Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College et al

Filing 577

Request for Judicial Notice by Students for Fair Admissions, Inc.. (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit DX-13, # 2 Exhibit DX-40, # 3 Exhibit P500)(Mortara, Adam)

United States District Court
District of Massachusetts

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DX 40
Case No.
1:14-cv-14176 (ADB)
Date Entered
By
Deputy Clerk

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Democracy does not· seek equality through the discouragement or obliteration ofindividual diversities. It does not aim at a general average of gifts and
powers in humanity. The prairie is not its social ideal Its conception of
social and political equality does not involve a dead level of human gifts,
powers, or attainments. On ·the contrary, democratic society enjoys and
actively promotes an immense diversity among its members, and in particular, it increases many fold and with happiest results the difference between
the human individual in youth and the same individual in his prime aJ,td in
old age. A despotic government gives one individual--the ruler-or a few
individuals--the ruling family or set-the opportunity of great personal
growth and enlargement. Democratic society gives multitudes that precious
opportunity:
·
-Charles William Eliot (1909)

A college would be a dreary place if it were composed of only one type of
individual A liberal education is possible, it seems to me, only in an atmosphere of tole;ance engendered by the presence of many [individuals] of
many minds.
-James Bryant Conant (1938)

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DIVERSITY AND LEARNING

I
Introduction·
I have the honor to submit this report to the members of
the Board of Overseers.

D

we have seen a steady
growth in controversy concerning issues of student diversity, university admissions, and affirmative action. Amid
this national. discussion and debate, specific proposals have been
advanced in some quarters to eliminate factors such as race, ethnicity, and gender from consideration in university admissions.
Although major policy changes have not yet taken effect, some are
scheduled to go forward in at least one major university system in
the near future, and others are under active consideration. The climate is one of uncertainty and ferment.
As we look ahead, I believe we need to examine not only current ideas and recommendations, but also the relevant past. We
need to remind ourselves that student diversity has, for more than
a century, been valued for its capacity to contribute powerfully to
the process of learning and to the creation of an effective educa.:.
tional environment. It has also been seen as vital to the education
of citizens-and. the development of leaders-in heterogeneous
democratic societies such as our own. These overarching values
URING THE PAST TWO YEARS,

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have for many decades influenced our approach to admissions, and
have provided the rationale for our basic policies.
In the pages that follow, I discuss the emergence of student
diversity as an important idea in American higher education, especially as it relates to learning that takes place beyond the classroom
and the formal curriculum. I draw largely on the experience of
Harvard University, but also on a broader context. I consider why
many thinkers, from the mid-nineteenth century to our own time,
have placed such a strong emphasis on diversity-and how they
have defined the concept. Finally, I indicate why the goal oftliversity remains so important to the actual quality and breadth of education for all our students, and why our existing policies continue to
offer the most effective and promising pathway to the foture.

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II
Early Ideas ofDiversity:
Nineteenth Century Beginnings
1.

T

HE WORD diversi(y has been overused 1.·n recent years, often
to the point of cliche. That is unfortunate, because the
term has an important history, and it has no adequate synonym in our language. The word and the idea began to appear in
·discussions of education at least as early as the mid-nineteenth
century. Over the past century and a half the significance of diversity to· the process of education has been increasingly recognized.
Without at least some reference to this historical development, we
cannot fully understand our contemporary notions of diversitynor can we adequately evaluate the arguments that are shaping the
current national debate on affirmative action.
We need to understand how some of the major English and
American educators of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries defined diversity and viewed its contribution to learning. It
is also important to see how the concept of diversity affected their
ideas about the purposes and structure of educational institutions.
We will not find complete answers to such questions, nor should
we look for unanimity. But there is enough testimony on the
record to be of real use.
1vlany nineteenth centmy educators tended to think of diversity
in terms of ideas-differences in opinions and views in all the areas
of life where actual proof was impossible to achieve. Many would
have subscribed to the argument that John Milton had made in the
Areopagitica when opposing the censorship of books: 'Where there
is much desire to, learn, there of necessity will be much arguing,
much writing, many opinions; for opinion in good men is but

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knowledge in the making." The clash of different opinions was
often seen to be positive: "that which purifies us is triall, and triall
is by what is contrary."
An important variation on this theme emerged in the work of
major thinkers during the 1840s and 1850s. John Stuart Mill
stressed the value of bringing "human beings in contact with persons dissimilar to themselves, and with modes of thought and
action unlike those with which they are familiar." 1 The word diversity was very much a part of his lexicon. Many passages in On
Liberty concern the "causes which make diversity of opinion advantageous, and will continue to do so."2 It was not enough, moreover,
for a person to read about or "be. taught" the opinions of others on
a given subject:
That is not the way to do justice to the arguments, or bring them into real
contact with his own mind. He must be able to hear them from persons who
actually believe them; who defend them in earnest, and do their very utmost
for them. He must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form;
he must feel the whole force of the difficulty which the true view of the subject has to encounter and dispose of ....3

For Mill, opinions and ideas were not disembodied abstractions;
they were living things that should be encountered in the presence
of "persons who actually believe them," and who could argue for
them forcefully, based on their own experience ·and convictions.
Diversity, in other words, was most fully realized when it was
made visible and present through actual associations among human
beings in all their variety.
John Newman's view was less combative than Mill's, but it
shared some significant features. Newman envisioned colleges
where "a multitude" of students would "come together and freely
mix with each other." Under such circumstances,
they are sUie to learn one from another, even if there be no one to teach
them; the conversation of all is a series oflect:ures to each, and they gain for
themselves new ideas and views, fresh matter of thought, and distinct principles for judging and acting, day by day. 4

'

Newman's university was to be like "the world on a small field":
students would "come from ve1y different places, and with widely
different notions." Because of such differences, there would be
"much to adjust," new "inter-relations to be defined/' and rules and
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norms to be established, so that a college could in time ·become
unified in spirit, with "one tone and one character."s Through a
process of association and mutual education, unity would eventually emerge from difference,
·
Mill may have stressed the friction of human contact, while
Newman emphasized reconciliation and wholeness. Yet both
regarded direct association among dissimilar people as essential to
learning. Both· take us beyond any. simple concept of diversity
defined in purely intellectual or abstract terms. Mill emphasized
not only different ideas and opinions, but also different "modes of
thought and action." Newman specifically mentioned geographical
diversity: students would come from "very different places," bringing their ''widely different notions," creating a small-scale version
of the world outside. For both Mill and Newman, these forms of
diversity are not mere extras; they are integral to true learning at a
profound level. They are not dispensable. They shape some of the
fundamental ways in which knowledge itself is generated, tested,
and transformed into understanding.
·

2.

T

HE NATION STOOD on the verge of the Civil War when
Harvard president C.C. Felton presented his report for the
academic year 1859-60. In the midst of this national turmoil, he
and others saw a need for colleges and universities to provide an
education based on experience with different kinds of people, in the
· hope of overcoming regional, cultural, and other barriers. One way
for Harvard to help achieve this hope, in Felton's view, was to
become a truly national institution. "Students from every State and
Territory in the Union--without a single exception or secessionwill resort to our University," Felton wrote, "no difference whatever
being made between the citizens of Massachusetts and the citizens
of the remotest part of the country, or of foreign lands." Gathering
students together in this way, "frotn different and distant States[,]
must tend powerfully to remove prejudices, by bringing them into
friendly relations ... ;" Felton reasoned. "Such influences are especially needed in the present disastrous condition of public affairs."6

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For Felton, a national university could aspire to have a nationwide influence, helping to "remove prejudices" and to reduce the
possibility of misunderstanding, conflict, and even war.
Geography-or ,place of residence-thus became, from an early
date, a critical component in Harvard's concept of diversity. And
this factor had,. of course, no inherent. rdation to individual merit
or achievement. The fact that a student came from Carolina or
Connecticut indicated nothing about his abilities or accomplish. ments. The rationale was quite different, and very straightforward:
students from many parts of the country (or the world) were likely
to have a variety of basic assumptions, experiences, regional or cul. tural perspectives, and even prejudices. Fdton concluded that ifhe.
could bring togethe:r--in a single institution-young people from
different backgrounds who would be educated in association with
one another, and who would eventually become leaders in different
parts of the nation, then that process could make a difference to
the creation of unity throughout the country as a whole ..
To some extent, the process was already underway. Henry Adams,
class of 1858, graduated not long before Felton's report was submitted. Most of Adams's classmates (about one hundred in all) were from
New England, but "chance insisted on enlarging [his] education by
tossiqg a trio of Virginians" into the mix. One of the trio was "Roony" ·
Lee, son of Robert E. Lee. Adams and the Virginians
knew well how thin an edge of frien,dship separated them in 1856 from
mortal enmity.... For the first time Adams's education brought him in
contact with new types and taught him their values. He saw the New
England type measure itself with another, and he was part of the process.7

As events turned out, despite their friendship neither Adams
nor Lee was able to reach across the gap between them. Lee "had
changed little from the Virginian of a century before; but Adams
was himself a good deal nearer· the type of his great.;_grandfather"
than to many of his contemporaries-and he was "little more fit_
than the Virginians to deal with a future America."8 Both Lee and
Adams were constrained by differences in heritage, history, temperament, and culture that were in the end too vast to _ove:rcome.
The point, however, is not whether this particular experiment in
education was or was not a full success. The point is that Adams-"
and, from a different perspective, Felton--recognized the impor-:
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tance of the attempt, and saw that this "lesson in education was
vital to these young men: "9 It ,produced. an awareness .of what
might, under different circumstances, have proved possible. It also
altered Adams's consciousness, and forced hii:n to confront; and
assess a type of person he had never before known. It drove him to
reach new conclusions about himself and his Qwn limitations, and
even led to some understanding (vastly oversimplified) of representative southerners and the South. Chance had "enlarged" his education, almost in spite of himself. Harvard, meanwhile, had begun
a modest experiment in diversity that rested on pdnciples and
experiences not very different from those described by Mill and
Newman. That experiment would continue-and grow in complexity and comprehensiveness-:--well into the future.

3.

