvard's "educational mission", randomization's benefits are unquestionably outweighed by the necessity that students have some choice in determining where they live

Rudenstine also insists upon the necessity of affirmative action. We agree that affirmative action is still essential on college campuses in order to give the opportunity to learn to those who have not had the advantages others have had; however, in his debunking of arguments against affirmative action, Rudenstine does not look far enough ahead.

In the shadow of last summer's decision by the Board of Regents of the University of California to repeal affirmative action in the nine-campus system, Rudenstine is almost negligent in his fourth argument for affirmative action. Although he admits that "the potential for unfairness exists," he quickly glosses over that and then reiterates his points that admissions must take into account a wide variety of characteristics and that admissions decisions about individuals must be made in the context of the whole.

Yet it is in the arena of unfairness that the future deliberations over affirmative action will be made, if this past summer's decision and the 1978 Supreme Court case against quotas in the University of California at Davis Medical School are any indication. Instead of offering tactics for the future, Rudenstine does not offer any solutions except those already in place.

Rudenstine's report could more properly be called a historical essay. In some parts, it blatantly refers to suggestions former President Derek L. Bok made in some of his open letters in the 1970s. Has there not been any progress since then? Were there no other options or ideas Rudenstine could offer us? We appreciate the thoughtfulness, but we wish that Rudenstine had sent this manuscript to the Harvard University Press and given us something more timely.