Shredding Not Illegal

To the Editors of The Crimson:

In your article of march 20 ("Admissions office Says It Destroyed Comment Sheets"), you made much of an apparent inconsistency between the admissions office's statements that they routinely destroy summary sheets and my statement in a letter to LeRoy Rooker in the Department of Education about Harvard retaining summary sheets. These statements are not in conflict.

In my letter to Rooker, I stated that the admissions office does not destroy the summary sheets after their use because they may be helpful in explaining our processes if they are challenged legally.

I did not state that the sheets are retained forever; indeed, the implication is that we retain them after their use in the admissions process for as long as they could be helpful in explaining our processes. As most legal claims of crimination must be brought within three years, that is--and has been--the general period of retention.

Rooker quite rightly points out that there no legal obligation under the Buckley Amendment to keep the summary sheets at all. I did not mention the admissions office's police of periodically destroying the records to the Department of Education because it was legally irrelevant to the department.

If you check with the students (and former students) who were recently informed that their summary sheets had been destroyed, you will see that they were all in the class of 1992 or an earlier class, which is consistent with the admissions office's three-year record retention policy. Marianna C. Pierce   University Attorney