D

IVERSITY BECAME a more explicit goal-and the Word itself
was more frequently used-during, the last decades of the,
nineteenth century and the early decades of the twentieth. In the
political and educational dialogue of the day, diversity was defined
more precisely (as well as expansively); it was sometimes championed; and it was in some places realized more fully than before. It.
also became a subject ofincreasing controversy.
,
Many events contributed to this development. Struggles between
differing religions, and between religion and science (particularly
the ideas of Darwin), intensified. The movement for women's
rights created greater tensions, even as it gathered strength. The
social position of black Americans, following the Civil War and
Reconstruction, was anything but resolved. Perhaps most signifi, cant, successive waves of "new immigrants'; had been arriving since
the mid-1800s, and this process accelerated in the 1870s and 1880s.
Those who came in the last decades of the century were generally .
poorer, l~ss well-educated, and more culturally heterogeneous than
most previous groups. Many were escaping from poverty and continued famine in Ireland, from anti-Semitism and persecution in
,Russia and Eastern Europe, or from terrible econQmic and social
conditions in southern Italy. There were Catholics, Jewst and me:m-

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hers of the Eastern Orthodox Church; there were Irish, Poles,
Hispanics, Greeks, Ukrainians, Armenians, Chinese; and others.
They came, moreover, in very great numbers. By the 1890s, for
example, the recent immigrant population of Boston (first and second generation combined) accounted for more than two-thirds of
the residential community. Social services-to the extent they existed-were· saturated. School systems were strained, and often
became flash points for religious and other forms of tension.
As we know, this continuous influx of different peoples gave
. rise to considerable anxieties and fears on the part of the settled
population, To some, established institutions and traditions
appeared to be. un,der siege, particularly since the newest immigrants were themselves so varied i1.1 terms of language and culture.
To be sure, some people welcomed the great influx as another
infusion of strength into American society. But historians of the
period have documented the equally strong movements to curtail
immigration, and to limit the opportunitieM,vailable in education
and employment. In Boston and its environs, many civic, political,
and religious groups sprang into existence during the 1880s and
1890s: the Massachusetts Society for Promoting Good
Citizenship, the Citizens Association; the Citizens Club of
Boston, and-more pointed and assertive in its goals-the
Immigration Restriction League of Boston (founded in 1894 with
the help of three young Harvard graduates from the class of 1889}..
This was also a moment when. purportedly scientific studies of
'race proliferated. ·A steady flow of articles and books set. out to
define the "races" of mankind, and to assess their relative superiority. There were also the well-known attempts to demonstrate that
the origins of democratic or republican laws and institutions lay in
,the assemblies of ancient Teutonic or Anglo-Saxon tribes. In a
quite different sphere, parochial school systems began to develop
more rapidly at. this time, as did the movement by Episcopalians
and other Protestants to found chur<::h-related·boarding schools,
especially in New England. As a result, seco1.1dary and even elementary schools functioned somewhat less effectively as potential,
"melting pots." Instead, religious and social groups began to estab"lish separate institutions to educate their children in accord with
their particular cultural and religion~ traditions.
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I

T h e ·P r e s i d e ·n t ' s R e p o r t r 9 9 J - .r 9 9 S

In short, the increased diversity of the population produced a
variety of responses. New England, Boston, and Harvard constituted one of the main arenas in which confl~cting attitudes and ·
forces encountered one another. Meanwhile, Harvard's president,·
Charles William Eliot, played an important role in defining an
expanded conception of diversity in relation to learning.

4.

C

HARLEs.EuoT's PRESIDENCY at Harvard spanned forty years,
from 1869 to 1909. More than anyone else, he was responsible for transforming Harvard College into Harvard University.
Most of his contributions have been well-documented, but his
ideas about diversity have received less attention; Yet diversity was
central to Eliot's approach to education. He wrote about it and
theorized about it. More than any other leading educator of his
time, he stressed the value of cultivating the diverse talents of every
individual, while also emphasizing how diversity among individuals and groups. can be a ma!jor sti[Jlulus to learning. He expanded
the definition of diversity, in terms of the criteria and considerations to be taken into account. Finally, he regarded diversity as so
powerful and far-reaching in its effects-capable of shaping lifelong attitudes and habits-that he· came to view it as indispensable
to the healthy functioning of a democratic society.
Scarcely anyone during his time expressed more confidence. than
Eliot in the potential of all human talent to flourish, given the
· freedom and opportunity to do so. It was in society's interest "to.
make the most of every useful gift or faculty which any member
may fortunately possess; and it is one of the main advantages of
fluent and mobile democratic society that it is more likely . . . to
secure the fruition of individual capacities."lD A democracy "does
not seek equality through the discouragement or obliteration of
individual diversities, ... [It] actively promotes an immense diversity among its members ...."11
A chief task for colleges and universities, therefore, was to. ere..:
ate an atmosphere that would be stimulating in the variety and
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mitment to the "elective system" was predicated oh the conviction
that a diversity of interests and talents among students required a
corresponding variety of fields of inquiry and opportunities to fas~ ·
ter individual· development. Flexibility and choice, not prescription, were the keys to serious learning and growth. In the selection
of courses (and extracurricular activities), the university should
allow its students, "in the main, to govern themselves":
It must have a large body of students, else many of its numerous courses of
highly specialized instruction will firid no hearers, and the students themselves will not feel that very wholesome infJuence which comes from observation of and contact with larger numbers •.. from different nations, States,
schools, families, sects, parties,. and conditions oflife.12

For Eliot (as for Mill, Newman, and Felton), direct contact
among a heterogeneous (and now also large) group of students was
vital to the process of education. And Eliot's list of the "categories"
or consid.erations that contribute to diversity is more detailed than
we have seeri before. ·He wanted people from various "nations,
States, schools, families, sects, parties, and conditions of life."
Some of these categories are by now familiar, but others (such as
nati~ns, families, sects, and conditions of life) tend to expand the
definition of diversity to include characteristics and types of people
(not simply opinions or ideas) that resist easy or strict definition.
In a number of articles and reports, Eliot discussed his views in
greater detail. He wanted, as he said, a university "of broad demo,'
cratic resort." Harvard's students should be children of the "rich
and poor," the "educated and uneducated." There was also a need
for "diversity in religion."13 Indeed, Eliot could say with some satisfaction (after three decades in office) that the Harvard of 1900
had "for a generation past" been free from· any religious restrictions
in admissions and faculty appointments, and was now open to stu.:.
dents and faculty of "every religious communion, from the Roman
Catholic t9 theJew and the Japanese Buddhist." The goal was to
foster not only greater knowledge, but actual "respect for each other's religious inheritances."14 This could be achieved only if students and faculty from different sects or denominations were
brought directly together in an institution where they could associ·
ate freely and learn about one another:
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The influence of an educated Roman Catholic in an American community is
diminished, not increased, if his education has deprived him of all knowledge of his Protestant contemporaries and of the Protestant mode of
thought and feeling. Precisely in the same way the influence ... of the
members of the Episcopalian body is diminished, not increased, by their
habit of resorting to schools and colleges under the exclusive control of their
own religious communion.15

For Eliot, Americans would ideally retain many of their differences, and resist becoming "the same." But if they were to lead
productive lives as citizens and leaders in a democracy, then they
needed to understand the "modes of thought and feeling" of their
contemporaries, encountering one another and studying with one
another on a daily basis.
Beyond matters of religion, Eliot's Harvard now intended to
attract-even more aggressively-students "from a large area, from
North and South, from East and West." There would be
"Democrats and Republicans, free-traders and protectionists,
spoilsrnen and reformers, Prohibitionists and high-license advocates."16 The goal was to create a more open and even disputatious
university community where (as in John Stuart Mill) the zeal and
zest of argument and debate would be audible and tangible. In
addition (as in Newman and Felton), the gains in terms of tolerance, mutual understanding, and camaraderie would be profound
and long-lasting. At a university,
there is ... a continual ferment and agitation on all questions of public
interest. This collision of views is wholesome and profitable; it promotes
thought on great themes, converts passion into resolution, cultivates forbearance and mutual respect, and teaches ..• candor, moral courag~, and
independence of thought on whatever side these noble qualities may be displayed.17

Discussion and debate are not purely intellectual processes. They
involve emotion and conviction as well as reason and argument.
They convert "passion into resolution," and teach candor and moral
courage. Education and learning are in this sense human and moral
processes concerned ultimately with.values and effective action.
They are most fully tested when individuals engage others whose
ideas, passions, experiences, and beliefs differ from their own.
There are, oJ course, alternative conceptions of education and
learning, with their own important emphases and rewards. Eliot's
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conception, however, was fashioned explicitly to serve the purposes
and needs of a democratic society that was intrinsically diverse, and
committed to freedom and equality of opportunity. It was a society
that could not function effectively without a considerable level of
mutual "forbearance" and tolerance-if not respect and understanding--among its infinitely varied citizenry. Consequently, the university should resemble that larger society in many essential
features. Indeed, Eliot never tired of insisting that "the whole organization of college life is intensely democratic" in its determination
to minimize "social inequalities," to maximize individual choice and
opportunity, and to demonstrate "the intimate dependence of each
human individual on a multitude of other individuals, not in infancy alone, but at every moment of life-a dependence which increas~
es with civilization and with the development of urban life."18
Diversity, therefore, was central to Eliot's conception of education for citizenship in a democratic society. Moreover, the fruits of
diversity would extend well beyond the university through the continuing association of individuals during their lifetimes. In this
sense, Eliot expanded on Felton's hopes concerning the power of a
truly national institution. "A university of national resort exerts a
unifying influence" far and wide, argued Eliot, because of "the
mutual knowledge" that students gain from one another, and "hold
through life."
Every year hundreds ... go out from each of the great American universities
and scatter through the whole country. In their several places of residence
they ordinarily rise to places of trust and influence; and they remain united
for life, however separated by distance; united by common associations, and
by bonds of friendship and mutual respect....
Do you ask, Are all these aims of the higher education anywhere
attained? Nowhere, as yet. But they surely ·will be as our republic grows in
wealth, wisdom, and true worth.19

Once again, Eliot powerfully forges the links between diversity,
student learning, and the role of higher education in a heterogeneous democratic society.
'

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III
Diversity and Race:
Some Turn-of-the-Century Dilemmas
1.

I

the issue of div.ersity in late nineteenth century America without at least touching upon the
complicated set of questions related to race, nationality, religion, and ethnicity. The body of scholarly literature on this broad
topic is now substantial and impressive, but it is not so definitive
that it yields ready generalizations or relatively uncontested truths.
Let me offer just a few observations here.
To begin with, in the late nineteenth century, the concepts of
race, religion, and nationality were different from our own in several respects:-and the idea of ethnicity, in its contemporary meaning, was scarcely developed at all. There was also considerable
overlap among these categories. Although race was often defined
in terms of skin color, it was even more widely viewed as a set of
characteristics that could include a particular group's native language, geographical hotne, religion, national identity, temperament, certain physiognomic features, political and cultural
traditions, and traditional occupations.
These categories and classifications shifted constantly, however,
and they were obviously difficult to apply with rigor and consistency, although many writers tried persistently to do so. For example,
the French or French-Canadians could 1:ie construed as one or
more "races"; yet they could equally be identified as simply part of
a larger Celtic racial group. The Italians were "Mediterraneans";
but the Greeks, their southeastern neighbors, were sometimes
linked (mistakenly) to an obscure Germanic tribe-'--'.:-because some .
commentatol"li found· it. difficult to believe that the great classical
Greek civilization could possibly have been Mediterranean in its
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origins. Finally, religion complicated the picture. Protestants and
Catholics were manifestly religious-not racial or nationalgroups. But it proved difficult in the later nineteenth century to
dissociate Protestantism completely from Anglo-Saxons (or from
the Teutons, English, or Nordics), just as it was hard to disentan- gle Catholicism completely from the Irish and Italians.
In short, ideas of race, religion, and nationality interpenetrated
one another. Composite types and stereotypes were not only com.:.
mon but also carried potential explosive power in the charged atmosphere that surrounded the immigration controversies of the time.
Even the most superficial glance at the titles of many turn-of-thecentury books and articles suggests why the situation vvas potentially
volatile: Are We Celts or Teutons?; The Gro·wth if the Fhmch-Canadian
Race in America; The Jewish Question; The Irish in American Life; The
Races of the Danube; The Coming o/ the Italian; The Racial Problem in
Immigration; The Causes of Race Superiority,- The Races ef Europe,· and
Immigration and Degradation, to name just a few.

