Faculty Draft Discussion Gets Off to a Slow Start

The controversy on the University's policy towards ranking of students formally went to the Faculty yesterday. But it is not yet clear how much interest there is and what kind of debate, if any, will develop.

The Faculty spent most of its first meeting reviewing the budget for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Dean Monro opened the draft discussion late in the meeting with a review of Harvard's relation to the draft and the use of class rankings. Monro indicated that discussions with a number of other colleges had shown that they did not share Harvard's concern with the rank-in-class issue.

The one important question raised during the meeting was whether the University was legally bound to compute ranks for the Selective Service System. Samuel Bowles, assistant professor of Economics, asked "if the University had sought to determine its legal position if it decided not to rank students for educational reasons."

Legal Restrictions

Dean Ford answered that most legal advisors believe the Selective Service law requires Harvard to send in the rankings. Thus, any Faculty resolution would probably not be able to stop the present policy of computing the ranks.

It is still uncertain that any resolution will be offered when the Faculty picks up the discussion at its next meeting on Dec. 6. Ford said he would survey Faculty members in the coming weeks to determine exactly how much interest the ranks issue had aroused.

A number of options appear open to the Faculty. It could drop the discussion entirely. Or, it could come out with a statement against ranks on purely educational grounds: that ranking students relatively injects a new element of competition into the University, puts more emphasis on grades, and therefore is undesirable. This position would presumably not take a stand on whether the Selective Service System should drop the use of rankings as a criterion for student deferments. And last, it could oppose the use of ranks as a standard for deferments.