Race at Harvard

To the Editors of the Crimson:

I am concerned that too many members of this community have come to view "Race Relations" as an issue between Derek Bok and minority students. I certainly hope that this is a faulty observation on my part but if it isn't, the future of "Race Relations" is poor on this campus. To change the status quo, students, faculty members, Deans, Directors, Managers and other employees must assume some personal responsibility for ridding Harvard of the last vestiges of racism.

It is hypocritical to stand aside from this very real problem and attribute blame to Massachusetts Hall or to minority student groups. Liberal newspaper editors and other white students have criticized Bok's letter yet for six or eight years now nearly ninety percent of the white applicants to Harvard/Radcliffe have cited no books by or about black people on the required reading list of books on their applications. Further, a similar percentage of these students take no courses about non-white minorities while at Harvard. These omissions would be less important if this student body came from significantly integrated neighborhoods or if half of their lifetimes hadn't been filled with such terms as "Reverse Discrimination" and the "Bakke Case".

To overcome this, the existence of non-white Americans must somehow be included in the academic mains tream of Harvard. I can envision a course titled "Impactful Decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court" taught by Professor Archibald Cox. Surely such a course would include the Dred Scott Case, Pleasy vs Forguson, Brown vs Topoka, etc. It would also attract students from the entire community.

I doubt that any member of this community would publicly admit to being a racist or state that the late Martin Luther King is unworthy of some kind of commemoration, yet the well-publicized service in memory of Dr. King on January 15th was only about fifteen percent white. Could such a gathering in Memorial Church possibly be threatening to whites?

Most managers and Deans claim that they are vigorously seeking "qualified" minorities yet it has been nine years since I saw a black Janitor in Harvard Yard and I have never seen a black secretary in University Hall. I am sure that they are there, I simply didn't age them during my seven years as a proctor in the Yard.

Come now. Harvard can do better than this. David L. Evans   Senior Admissions Officer