Too Happy With No. 28

In its first-ever college rankings released last week, Black Enterprise magazine placed Harvard among the top 50 schools in the nation for black students. After surveying more than a thousand black professionals, the magazine concluded that because of the high quality of academic experience, Harvard offers black students, the University merited the 28th spot on the list.

Considering the competition-historically black colleges like Morehouse and Spelman, which topped the list-the University did relatively well. Indeed, Harvard could never hope to top this list; the magazine considered criteria such as the percen of black students in each graduating class, in which historically black colleges have an advantage a University committed to creating a diverse campus could never pursue.

But the University's performance on another criterion-the social experience of black students-is alarming. Harvard received a disappointing score of 3.75 out of 5. While no ranking can be taken without a grain of salt, and the criteria of this ranking seem especially vague, the rankings nevertheless should remind us of a troubling fact: Harvard is still a place where black students feel markedly less comfortable than their white counterparts.

Despite concerted attention to issues of race at Harvard and a world-renowned Afro-American Studies Department, black students still face a Faculty that is overwhelmingly white and an administration unreceptive to calls for greater Faculty diversity. Randomization has atomized and dispersed black students, undermining traditionally supportive communities; the College has addressed the problem of self-segregation without dealing adequately with the negative impact on black students' experiences at Harvard. The College must now concern itself, especially if randomization is to stay, with fostering new sources of communities-perhaps a viable new student center.

In this light, it is disturbing that Harvard administrators were so quick to praise the University's performance in the survey. Dean of Students Archie C. Epps III called the results a recognition of the University's "commitment to including everyone of talent in the College." But if anything, the rankings show that not everyone of talent enjoys the same level of comfort in the Harvard community.