2.

S

ERIOUS TENSIONS-sparked by immigrant, religious, and
national groupings-emerged in Boston (and elsewhere) as
early as the 1830s and 1840s, and escalated over the next several
· decades. The Boston Irish (and other groups) took steps to preserve their own religious tradition, as well as to create their own
self-help and cultural organizations. These very actions, however,

provoked complaints that "instead of assimilating at once with the customs
of the country of their adoption, our foreign population are too much in the
habit of retaining their own national usages, of associating too exclusi'Ve!y with
each. other, and living in groups together.... " The inability of the nativeborn to understand the ideas of their new neighbors perpetuated this gap
between them, rousing the vivid fear that the Irish were "a race that will
never be infused into our own, but on the contrary will always remain distinct and hostile. •20
·

The reference in this passage to the Irish "race" was by no means
casual. The more that Teutons, Anglo-Saxons, and the "Gothic"
Germanic peoples continued to press thdr conception of racial

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superiority, the more the Irish and others felt the need to respond
with racial pronouncements of their own-as well as with more
assertive attempts (particularly by· the Catholic Church) to maintain traditional values in the face of considerable suspicion and
even hostility. Irish writers-such as John McElheran-declared
that "the divine spark ofgenius radiates from the Celtic centre of
the world" and shows "the natural tendency of the pure Celtic race,
uncontaminated by Gothic bestiality."21 Given this dynamic of
claim and counterclaim, group definitions tended to become
stronger, and potential conflict more likely. No single or simple
cause triggered the many events that contributed to this situation.
But once the process had been set in motion, conciliation was
increasingly difficult to achieve. By the mid-1850s,
the violent phase had passed, [but] the bitterness of conflict and antagonism
remained. Out of it had grown a confirmed definition of racial particularism: the Irish were [regarded as] a different group, Celtic by origin, as distinguished from the "true" Americans, who were Anglo-Saxon, of course.
Once aroused; hatred could not be turned off at the will of those who had .
provoked it. 22

Through at least the 1870s, the Irish and Brahmins in Boston
lived uneasily together-essentially at arm's length. The relative
lack of immediate major threats or disruptions encouraged some
leaders (on various sides) to declare that the major economic,
social, and other problems facing immigrants were well on the way
to being resolved. Consequently, activities on behalf of identifiable
groups were said to be no longer necessary. This position was
espoused, for example, by both Henry Cabot Lodge and Patrick
Collins (an Irish politician and lawyer who had attended Harvard
Law School in the early 1870s). Despite the grim conditions under
which the Irish and other groups continued to live,
there was a resolute effort to pretend that the genuine divisions in the city's
life did not exist. Thus, in 1876, Collins ... declared, "I ... denounce any
man or body of men who seek to perpetuate divisions of races or religions in
our midst. . . . I know neither race, color nor creed. Let me say now that
there are no Irish voters among us. There are Irish-born citizens like myself
.. ·. [but] Americans we are and Americans we will rernain."23

To Collins, the nation was to consist in the future of individuals
who were all "Americans": hyphenated groups, such as Irish-

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Americans, were viewed as potential obstacles to further progress,
representing interests and values that no longer required special
recognition or attention. Historical comparisons are never exact,
but some of the parallels between the 1870s and our own time are
too obvious to ignore, whatever lessons we may choose to draw
from them.
The 01ain issue, of course, was not whether the ideal of a united
nation was an appropriate vision for America's future: few people·
would have seriously questioned such a goal. The more immediate
dilemma was whether the difficult social, religious, economic, and
other realities of the time had been sufficiently resolved, so that
the needs, interests, and even the identity of particular groups
should fade-in effect-from national consciousness. One of our
foremost social historians has suggested that the views expressed
by Collins and others were at best premature: "Collins and Lodge
were both inaccurate" in their assessment of the situation; more
important, "they knew it, [and] they nevertheless felt the necessity
of speaking as they did."24
As matters turned out, few of the deep-rooted problems facing
Boston (and other cities) had been adequately confronted and_
addressed. When the next great wave of immigrants began to reach
the nation's shores in the 1870s and 1880s, the scene was set for
increased tension and conflict-as well as for intensified group
identification and differentiation.

3.

C

HARLES ELIOT SHARED with most of his contemporaries the
assumption that there were a number of distinct races, each
with its own identifiable characteristics. As has already been suggested, he also believed that the special talents, qualities, and interests of each race should be preserved, insofar as possible. His views
on the subject were far from simple, but he held strongly to the
idea that each group should be enabled to make its own unique
contribution to the diversity of American society. In this sense, he
tended to view races rather as he viewed individuals: they should
develop freely along their own lines, following their own bent,

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because that would lead to the full realization of their capacities.
America had always "drawn to it multitudes from all parts of the
habitable earth.;' For Eliot, therefore, the resulting "great diversity
in the population of the United States as regards racial origin" was
another important "illustration of the variety which may co-exist
with freedom and security under democratic institutions."25
Eliot believed that, over time, differences among races that lived
together in a single society would be qualified and diminished. But
he insisted on maintaining differences, and he was no advocate of
deliberate assimilation or amalgamation:
In general, the ideal of a people made up from many different races and living under free institutions should be the perpetuation of racial diversity, and
not the bringing about of a racial blend. The diversities of race need no
more be extinguished under free institutions than the diversities between
human individuals. Freedom should encourage diversity, not extinguish it. 26

We may not agree with Eliot on the topic of assimilation-or
on his conception of race. He himself had complicated attitudes.
For instance, he was not in favor of interracial marriage, and his
views seem to have been shaped as much by Anglo-Saxon attitudes
and anxieties as by his desire to maintain the distinctive attributes
of each separate group. Nevertheless, he identified race as a positive component of diversity, and defined racial diversity as an element that enhances-rather than diminishes-the vitality and
strength of a democratic society.
Moreover, given that the new immigrant groups were closely
identified with distinct "races," Eliot's affirmation of racial diversity was effectively an indication of his willingness to make room in
higher education for at least some of the recent arrivals. In the
1890s, a decision to enroll even a modest number of university students from some of these groups was not uncontroversial. Indeed,
when issues of race were at stake in the 1890s and earlier-especially in Boston and Cambridge-the "immigrant wave" was in
some ways as complex an issue as the persistent and profound
dilemma which W.E.B. Du Bois later identified as "the color line."
In spite of controversy, Eliot introduced several changes at
Harvard. And given the ferment. of the time, he could not press
forward altogether quietly-even if he had wished to do so. Public
discussion and articles (like those already cited) were necessary, as

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was the creation of a university atmosphere that was more open in
spirit. Additional financial aid was also needed to assist students
from different backgrounds who lacked the means to attend a private college such as Harvard. Some explicit policy changes...,....
especially in :the sphere of religion-were also introduced.·
Compulsoty chapel was abolished (after considerable struggle) and
was replaced (with the help of the Reverend Phillips Brooks) by ·a
system of voluntaiy observance, including services offered by ministers from a nqmber of denominations. Since religion was often
linked to "race"---,,as in the case of Jews, Buddhists, and Catholic
. groups-greater religious inclusiveness also implied greater racial
diversity.
Over the course of a quarter-century and more, the results of
these efforts were measurable and even striking; In 1870, at the
beginning of Eliot's presidency, a survey show:ed that nearly 80
percent of the 563 undergraduates who responded were Unitarians,
Episcopalians, and Congregationalists. Nearly 20 percent were
members of other Protestant sects. There were seven Rom.an
Catholics and three Jews. 27
.
Certain demographic and economic factors help to explain
some of these statistics, bu,t it is also the case that there had been
no serious earlier effort by Harvard to encourage the enrollment of
individuals from groups that were still veiy much on the outside.
Changing the attitude and policies of the university was a necessaiy prelude to changing its enrollment patterns. The situation
altered steadily during the Eliot'years, .and it did so largely as a
result of actions that were conscious and even conspicuous. By
1908, when Eliot was about to retire, 9 percent of the Collegfls
student body was Roman Catholic (compared to 1 percent in
1870); 7 percent was Jewish (compared to 1 percent earlier); arid
African-American students--who were absent from the student
body in 1870-were at least starting to be enrolled, thotigh still in
very small numbers. Even 'in terms of these three categories, the
aggregate number by 1909 accounted for about 17 percent of the
·student population, as contrasted to 2 percent at the beginning t;>f
Eliot's tenure.28
.
We should remember, in addition, that Eliot also undertook
some significant (if hesitant) initiatives with respect to the educa-

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tion of women. The explicit goal in this case had more to do with
increasing educational opportunity for the members of a certain
group than fostering interaction among different groupsalthough any greater inclusion of women in university life during
the 1890s would have inevitably introduced a broader range of
views and perspectives not otherwise present.
Eliot's views on the appropriate education for women-and on
the role of women in society-fell short of full equality and were
the subject of some intense criticism. Eliot was ambivalent about
the entire subject, and it is not clear how far he would have proceeded without very substantial prodding. Early in his tenure,
however, he collaborated on a report (with Professor Louis Agassiz
and others) recommending the admission of women to the
Harvard Medical School. The recommendation ultimately failed,
but it represented an important first step. By 1879, Eliot and the
Harvard faculty were working with Elizabeth Carey Agassiz to
establish the "Harvard Annex," which was to become. Radcliffe
College. Women were to be educated separately, although taught
by Harvard professors; by 1894, 22 Radcliffe women earned A.B.
degrees, and three were awarded A.M.'s.
Eliot's efforts in the sphere of diversity were only part of his
larger goals. Yet they were fully consistent with his basic approach
to education. The results were uneven, and they were certainly not
"linear": they came about as a result of struggle and disagreement,
including changes in Eliot's own ideas over the course of the four
decades of his presidency. What was remarkable about Eliot, in
' retrospect, is that he responded directly to so many of the conflicting educational issues of his era. He analyzed them with unusual
clarity and tenacious logic. He was responsive to emerging challenges and changing circumstances. During his tenure, several
important barriers were broken-not completely, but nonetheless
significantly. Doors were ~pened that would be difficult to close
entirely in later eras. Some of Eliot's changes "appalled" many people, but they also created a reputation for "diversity, tolerance, and
pluralism" which "rested upon solid foundations." 29 From every
point of view, diversity had helped to bring about significant
advances in the nature, quality, and scope of undergraduate education at Harvard.
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4.

