LAST CHANCE FOR JUSTICE

University officials have at last deigned to answer the barrage of criticism aimed at them for their action in the case of the ten assistant professors, and they have given a complete explanation of their stand. Out of the complicated welter of figures and claims, only one fact remains as clear as it was before: that teaching and tutorial instruction in several departments have been seriously harmed. They have been harmed because the number of "middle-men"--who are the backbone of tutorial and teaching has been reduced by the firing of the assistant professors.

Mr. Conant seems to believe that this reduction was made necessary by budgetary exigencies. But any such claim carries no weight at all when it is seen that, by salary readjustments in the permanent ranks--or merely by advancing these men to permanent positions with the same salaries which they held before--as many of the ten as were urgently needed could have been made associate professors and retained permanently.

The "middle men"--younger men with more than eight years of experience--bear by far the greatest burden of undergraduate teaching, since they give the most important courses and provide the most competent tutorial instruction. Under the old tenure plan, they might roughly have been classed as the assistant professors plus the associate professors. When the Committee of Eight proposed to abolish the rank of assistant professor, it was not proposing to reduce the middle group to that extent. Instead, it intended that this number be held constant, and that for every assistant professorship abolished, a new associate professorship should be created. The money to pay these new associates was, in effect, to come from savings arising out of a cut in the average salary of full and associate professors.

In the light of this, the Administration's action can be interpreted in two different ways. First, it is possible that Mr. Conant does not propose to carry out the intentions of the Committee of Eight, but plans permanently to hold the "middle group" at a lower level. Needless to say, this would add up to an incalculable injury to Harvard's educational facilities.

Second, Mr. Conant may intend to expand the ranks of the associate professors by the appropriate number sometime in the future. However, he would fill these new positions by new men coming up from below--men who are as yet lost in the maze of instructorships or who have not yet arrived at Harvard--instead of by choosing from among the ten assistant professors. Then in effect he is saying that he expects to find better men for these jobs in the future than he can find at present among the ten.

Here again Mr. Conant's judgment must be criticized. Several of the ten who were fired showed extraordinary brilliance during their terms at Harvard. It is quite certain that better men will not turn up. It is even more certain that these assistant professors were not judged fairly, when it is considered that their departments were forced to recommend their dismissals--after the manner of the Walsh-Sweezy Case-- because there was no other possible expedient. All this is beside the point that they are leaving behind them gaping holes during the next four or five years, before the new teaching geniuses come to light.

In several of the cases the damage has been done, and it cannot be rectified because the men have gone elsewhere. However, in a few other cases, it would be possible to reinstate men who are vitally essential to the immediate future of undergraduate teaching. Quite clearly, the Administration should yield to faculty and student pressure on this point.