Review of Affirmative Action Figures Shows Meeting of Most Hiring Goals

Since the inception of its affirmative action program, Harvard has exceed its projected hiring goals for women but fallen short of those goals for minorities in professional and staff positions.

A series of figures released yesterday that chart the progress of affirmative action in the University shows year-by-year increases since 1971 for both minorities and women in almost every employment category.

Harvard's affirmative action plan, which details the University's strategy for increasing minority and female representation by expanding the pool of applicants for jobs, makes numerical projections through July 1976 for the numbers of minorities and women who will work here.

Greatest Discrepancy

The greatest discrepancy between present figures and the 1976 projections comes in the University-wide figures for minorities in non-teaching positions.

Of professional non-teaching staff, 8.9 per cent are minorities, while the projection is 12.6 per cent. For non-professional staff, the 1976 projection for minorities is 18.2 per cent and the present figure 14.6 per cent.

The University has added 17 minority full professors and 12 female full professors since 1971, while the number of women in non-tenured professorships has gone up by 67 in that period.

Walter J. Leonard, special assistant to President Bok, said in a short report issued with the figures, "Although these comparisons [of goals and actual figures] offer encouraging evidence of the University's effort to date, they in no way diminish the need for a continuing effort in affirmative action to achieve the July 1976 targets."

Leonard attributed the shortfalls in minority non-teaching staff to the local labor pool, whose minority percentage is significantly smaller than Harvard's.

Asked yesterday why minority non-teaching staff was the only area where the University fell short of projections, Leonard said, "These appointments are made at a number of points in the University. What you're looking at is the sum total of a very large number of decisions. In some areas the number of minority staff is quite representative. In others it's practically nonexistent."

In the report, he called the increasing numbers of women and minorities in Harvard professional schools "strengthening" of the "future pool" of job applicants here.

The University is now preparing a new set of affirmative action goals, extending past 1976, and Leonard says he will "continue the day-to-day process of calling on everyone who makes hiring decisions."

The 1975 figures show that Harvard's professorial staff is 7.7 per cent female and has 5.8 per cent minorities; that its professional staff is 38.8 per cent women and 8.9 per cent minorities; and that its non-professionals staff is 62.6 per cent women and 14.6 per cent minorities.

Leonard cited programs of minority recruitment and fellowships in graduate schools and research grant programs for women scholars as ways to increase the representation of women and minorities in teaching posts. Affirmative Action Figures and Goals (Percentages) 1975   Women  Minorities Professors  7.7  5.8 Lecturers and Instructors  21.8  9.2 Professionals  38.8  8.9 Staff  62.6  14.6

Affirmative Action Figures and Goals (Percentage) Goals for 1976   Women  Minorities Professors  7.3  5.8 Lecturers and Instructors  17.2  11.4 Professionals  40.0  12.6 Staff  62.7  18.2

Affirmative Action Figures and Goals (Percentage) Goals for 1976   Women  Minorities Professors  7.3  5.8 Lecturers and Instructors  17.2  11.4 Professionals  40.0  12.6 Staff  62.7  18.2