T

HE DEVELOPMENTS j~t discussed provide some evidence of ah
increasing emphasis on diversity at Harvard. But were the benefits of diversity apparent to students themselves? On this point, the
testimony is necessarily anecdotal and impressionistic-as well as
sporadic. As early as the 1850s, the statements of Henry Adams,
mentioned earlier, suggest that direct "contact ,vith new types" of
people had "for the first time taught [Adams] their values."30
Half a century later, John Reed, class of 1910, entered Harvard
near the end of Eliot's presidency. He was the polar opposite q,f
Adams in his political views, social background, and point of origin.
He soon found himself immersed in the bewildering intricacy of
Eliot's cosmopolitan college, with its different types, groups, clubs,
and cliques. Reed's own recollection of his Harvard experience,
written in 1917, is especially interesting, because it suggests some of
the ways in which life in a diverse community can lead to pain, isolation, and separateness, as well as to intellectual exhilaration,
greater self-knowledge, and moments of human reconciliation:

I got to know many fellows to nod to, and a very few intimately; but most of
my friends were whirled off and up into prominence, and came to see me no
more. One of them said he'd room with me sophomore year-but he was
tipped off that I wasn't "the right sort" and openly drew away from me. And
I, too, hurt a boy who was my friend. He Vl~s a Jew, a ~hy, rather melancholy person. We were always together, we two outsiders. I became irritated
and morbid about it-it seemed I would never be part of the rich splendor
of college life with him around-so I drew away from him.... It hurt him
very much, and it taught me.better. Since then he has forgiven it, and done
wonderful things for me, and we are friends.31

Real learning, in all its dimensions, rarely takes place altogether
easily, '\'Jlthout friction or pain, Indeed, the educationalbenefits of
diversity are often first experienced as forms of temporary dislocation and disorientation-just as they can eventually lead to
increased understanding and friendship. Genuine risks and diffi:.
culties are involved, and it would be foolish to pretend otherwise.
In John Reed's case, life at Harvard grew steadily better, and he
gradually came to revel in the university. It was a place where strong
individuals, as well as groups, coexisted in a milieu that was characteristic of Eliot's open and relatively unstructured institution:
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Harvard University under President Elio.t was unique. • • . [A] man who
came for a good time could get through imd graduate .•• ; but on the other
hand, anyone could find there anything he wanted from all the world's store
oflearning•••.
All sorts of strange. characters, of every race and mind, poets, philosophers, cranks of every twist, were in our class. The very hugeness of it prevented· any one man from knowing more than a few of his classmates, though
I managed to make the acquaintance of about five hundred ofthem,32

If Reed was hyperbolic and ebullient, W.E.B. Du Bois was
remarkably firm. and determined. As a member of the class of
·1890, he had a spectacularly successful undergraduate career. As an
African-American, he too found himself outside the mainstream of
college life: by his own testimony, his important relationships were .
with faculty rather than with classmates. But that did not prevent
him from making a place for himself-or from being chosen (by
his fellow students) as one of the six commencement orators at the
time of graduation. If his years at Harvard were partly defined by
his isolation, he did not doubt that the sheer opportunity to
observe and learn from. a "majority'' institution was one of the most
significant experiences of his life.
By 1933, Du Bois could look back on his Harvard time with
both dispassion and appreciation. He was very clear, for example,
about some of the specific forms of diversity-geographic, racial,
and socioeconomic-that Eliot had introduced:
Harvard had broadened its earlier ideals. It was no longer simply a place
where rich and learned New England gave the accolade to the social elite. It
had broken its shell and reached out to the West and to the South, to yellow
students and to black. I had for the mere asking been granted a fellowship of

S300 .••.33

In addition, Du Bois remembered the university as a place where a
broader and more inclusive vision of learning-and of societywas beginning to be publicly articulated:
·
Men sought to make Harvard an expression of the United States, and to do
this by means ofleaders unshackled in thought and custom who were beating
back bars of ignorance and particularism and prejudice: There were William
James and Josiah Royce; Nathaniel Shaler and Charles Eliot Norton; George
Santayana; Albert Bushnell Hart, and President Eliot hiniself. There were at
least a dozen men-rebels against convention, unorthodox in ,eligion, poor in
money-who for a moment held in their hands the culture of the· United
States, typified it, express~ it, and pushed it a vast step forward. 34

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By 1933, the passage of time had almost certainly softened
Du Bois's earlier ambivalence about Harvard, and altered the
memory of some of his more difficult experiences. Nonetheless,
William James, Josiah Royce, and other teachers made a lasting
impression on him. '.!'hey remained in his memory as examples not
simply of scholars, but of individuals and leaders who demonstrated
that "ignorance and particularism and prejudice" could be overcome-in the nation as well as in the university. These direct
encounters between a brilliant young African-American and a
cadre of progressive New England academics produced living proof
for Du Bois that people of different races could meet and work on
common terms, could respect one another, and could strengthen
one another's commitment to the important moral as well as intellectual values essential to·serious education.

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IV
Some Twentieth Century Challenges:
Structures, Admissions, and Tests
1.

I

N THE TWENTIETH CENTURY there have been at least two
major developments related to the conception of diversity in
education, especially outside the classroom and the formal
curriculum.
The first had to do with_ the creation of educational facilities
and structures intended to help support the goals that I have been
discussing. The second concerned the need to deal with a new
problem: how to select students from a pool of highly qualified
applicants that was· much larger than the available number of
places in each entering class. Let me turn first to the matter of
facilities and structures.
From many points of view, the basic conception of a residential
. education has remained the strongest expression of an institution's
commitment to educating the "whole person," rather than only the
intellect. This idea was embodied in the foundation charters of
many American colleges and universities: the purpose was to provide the community with "pious and learned" graduates who would
become ministers, lawyers, public servants, and civic leaders in all
walks of life. As a result, a young person's character, integrity,
industriousness, and other attributes were important in admissions,
as well as in the life of the college and the larger community.
The residential nature of a college also allowed the benefits of a
diverse student body to be more fully realized. If a college provided
proper facilities and assistance-while creating an open atmosphere of free inquiry and mutual respect-then it could more confidently take the step of bringing together many kinds of students

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from different places. Initiatives of this kind were introduced in at .
· least some colleges ~nd universities by the mid- to late nineteenth
century, and· were developed much more systematically iri the
twentieth. New institutional structures enabled stu.dents to form
close and more continuing associations with their peers, joining
organizations and societies of every type. At Harvard, students
began living in residential "Houses" that provided social and dining facilities, faculty "masters" and associates, and graduate student
tutors. Participation in such units-and in associated extracurricular activities-was rightly seen as much more than a mere adjunct
to education. It became part of the fabric of daily life in residential
university communities, and one of the primary ways that students
learned from one another.
President A. Lawrence Lowell was clearly very different from
Eliot, and in some ways sought to limit Eliot's concept of diversity.
For example, he called for quotas on the number of Jewish students
admitted to Harvard. At the same time, he went further than Eliot
in providing facilities that could sustain the more democratic ideals
which had gradually been established at the university. In developing
the residential House system during the late 1920s, Lowell specifically sought to diminish the t~ndency of students to form "cliques
based upon similarity of origin and upen wealth."35 The goal of the
Houses was "to bring into contact a body of students with diverse
interests" who would "provoke" one another to think freshly about
many subjects.36 Although intellectual diversity was one aim of the
Houses, Lowell insisted that the new structures were not fundamentally academic, but "a so~al device for a moral purpose":

far

. So
as subjects of con~entration, pecuniary means,.and residence in different parts of the country are concerned, each H~use should be as nearly as
possible a cross-section of the College. 37 ·

President James Conant later expanded on some of Lowell's
themes. As early as 1936-37, he was asking whether there is "any
surer way of finding the truth" than ,by having it debated by students "of differing opinions": "Have we not in each of our
[Houses] a band of scholars who educate one another?" If our
future lawyers, doctors, poets, tea<;hers, scientists, and historia11s
"all lunch apd dine together day after day, then the most powerful
of the forces making for a liberal education are set at work."38
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Part of Conant's program involved a reenergizing of Hru:vard's
academic life, especially in advanced learning and research. This
initiative took many forms, but the conscious recruitment and
enrollment of a more diverse student body was one of its important
aspects. From one point of view, diversity meant a stress on intellectual values to Conant, and he recognized that his goals could be
achieved only if there was a significant change in admissions, signaling new forms of openness at Harvard. Students from an even
wider range of socioeconomic, geographic, and ethnic groups
(requiring more outreach, and more financial aid) would be attracted to the university only if special steps were taken-and if the university made clear that the newcomers would indeed be welcome.
The Harvard National Scholarships were created as part of this
·process. Meanwhile, at a more local level, a broad range of urban
commuter students were invited to join Conant's collegium. Many
of these bright, adventurous, and non-establishment undergraduates earned the ambiguous label "meatballs." The distinguished
journalist and chronicler Theodore H. White, class of 1938, was
one such student, and he has left U:s a vivid description of life in
President Conant's diversified institution:
Conant was the first president to recognize that meatballs were Harvard
men, too, and so he set apart a ground floor room at Dudley Hall where we
could bring our lunches in brown paper bags and eat at a table, or lounge in
easy chairs between classes. The master of this strange enclave of mmmuting Irish, Jewish, and Italian youngsters from Greater Boston was a young
historian named Charles Duhig, whose argument was that the most revolutionary force in history was the middle class. 39

Not only were the "meatballs" distinguished by their ethnic backgrounds; they also tended to come from low-income families and
were frankly upwardly mobile:
Most of us, largely Boston Latin School graduates, knew more about poverty than anyone from Beacon Hill or the fashionable East Side of New York.
VVe hated poverty; and meant to have no share in it.... Harvard had the
keys to the gates; what lay behind the gates I could not guess, but all that lay
there was to be looted. . . . There were museums to be seen, libraries and ·
poetry rooms of all kinds to tarry in-and stacks and stacks. and stacks of
_books. 40

If Conant created something of a new immigrant-urban stew in
the College, he also expressed the hope that the Houses (which

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charged extra room and board rates) would one day be affordable to
all Harvard undergraduates. In addition, he proposed that similar
House-like arrangements be created for graduate and professional
school students. Finally, after the war-at a time when the double
challenge of securing democracy and sustaining peace was very substantial-he urged that students should learn "not only the facts
about life, but a worth-while way of life .... We must learn how to
live together." It was important to remember that "centuries of academic history have shown that it is not primarily through the curriculum that a student learns a worth-while way of life":
Tolerance, honesty, intellectual integrity, courage, friendliness are virtues
not to be learned out of a printed volume but from the book of experience;
and the content of this book for a youth is largely determined by the mode
of his association with contemporaries. So, too, ·are those attitudes so essential for the survival of a modern democracy. , . ,41

Here, Conant-like Eliot-stresses the clear linkage between
certain values (such as tolerance) fostered in a residential college,
and the civic virtues essential to citizenship and leadership in a
democracy. Learning to live together was a central goal of university life; and although Conant's primary interests were academic and
intellectual, he was unreserved in pointing out that "the development of the character and philosophy oflife of an undergraduate is
quite as much a product of his extracurricular activities as of his
experience in the lecture hall, classroom, or library." 42 ·
Much "development of the character and philosophy of life"
happens in unpredictable and spontaneous ways. But as Lowell,
Conant, and many others have realized, colleges and universities
can do much to shape their students' opportunities for personal
growth by paying close attention to the structure and ambiance of
life outside-as well as inside-the classroom. Norms and expectations must be articulated, fundamental institutional values must be
stated clearly, and considerable guidance must be provided. During
the course of the last century, many institutions have invested
heavily in these extracurricular aspects of education, and have
rightly emphasized their significance time and again.

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2.

T

HE YEARS AFTER WoRLD WAR II presented new challenges to
Harva,rd and to higher education in general. During the presidency of Nathan M. Pusey in the 1950s and 1960s, questions about
admissions were rather different. With the establishment of very
. high standards and an ever-growing number of exceptional applicants, how should the university select students in order to .create
the best educational enviropment possible, so that undergraduates
and graduate ·students alike could learn as much as a residential
institution might offer them? Granted that high academic capability
and achievement were central considerations, what other characteristics and qualities should be taken into account-and how should
they be evalqated and weighted? Now that the university could he
far more selective than ever before, it became important to define
the university's admissions crheria with greater clarity, and
to describe the linkage between those criteria and the environment
for learning.
'Fhe dilemma was created in part by the fact that many colleges
and universities began to rely more heavily on aptitude tests (espe- ·
cially SATs), grade point averages (GPAs), and class-rank indices.
When difficult choices are i:nvolved, one response is to search for
"objective~ criteria that can help in decision making, as well as in
the explanation and justification of decisions. When the. issue is
such as to arouse strong feelings-and. few things in life arouse
stronger feelings in us than the hopes that we have for our children-the search for a way to, base decisions on apparently objective information can become unusually intense. The increased use
of standardized test scores and GPAs was neither surprising nor
unnatural, even though it was an imperfect and inadequate substitute for informed, experienced judgment that relied on a wider
variety of factors.
While Harvard placed a very high value on academic standards
throughout this period (and.while President Conant was indirectly
involved in the establishment of the Educational Testing
Service43), the university continued to strike a balance between·
numerical measures and more complex forms of assessment in
admissions. The annual Harvard College admissions reports of the

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late 1950s and the 1960s offer a helpful guide to the major issues
and their resolution-a resolution that was fundamentally consistent with Harvard's past practice. The faculty was of course instrumental in the shaping and articulation of admissions policies and
procedures at the university; the reports of the admissions committee, therefore, reflect significantly the views of the faculty, as well
as other groups ·within the institution.
. As early as 1961 the admissions committee reported that an
analysis of the SAT scores for the past three incoming classes
showed that the previous "pattern of steadily rising scores seems to
have been broken":
From this and other evidence it _seems clear that in choosing among candi- .
dates who are academicruly qualified the Committee continues to give less
· weight to the so-called objective factors '(rank in class and test scores) and
more weight to other evidence, not only of intellectual promise but of other
qualities and kinds of promise_ as well. 44

Harvard had already begun a series of studies analyzing the "objective factors" of students at the time of admission, in relation to
their academic performance in college. In 1963-64, a more explicit
as~essment of the situation was includ~d in the admissions report:
The high quality and variety of talents in recent candidate groups have led
us to expect the distributions of scores to shift up and down •••. Test scores
and other objective criteria of academic performance are most relevant to ·
our discussions only at the extremes of our academic range, , . ,4S

The debate about_test scores, grades, and other "objective" indicators has intensified even further in the past quarter-century. This
is not the place for an extended discussion of the many factors that
bear on this complex issue, but I _want to mention a few considerations that I believe are important.
• There is a broad consensus that standardized test scores can be
valuable as one factor, among several, in helping to assess candidates for admission. Their greatest use is in providing some evi.:.
dence about the likely academic performance of students,
especially during their first two years (approximately) at college
or university; In the United States, tests of this kind can offer
comparative information difficult to gather in other ways,
because we do not have a standard nationwide curriculum, .with
uniform national examinations in specific academic subjects.
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National curricula and examinations present their own problems,
of course, and can lead to early (often narrow) forms of specialization. They do, however, facilitate certain kinds of assessment
across school systems and regions in a country. Standardized
aptitude tests~such as SATs.....;.are different from uniform
national exams in specific subjects, but they too can be helpful in
making some forms of comparative evaluation possible.
The correlation between SAT scores and future academic
performance, however, is far from exact. It is not uncommon for
individuals to outperform (or underperform) what the tests
"predict"-often by significant margins. In addition, the predictive power of the tests diminishes over time. After one or two
years, SAT scu'res and similar indices used at the point of
admission tend to be less informative about continued academic.
performance. For some students, the correlation can remain
quite strong; for others, it weakens substantially.
• Standardized tests are designed to assess certain academic
capacities and achievements, but they obviously do not attempt
to evaluate many other critical qualities. They do not, for example, measure a student's ability to exercise good judgment in different situations, or to understand other. human beings; nor do
they assess qualities such as competitiveness, decisiveness, and
cooperativeness-or creativity and imagination.

• In addition, the test scores of individuals fluctuate over time,
and some of these changes are due to the quality of a student's
educational opportunities and preparation. This point is crucial.
We know, for example, that the SAT scores of students tend to
increase with more (and better) schooling--as well as with more
practice in test-taking. That is one reason why so many secondary school students take the SATs two or three (or more)
times. Special courses, coaching, and pre-exam preparation
books can also help to improve scores.
In other words, students who have had less consistent access
to good education (and who lack the money to pay for extra
"prepping") will frequently do less well on standardized tests.
Opportunities, not just abilities, are a· critical issue here.
Individuals who have unusual drive, curiosity, and a strong

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sense of purpose can compensate for lower test scores, and they
regularly demonstrate that they can succeed admirably in a university-and in life-if they are given the chance. To curtail the
admission of such students, mainly because they have somewhat
lower SATs, would discount what we know about the real abilities of human beings and their exceptional capacity for contin.:
ued growth and development.
• A final point: not only do the test scores of individuals vary over
time, but so do the average scores of particular groups. During
the course of decades, for example, selected subgroups within
our population have performed better on standardized tests,
depending upon their access to educational opportunities and
(in the case of immigrants) on the amount of time they and
their families have lived iri the United States. More schooling,
more time for acculturation, and increased access to higher education are clearly some of the important factors that have led to
this phenomenon of rising scores.
·
Similarly, we know that the average test scores of African~
Americans (and those of certain other minorities) are currently
below the average "majority" scores. We also know, however,
that African-American SAT averages have steadily risen since
the mid-1970s, while the figures for white students hav~
remained essentially level (dipping for several years, and then
recovering). There is no single explanation that accounts for
these trends, but some improved access to better primary and
secondary schooling (especially in the private school sector) has
almost certainly made a difference in the case of minority students. This change in the level of educational opportunityhowever limited, and however precarious-has begun. to show
tangible results.
These general observations about standardized tests have led-,
at Harvard and many other institutions-to an admissions ·
approach which takes relevant "objective" data into account, but is
not driven primarily by them. Average scores among students
admitted to Harvard remain very high, but they vary from year to
year. In addition, the range of individual test scores within the student body continues to be broad. Consequently, as the admissions
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staff evaluates candidates, it looks carefully at letters of recommendation from teachers and others; at the actual quality of a student's
academic work (not simply the grades); at evidence of character
and commitment; at each student's written personal statement; and
at assessments of the nature and quality of a student's contributions in specific extracurricular activities or employment situations.
These and other factors-including those characteristics that can
enable individual students to contribute something distinctive to
the diversity of the student body-create the framework for admissions to Harvard College, and they provide a much sounder basis
for informed decisions than reliance on any one or two indicators
could conceivably supply.
Although the situation of the 1990s differs in some respects
from the late 1950s and the 1960s, the fundamental approach to
admissions does not. Passages from the detailed admissions committee report of 1964-65 can still stand as a reasonable summary of
Harvard's basic approach to the use of SATs and similar indices:
We pay attention to test scores and Predicted Rank List [PRL] but, helpful
as they are, what they tell us . . . is quite limited, even in the intellectual
area. For some school and college people this is a hard proposition to accept,
but each of the studies we have done of the performance of students in
Harvard College seems to support it .... Our crude approximation of personal strengths •. , correlates as well as test scores and PRL with completion
of the A.B. degree and comes close to correlating as well with graduation
with honors. In short, our research gives support to the common sense
notion that effective intelligence depends as much on such personal characteristics as energy, imagination and ability to channel one's energies as it
does on the qualities the aptitude and achievement tests measure.46

3.

I

F THERE WERE broad conceptual shifts concerning diversity during the post-World War II period, they occurred in two areas.
First, diversity was seen as comprising a somewhat wider range of
attributes and factors. Second, there was a fuller appreciation of
the effect that a diverse student body could have, not simply upon
individuals, but upon an entire entering class of students, and on
an institution as a whole;
·

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The earliest postwar change in admissions-and in the nature of
diversity-occurred with the GI Bill. Suddenly, colleges and uni-:versities were enriched by thousands of veterans who brought with
them different talents and kinds of experience that added immense'"
ly to the quality of education. At about the same time (in 1946),
Harvard provost Paul Buck called for "an extended organization for
making contact with the 500 to 1,000 schools that now send us students, often only occasionally." Over the next two decades, Harvard
College developed a greatly expanded national and international
network of volunteers to assist the admissions staff.
As a result, it was soon possible to seek, actively and affirmatively,
students in rural, urban, and suburban areas across the country.
Candidates from regions throughout the nation were deliberately
recruited, as were (for example) pianists, biologists, classicists,
poets, football players, and student government leaders. More
women enrolled through Radcliffe, and although the process was
slow, Radcliffe and Harvard Colleges were on the ~ay to becoming
a fully coeducational enterprise. Meanwhile, the pool of AfricanAmerican applicants expanded substantially during the 1960s, and
the number of enrolled minority students increased over the next
decades. Students from abroad also enrolled in greater numbersas did those from low-income and middle-income families.
In other words, a greater degree of openness and inclusiveness;
along many dimensions, was becoming part of the rhythm and life
of the university. It did not simply happen; it was the result of purposeful efforts to reach out, in order to identify and attract the
most promising, capable, and diverse group of students possible.
A second shift that took place during the 1950s and 1960s had to
do with a sharpening sense of how diversity could contribute broadly
to education within an entire university. Student diversity was seen
as "stimulating to the Faculty" and "more relevant to liberal educatiun."47 Moreover, the composition of each entering class became,
explicitly, a consideration in its own right. Every new class was
viewed more and more as an ensemble, rather than a simple aggregation of individuals chosen one by one without any significant ref~
erence to the pattern produced by the whole.
In this regard, the admissions reports of this period return
strongly to the theme that the "measure of a d ass" consists largely
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in "how much its members are likely to learn from each other-the
real beginning of learning, both intellectually and eniotionally."48
The range of undergraduate "interests, talents, backgrounds and
career goals affects importantly the educational experience of our
students," because "a diverse student body is an educational
resource of coordinate importance with our faculty and our library,
laboratory and housing arrangements."49
This conception of a diverse student body as an "educational
resource"-comparable in importance to the faculty, library, or science laboratories--is the most direct expression of an idea that we
have seen emerging over the course of m9re than a century.
Cardinal Newman once suggested, perhaps more wittily than seriously, that a "University which had no professors or examinations
at all," but merely brought together a group of students with different .notions from different places, would be preferable to "a socalled University'' that dispensed with the residential and tutorial
aspects of college life and "gave its degrees to any person who
passed an examination in a wide range of subjects."SO The Harvard
admissions statement quoted above may lack Newman's wit and
some of his deliberate hyperbole, but it demonstrates the continuing emphasis on the value of what students themselves, in all their
heterogeneity, can contribute'to one another's education.

4.

A

s THE POOL of college applicants grew in the 1950s and .1960s
(and later), more questions began to arise concerning fairness
in admissions. In the eyes of some people, there was a growing
sense that measurable credentials-especially test scores and
GPAs-ought to be the es~ential determinants for admission.
Others were concerned that an emphasis on numerical in:dices and
narrowly defined "objective" criteria would screen out .large numbers of candidates who were needed not only by the universities,
but by the. nation: exceptional human beings who, were unusually
capable students, and whose combined qualities would make them
effective leaders both in college and in later life.
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These different views about admissions represented long-standing tensions. They had begun to develop long before the postwar
era, and were even evident in the differing approaches taken sue.:
cessively by Presidents Eliot (expansive on many fronts), Lowell
(very restrictive on some fronts), and Conant (especially assertive
on the academic front).
Despite these differences of emphasis, however, Harvard
remained basically committed to enrolling a broad mix of students;·
One consequence of maintaining this approach in the postwar
period, however, has been the plain fact that admissions decisions
have become far more difficult to make-and to explain-in the
face of huge increases in excellent applications. Disappointed
applicants (with their families, teachers, and other supporters) have
asked for detailed reasons, especially if their test scores and grades
were, by most standards, high. The gap between institutional deci-,
sions (on the one hand) and candidate expectations (on the other)
has grown, leading in many cases to misunderst:;mding and anger.
These reactions are understandable, but there is another set of
important considerations that must be borne in mind. A college or
university should be consistent and equitable in the way it makes
admissions decisions. But the university also has guiding educational purposes that are ultimately the source of its admissions
policies, and that create the framework for the development of
admissions criteria. These criteria, as we have seen, have for many
generations included considerations of diversity, primarily because
of the ways in which diversity enhances the environment for learn-,
ing. The beneficiaries of such an approach are the students actually
. chosen for admission.::._the students to whom an institution owes
its primary responsibility, and for whom the composition of a
diverse student body pays significant educational dividends. Given.
this fact, colleges and universities must be able' to exercise their
best judgment, applying a broad range of criteria and considera..:
tions, in making final admissions decisions. Only in this way can
they take full advantage of the important values that diversity can
and does provide.

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V
Civil Rights Legislation and the Bakke Case
1.

A

LTHOUGH DIVERSITY had become a significant goal in
much of American higher education before World War II,
substantial parts of our population still remained largely
outside the doors of excellent educational institutions. Throughout
much of this nation's history, and in all sectors of the country, many
people had been excluded-or made to feel unwelcome-because of
characteristics such as their religion, race, gender, and ethnicity.
African-Americans provide the clearest example. But Jews, Latinos,
Native Americans, and others also found, for a very long period,
only limited ports of entry. And while women had access to outstanding single-sex colleges, they were denied admission to the
many private colleges and universities that remained all male.
This situation began to change during the postwar period. But
even those institutions of higher education that were committed in
principle to diversity have had uneven records of accomplishment-Harvard included. In addition, a sizable proportion of colleges and universities in the United States had been founded to
serve particular groups or constituencies. Some institutions were,
for example, explicitly church-related. Others were intentionally
local or regional in nature. Some were largely devoted to students
of a particular race or ethnic group. Others emphasized a specific
set of intellectual or cultural traditions~in science and technology,
or the creative arts, or in "great books."
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 (and related initiatives) represented a major effort on the part of the federal government to promote
equal opportunity for all Americans, in many occupations and
spheres of life. This legislation followed-by a decade-the
Supreme Court's landmark decision in Brown v. Board of

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Education. In Brown, as we know, separate public schools designat-

ed by law for children of different races had been declared inherently "unequal." Under the 1964 Civil Rights Act, admissions (and
other specific activities) in colleges and universities that received
federal fonding became subject to requirements of nondiscrimination. The legislative history of the Act reveals deep and passionate
divisions in the Congress, and in the country. Proponents argued
that government had a special responsibility to make certain that
programs and activities supported by federal funds were free of discrimination. Opponents foresaw a future in which. controversies
about race or ethnicity-and later, about gender-would create
continuing unrest, discontent, and litigation.
As in the case of any genuin(: dilemma, the real issues were
beyond immediate resolution, and they contained the seeds of continuing disagreement. In higher education, a variety of programs
related to affirmative action were designed during the late 1960s and
1970s. Some of these programs soon met with legal
challenges. Perhaps the most conspicuous involved the University of
California, in a case brought by Allan Bakke. In 1978, the Supreme
Court in Bakke issued what remains its most significant statement
concerning questions of race and admissions in higher education.
The Medical School of the University of California at Davis
had a policy of reserving 16 of the 100 places in each class for
members of certain minority groups. Candidates· for these spaces
were considered separately from others, and were held to a different standard of admissions. The process was largely but not exclusively quantitative in nature, with precise "benchmark." scores and
"cutoff" points being used. Bakke contended that he was not
admitted because of his race: that as a white student, he had been
unfairly excluded from competing for one of the 16 places resetYed
for minorities, even though his test scores and other indices were
stronger than those of students admitted under the special admis..:
sions program.
The Bakke case was especially significant because it dealt direct-:
ly with the matter of quotas or set-asides in admissions, as well as
with the question of whether race or ethnicity can be used as a factor in admissions decisions. The Court decided, in a 5-4 vote, tha1
the admissions process at the Davis Medical School was unaccept-:

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able. The clear separation of 84 "regular" admissions places fro,m
16 "special" places for minorities, together with the use of different
numerical cutoff points for the two groups, was held to be unlawful. Allan Bakke prevailed, essentially because he was judged to
have been denied the opportunity to compete fairly in a full field
that included all applicants and all 100 spaces.
Several of the opinions, by different Justices of the Court,51
restated the view that racial categories and preferences-even if
"benign" in purpose-are problematic; given the broad and
unqualified language of the equal protection claus~ of the
Fourteenth Amendment. While the original initiative that led to
the Amendment's adoption in 1868-and ultimately to the Civil
Rights Act of 1964-was dearly intended to break systematic patterns of discrimination against African-Americans, the basic constitutional and legislative goals involved equal protection for all
persons, whatever their race.
In his pivotal opinion in Bakke, Justice Powell concluded that
"racial and ethnic distinctions of any sort are inherently suspect
and thus call for the most exacting judicial examination."52 But
while any use of racial or ethnic categories requires special care and
scrutiny, the categories are not in all circumstances exclu~ed from
conscious consideration, according to a majority of the Court.
Under the Bakke ruling, it was judged permissible to take race
explicitly into ~ccount as one factor in making university admissions decisions, provided that the institution can show that the
practice is necessary to promote a substantial interest.53
This particular aspect ofJustice Powell's opinion was, of course,
extraordinarily significant, and it remains so. The California
Superior Court, and the Supreme Court of California {both of
which had previously decided in favor of Bakke), had specifically
declared racial considerations to be impermissible in admissions
decisions. By contrast, Justice Powell stated clearly that conscious
consideration of race or ethnicity in decision making is not intrinsically unconstitutional, even though its use must be .strictly
circumscribed:
In enjoining petitioner [the University of California] from ever considering
the race of any applicant, •.. the courts below failed to recognize that the
State bas a substantial interest that may legitimately be served by a properly

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devised admissions program involving the competitive consideration of race
and ethnic origin. 54

In addressing the question of what constitutes a sufficiently substantial interest, Justice Powell was unpersuaded by several arguments that the University of California had advanced.55 The
rationale that Justice Powell found persuasive was based directly on
educational grounds: the presence of minority students contributed-along with the presence and contributions of other
students-to diversity, and therefore to the total educational
environment of an institution, as well as to the education of all its
members. In short, some consideration of racial and ethnic characteristics was judged to be appropriate, because "the interest
of diversity is compelling in the context of a university's admissions
program."56
This conclusion was grounded in part on considerations of aca~
demic freedom. Justice Powell relied on the long-standing defini~
tion of academic freedom used by Justice Frankfurter in Sweezy v.
New Hampshire:
"It is the business of a university to provide that atmosphere which is most
conducive to speculation, experiment and creation. It is an atmosphere in
which there prevail 'the four. essential freedoms' of a university--to determine for itself on academic grounds who m.ay t~ach, what may be taught,
how it shall be taught, and who may be admitted to study."57

Vvhile none of these freedoms can be judged to be absolute, they
have "long ... been viewed as a special concern of the First
Amendment"58-and the specific capacity to decide ''who may be
admitted to study" was obviously of direct relevance in Bakke.
Justice Powell also quoted from another earlier opinion of the
Supreme Court, Keyishian v. Board ofRegents:
"Our Nation is deeply committed to safeguan;li.ng academic freedom which
is of transcendent value to all of us and not merely to the teachers concerned. That freedom is therefore a special concern of the First
Amendment. , .. The Nation's future depends upon leaders trained through
wide exposure to that robust exchange of ideas which discovers tmth 'out of
a multitude of tongues, [rather) than through any kind of an authoritative
selection."'59

In his discussion_ of these issues, Justice Powell not only mentioned the "robust exchange of ideas," but also emphasized the_
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broader concept of student exposure to· the "mores"-the customs,
habits,- and outlooks---of fellow student!l who are "as diverse as this
Nation of many peoples."60 While the educational benefits of such
exposure may appear to be most striking during a student's university years, their long-term significance was held to be equally valuable: "The Nation's future depends upon leaders trained" in this
way, 61 and the results of such training can have a lasting effect on
individuals, and therefore on the society of which they are a part.
In the course of Justice Powell's exposition, one can hear echoes
of Mill's insistence on "robust'' exchanges, .or Eliot's commitment
to educating future leaders of a heterogeneous ·democratic society.
Indeed, Justice Powell's pivotal opinion in Bakke has its roots in a
long tradition of thought concerning the nature of learning and
education. That tradition preceded, by more than· a century, the
advent of affirmative action programs and the passage of the Civil
Rights Act of 1964. It is a tradition that is still vital, and still crucial to our nation's future.

2.

I

F IT IS PERMISSIBLE to take race and ethnicity into account as
· one factor in an admissions process, .but generally not permissible to "set aside" places (or to use a set of differently defined standards) exclusively for members of a particular ethnic or racial group
(or groups), how can one,: design and administer an appropriate
process? In Bakke, the Justices devoted considerable attention to
·
this issue.
Justice Powell drew extensively on Harvard College's policy
statement on admissions, which he quoted at length in his opinion
and added in full as an appendix. This policy, shaped by Harvard's
faculty and admissions committee, carried the strong endorsement
of President Derek Bok, whose constant efforts in behalf of diversity and affirmative action helped to determine Harvard's goals and
extend its progress throughout. the 1970s and 1980s. Two passages
from the Harvard statement are particularly pertinent. The first
concerns the way in which different criteria can be weighed simultaneously in making admissions decisions; the secorid, concerns the

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question of so-called "critical mass," including the issue of quotas
as contrasted to approximate (and flexible) goals:
When the Committee on Admissions reviews the large middle group of
applicants who are 'admissible' and deemed capable of doing good work in
their courses, the race of an applicant may tip the balance in his favor just as
geographic origin or a life spent on a farm may tip the balance in other candidates' cases .... 62
In Harvard College admissions the Committee has not set target-quotas
for the number of blacks, or of musicians, football players, physicists or
Californians to be admitted in a given year. At the same time the Committee
is aware that if Harvard College is to provide a truly heterog[ e]neous environment that reflects the rich diversity of the United States, it cannot be provided
without some attention to numbers. It would not make sense, for example, to
have 10 or 20 students out of 1,100 whose homes are west of the Mississippi.
Comparably, 10 or 20 black students could not begin to bring to their classmates and to each other the variety of points of view, backgrounds and experiences of blacks in the United States.... Consequently, when making its
decisions, the Committee on Admissions is aware that there is some relationship between numbers and achieving the benefits to be derived from a diverse
student body, and between numbers and providing a reasonable environment
for those students admitted. But that awareness does not mean that the
Committee sets a minimum number of blacks or of people from west of the
Mississippi who are to be admitted.63

Distinctions between the Harvard College program and the
University of California at Davis program were discussed in some
detail in Baidu. Justice Blackmun wrote thit, while he saw the
advantages of the Harvard program, he was not convinced that the
difference between the two was "very profound or constitutionallY
significant.» Justice Blackmun concluded that the Harvard
program was "better formulated than Davis' two-track system," hut
he added:
The cynical, of course, may say that under a program such as Harvard's one
may accomplish covertly what Davis concedes it does openly. I need not go
that far, for despite its two'-track aspect, the Davis program, for me, is within constitutional bounds, though perhaps barely so. 64

In his pivotal opinion, however, Justice Powell insisted on the fundamental difference between a two-track process involving setasides a9d a unitary process that judged all candidates by the same
set of criteria, applied in a way that considered each applicant as an
individual with a complex set of talents, interests, characteristics,
qualities, and achievements:
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In such an admissions program, race or ethnic background may be deemed a
"plus" in a particular applicant's file, yet it does not insulate the individual
from comparison with all other candidates for the available seats. The file of
a particular black applicant may be examined for his potential contribution
to diversity without the factor of race being decisive when compared, for
example, with that of an applicant identified as an Italian-American if the
latter is thought to exhibit qualities more likely to promote beneficial educational pluralism. Such qualities could include exceptional personal talents,
unique work or service experience, leadership potential, maturity, demonstrated compassion, [or] a history of overcoming disadvantage .... Indeed,
the weight attributed to a particular quality may vary from year to year
depending upon the "mix" both of the student body and the applicants for
the incoming class.
This. kind of program treats each applicant as an individual in the admissions process. 65

3.

F

INALLY, IT IS IMPORTANT

to note that in his decisive opinion in

Bakke, Justice Powell took into account the contribution of

diversity to education at the graduate as well as the undergraduate
level. While acknowledging differences in the specific educational
purposes to be served (and in the admissions selection criteria) at
the two different levels, he concluded that there was sufficient similarity between the two to warrant similar approaches: "Even at the
graduate level, our tradition and experience lend support to the view
that the contribution of diversity is substantial." 66 Law schools, for
example, were seen not only as academic institutions, but as "the
proving ground for legal learning and practice"-places that "cannot
be effective in isolation from the individuals and institutions with
which the law interacts. Few students and no one who has practiced
law would choose to study in an academic vacuum .... "67
A similar perspect~ve was relevant to medicine. "Physicians
serve a heterogeneous population," wrote Justice Powell, and
an otherwise qualified medical student with a particular background~
whether it be ethnic, geographic, culturally advantaged or disadvantagedmay bring to a professional school of medicine experiences, outlooks, and
ideas that enrich the training of its student body and better equip its graduates to render with understanding their v:ital service to humanity. 68

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This important issue-of graduate and professional school
admissions-deserves some additional discussion, even though it
cannot receive adequate attention in the present context.
Generalizing about admissions criteria across very different disciplines is obviously difficult, because programs vary widely in the
nature of the required preparation. A Ph.D. program in statistics
or plasma fusion, for instance, will undoubtedly have technical
requirements for admission that would ordinarily not have clear
parallels in a program such as English literature or European history. Similarly, medicine diffors from law in the nature and extent
of preparation normally required-just as there are substantial variations in the kinds of specialization usually expected in fields as
diverse as government, divinity, and business administration.
Nonetheless, if we want a society in which our physicians,
teachers, architects, public servants, and other profossionals possess
a developed sense of vocation and calling; if we want them to be
able to gain some genuine understanding of the variety of human
beings with whom they will work, and whom they will serve; if we
want them to think imaginatively and to act effectively in relation
to the needs and values of their communities, then we shall have to
take diver~ity into account as one among many significant factors
in graduate and professional school admissions and education.
We need to remember, for instance, that many Ph.D. students
in physics or sociology-like master's degree candidates in public
health or education-will one day carry responsibilities that affect
people from many different backgrounds. The Ph.D. student who
becomes a teacher of science, art, or economics at an undergraduate college-no less than the general practitioner of medicine, or
the inner-city minister-must be prepared to understand and work
with many individuals, over decades, who will have a multiplicity
of opinions, cultural perspectives, and convictions about life.
Relevant academic training and expertise are indispensable to such
practitioners. But such training and expertise can take one only so
far in many of the situations that are now the substance of everyday professional life, and the realities of our time require forms of
education that are broad in their human dimensions, as well as
powerful in their intellectual content.

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President Conant was once asked how he would measure the
quality of Harvard's undergraduate program. Conant, as we have
noted, was hardly averse to reliance on tests, and he was unambiguous in his concern for high academic standards. But he replied
that he would "reject all informational tests" that might be given to
"recent graduates as indicative of the effectiveness of our general
education. Whether a liberal education has been a success or failure should be measured by the student's breadth of vision fifteen or
twenty years· after graduation."69
Graduate and professional education-like undergraduate education-plays a central role in helping to expand (or to constrain)
an individual's "breadth of vision." Indeed, student diversity must
be taken consciously into account at thr. graduate school level,
because education at that level so strongly affects a student's conception of professional vocation, as well as the capacity to work
with a variety of fellow professionals. The need to sustain rigorous
academic standards in graduate and professional programs is clear.
The more difficult and genuine challenge, in many respects, is to
ensure that other significant values-ethical, professional, and
civic-also receive the serious attention that they so clearly deserve.

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"VI
Possible Future Directions

A

s WE MOVE FURTHER in the post-Bakke era, there are various policy alternatives concerning student diversity and
admissions.
·
We can continue with admissions policies that take many individual qualities and factors into careful account (including a person's ethnicity, race, or gender). These policies have served us
extremely well for a very long time, and have enhanced the educational mission of our universities.
Alternatively, institutions may choose on their own to take less
account of race, ethnicity, and gender in admissions; or they may
find themselves prohibited from doing so by legislative or other
actions (at either the state or federal level). The Board of Regents
of the University of California has recently endorsed a complex
series of prohibitions along these lines, although the precise interpretation of the recommendations remains unclear. More generally, there has· obviously been widespread debate about-and some
expressed opposition to-affirmative action programs during the
past two years, not only in California but throughout the nation.
lvly own vie-w---as suggested throughout these pages-is that
the main question to be addressed in this context is not so much
affirmative action in itself, but the broader matter of diversity as it
relates to the quality, breadth, and texture of student learning. The
primary purpose of diversity in university admissions, moreover, is
not the achievement of abstract goals, or an attempt to compensate
for patterns of past societal discrimination. It represents now, as it
has since the mid-nineteenth century, positive educational values
that are fundamental to the basic mission of colleges and universities. It is also, as 1 have emphasized, extremely important to the
development of important civic virtues-and of future leadersvital to the health and effective functioning of our democracy.
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The most constructive and well-conceived admissions programs
are those that view affirmative action in relation to the educational
benefits of diversity. They may take various characteristics such as
race, ethnicity, or gender into account as potential "plus" factors
(among many others) when evaluating candidates, but they do not
assign such characteristics an overriding value. Nor do they aim to
achieve specific numerical targets, either ·through the use of setasides or quotas. They involve energetic efforts in outreach, but not .
mandated outcomes. Programs of _this kind, when they are carefully
designed and implemented, preserve an institution's capacity-with
considerable flexibili~to make its own determinations in admissions. This capacity and flexibility have been critical in the past, arid
will continue to be so in the future,
With these general considerations in mind, let me comment
briefly on some of the main arguments that have recently been
advanced by thoughtful critics of affirmative action in university
admissions:
. One such argument suggests that affirmative action programs in
admissions were important during an interim stage as a step toward
greater equality of opportunity and the creation ofa "level playing.field,"
but that we have now reached a point where discrimination has been so
significantly reduced that African-Americans (or other historically under-represented groups) no longerface serious o~stacles ofthis kind.
There have clearly been increased opportunities for members of
historically underrepresented groups in colleges and universities during the past quarter century. Positive steps of this kind, however, are
very recent, and are far from secure. Twenty-five to thirty years of
improved access to higher education is a very brief time span. It is
scarcely one generation-barely long enough for graduates of the
late 1960s to have had child~n who are now reaching college age.
To understand more precisely what has been achieved, it is
helpful to consider some of the data concerning (for example)
African-Americans in higher education pi:ograms during the past
two to three decades. While the focus must remain on the. broad ·
concept of diversity as it relates to learning-as distinct from any
narrowly quantitative search for "equal outcomes"--such data are
useful in assessing the extent of actual progress in achieving
diversity, along one important dimension, during an era when
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intensified efforts have been made to enhance opportunities for
historically underrepresented groups in both undergraduate and
graduate education.
• In 1964, only 4 percent of African-Americans 25 years or older
had completed at least four years of college, compared to 10
percent of whites in the same age group. By 1993, the figures
had risen to 12 percent for African-Americans and 23 percent
for whites-indicating a significant advance by both groups, but
also a persistent gap. 7o

• In 1975, African-Americans received about 1,000 (3.8 percent)
of the roughly 26,000 doctoral degrees awarded by American
universities to U.S. citizens of known race or ethnicity. After
periods of modest increase and decline in that percentage,
African-Americans received about 1,100 (4.2 percent) of the
roughly 26,000 such degrees awarded in 1993.

If attention is confined to doctorates in the basic arts and sciences disciplines (excluding business, communications, education, and certain other fields), the percentages are
smaller-roughly 2 percent in 1975 and 3 percent in 1993:
Indeed, in 1993 a total of roughly 600 doctorates were awarded
to African-Americans (or black permanent residents) in the
basic arts and sciences nationwide. That figure includes, for
example, 8 doctorates in mathematics, 9 in physics and astrono..:
my, 31 in chemistry, 74 in the biological sciences, 20 in economics, 29 in sociology, 19 in history, and 15 in music.71

• In the ·field of law, blacks received 5. 7 percent of first-profes~
sional degrees awarded by American universities in 1992-93;
compared to 4.0 percent in 1976-77. In medicine, the compara"'
ble figure was 5.9 percent in 1992-93, up from 5.3 percent iri
1976-77. In business, blacks received 5.3 percent of the master's
degrees awarded in 1991-92, up from J.8 percent in 1976-77.72
However we interpret these statistics-and there are many con-'
siderations that must be.taken into account--two main conclusions
seem to me to be clear.
First, since the advent of affirmative action programs at colleges and universities in the late 1960s and 1970s, there has been
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marked improvement in the participation of African-Americans
(as well as other historically underpresented minorities) in higher
education. Particularly at the undergraduate level, but also
(far more selectively) at some advanced levels, there have been
genuine gains.
Second, in spite of these gains, the figures show that we are still
very much "in process." There is substantial unrealized potential in
each of the different degree programs and fields of study just cited.
In addition, the gaps in certain areas are startling, and they highlight critical shortages that are exceptionally troubling from a
national point of view. The doctoral situation in the arts and
sciences shows only glacial change-from a very low baselineover time. The situation is a matter of major concern, and it illustrates the need for continued and focused attention in the years
ahead. While the data for professional education are more encour"aging, they are at best mixed. The overall numbers are not robust,
and the representation of African-Americans in some fields is
clearly very modest.
As we think about the long run, we need to remember that the
number of degrees awarded at the doctoral and professional school
level are likely to grow only if the numbers at the undergraduate
level continue to increase. Progress in advanced education depends
directly on the gains achieved at previous stages. This is a classic
"pipeline" problem, where the linkages in the entire system are
crucial, and where a weakening or breakdown at any juncture, along
the way has major implications for the possibilities at every successive phase.
Hence, we cani10t expect to find-in two or three decadesnoticeably more African-Americans (or members of other underrepresented groups) in Ph.D. programs or in professional schools
unless access to excellent undergraduate education remains very
strong-and indeed expands. The nation's ability to achieve diversity at advanced levels in education will depend ultimately on continued progress at earlier levels. So will our ability to assure a
reasonable presence of historically undei:represented groups in the
major professions-including a strong presence on the faculties of
our colleges and universities. We need no precise numerical conception of diversity in order to reach the intuitive conclusion that

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approximately 600 African-American doctoral graduates, in all arts
and sciences .fields, is clearly inadequate. Far from having reached
point where we can feel confident about the gains that have been
made since the 1960s, we are ·still very i:nuch in the process of ere.;,
ating the conditions n~cessary for continuous long-range sustain-::
ability. The achievements to date are real, but they are also too
recent, too fragile, and too incomplete for any relaxation of effort.
At times in our past, there has been a temp!ation to believ~ we had
moved past the point where continued attention to the particular
problems and available opportunities of different racial or ethnic
groups was necessary to make further progress in economic and
educational areas--but the judgment proved premature. 73 At this
moment in our history, we should be mindful of the progress that
has been made; but we should not mistake that progress for the full
realization of a durable success.
·
A second argu,ment sometimes advanced concerning affirmative action
programs in higher education suggests that, however well-intentioned
they may be, they are focused on the wrong target; o.ur attention and
resources should instead be devoted to solving more basic social and ec'!,nomic difficulties, by investing in children's health, improved schools,
better housing, and school-to-work transitional programs.
Large-scale social investments intended to solve social and eco-.
nomic (and educational) problems might well make a significant dif-'
ference. But I do not see evidence that such investments, on a majot
scale, are likdy to be forthcoming, at least not in the near future.
Even if they were to be developed, we would need. to monitor them
over a considerable span of years in order to make certain that they
were having a real impact, and that they would be continued.
The question, therefore, is not whether appropriate forms of
affirmative action in higher education represent an adequate
response to the large-scale social problems that have been identified. Few, if any, people would make such a claim. Instead, the
question is whether programs that are well-designed and adminis'."
tered can· be helpful as one part of a more· general approach.
Moreover, to appreciate the full contribution of these programs, we
should remember that they have several far-reaching effects beyond
.any results that can be measured simply in terms of admissions .
decisions or their ability to contribute to diversity and learning.

a·

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They stimulate, for example, outreach efforts on a national
scale, and therefore play a key role in the identification of talented
candidates, as well as in the formation of expanded pools of applicants from underrepresented groups. Teachers, guidance counselors, and alumni volunteers (among others) are all part of this
process. They make clear to young students that increased educational opportunities do in fact exist-in hundreds of institutions, .
not just a few. This signal is itself catalyzing, and has become a
powerful source of motivation for thousands of students who previously saw far less reason for hope.
As we evaluate the effects of affirmative action in higher education, therefore, we should not underestimate the role it plays in
~eating an entire cycle of activity involving outreach, advice, and
professional guidance. It has helped to foster aspiration and to
strengthen the conviction that young people who have talent and
determination can in fact find opportunities in higher education,
and can then
on to make their way successfully in our society.
A third argument made against affirmative action programs in university admissions is that such programs run the risk of stigmatizing
and thus injuring the very people they are designed to assist andprotect.
The concern about. stigmatization is seripus and troubling.
Some of theJustices in Bakke considered this issue, but clearly did
not give it decisive weight. I would place greater importance on
this poi:nt if I were more convinced about two matters.
·First, I would find the argument more compelling if there were
a strong consensus, especially among those who have been assisted
by affirmative action programs,. that the difficulties resulting from
stigmatization were sufficiently clear and substantial as to outweigh the increased opportunities and protections. I know of no
calculus that can resolve such an issue at the present time.
Although opinion is to some extent divided, my own observation
suggests. that the greater weight .of informed views-particularly
views from members of underrepresented groups-remains substantially .in favor of well-designed and carefully administered
affirmative action initiatives in admissions, because of their
demonstrated positive effects.
Second, I would see greater force in the argument concerning
stigmatization if the most injurious and long-lasting forms of racial

go

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stigma appeared to result from affirmative action-particularly
affirmative action in higher education-rather than from other
causes. The difficulty, unfortunately, is that racial stigmatization is
clearly the inheritance of discriminatory attitudes and behavior
that reach far back into· history. Thes~ attitudes were powerfully
reinforced by the destructive racial theories and renewed legalized
discrimination that developed in the, late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries, during the Reconstruction period and afterward. Some significant progress in racial and ethnic relations has
clearly been made since \Vorld War II. But discrimination and
stigmatization remained very visibly operative during the turbulent
years preceding (and following) the .1964 Civil Rights Act, and
they continue to be persistent today. It seems doubtful that a phe'nomenon of such force and durability would be seriously mitigated
because affirmative action programs-created as recently as the late
1960s and 1970s-were eliminated. Very little if any evidence,
based on the experience of the past, would lead us to expect a
result of this kind.
According to a fourth argument, ajfirmative action programs in uni~
versity adtnissions can create unfairness, particularly when students
with high test scores {or grades) are denied admission in favor ef students with less impressive "objective" records.

The potential for unfairness exists, and needs to be taken
scrupulously into account. That, of course, was the main reason for
the Supreme Court's insistence in Bakke that any use of racial or
ethnic categories must be subject to exacting judicial scrutiny. At
the same time, at least two other considerations are important to
bear in mind.
'
First, as I suggested earlier, any definition of qualifications or
merit that docs not give considerable weight to a wide range of
human qualities and capacities will not serve the goal of fairness to
individual candidates (quite apart from groups) in admissions. Nor
will it serve the fundamental purposes of education. The more narrow and numerical the definition of qualifications, the more likely
we are to pass over (or discount) applicants-of many different
kinds-who possess exceptional talents, attributes, and evidence of
promise that are' not well measured by standardized tests.
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Second (and also mentioned earlier), a college or university is
responsible first and foremost to the applicants it chooses to admit,
and it must attempt to create, the best possible educational environment for them. One major consideration in the creation of that
environment is the composition of an entering class-and entire
student body. Admissions decisions are not isolated, atomistic
events. They focus on individuals, but each decision is made in the
context of others, where the pattern of the whole is also taken into
account. This pattern contributes significantly to student diversity-and diversity; as we have seen, is strongly linked to the quality
oflearning.
The way to proceed in the future is not to introduce absolute
prohibitions on the consideration of race (or other factors) in
admissions, but to treat such characteristics with the same care and
scrupulousness that we have historically given to so many aspects
of diversity. That is what we are doing now. That is what we have
done in the past-well before the advent of affirmative action
programs in the late 1960s.

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VII
_Admissions: The 1990s and Beyond

T

1.

o SlTSTAIN OUR POLICIES in the future will require the same.
kind of care that we have traditionally devoted to them. In
the present situation, it is important" not only to take sto~
but also to describe briefly the general principles that should con~
tinue to guide Harvard's practice in the years ahead.
It should be recognized at the outset that there is-:-regrettably-no ideal, friction-free way to arrive at decisions regarding
admissions, and no effective way to explain such decisions to the
thousands of individuals who are affected by them.
This situation is a direct outgrowth of the post-World War II
boom in higher education, and in our collective national expecta:tions concerning full access to educational opportunities. Durii:i_g
the past half-century, there have been far more applicants than
anyone would once have imagined possible; Even if the total numper of places in our higher educational system were equal to the
number of potential students, a good number of individual colleges
and universities would still remain oversubscribed, and would ha~
turn away many qualified applicants. Therefore, with or without
consideration of race, ethnicity, gender, geographic location,
income level, or various other factors, there will be thousands of
disappointed candidates.
·
When such a large proportion of applicants are barely distinguishable on statistical grounds, SAT scores and GPAs are clearly
of only limited value. Admissions processes, therefore, must
remain essentially human. They must depend on informed judgment rather than numerical indices. And they will be subject to all
the inevitable pressures and possible misconceptions that any
exceptionally competitive selection process involves.
In order to sustain a balanced, consistent, and highly attentive
process, long-established basic principles continue to offer the best
·
guidance.

to

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• Our commitment to excellence means that we will continue to
admit students as individuals, based on their merits: on what
they have achieved academically, and what they seem to
promise to achieve; on their character, and their energy and
curiosity and determination; on their willingness to engage in
discussion and debate, as well as their willingness to entertain
the idea that tolerance, understanding, and mutual respect are
goals worthy of persons who have been truly educated.
In assessing individual merit, we will-as we have in the pasttake a number of criteria into account. Grades, test scores, and
class rank will be given appropriate consideration in admissions,
but they will be viewed in the context of each applicant's full set of
capabilities, qualities, and potential for future growth and effectiveness.
• Our commitment to excellence also means that we will seek
out-in all corners of the nation, and indeed the world-a
diversity of talented and promising students.
Such diversity is not an end in itself, or a pleasant but dispensable accessory. It is the substance from which much human learning, understanding, and wisdom derive. It offers one of the most
powerful ways of creating the intellectual energy and robustness
that lead to greater knowledge, as well as the tolerance and mutual
respect that are so essential to the maintenance of our civic society.
In our world today, it is not enough for us and our students to
acknowledge, in an abstract sense, that other kinds of people, with
other modes of thought and feeling and action, exist somewhereunseen, unheard, unvisited, and unknown. We must, in addition,
extend ourselves in order to have direct contact with some substantial portion of that larger universe. There must be opportunities to
hear different views directly'-face to face-from people who
believe them and embody them. Much can be learned from reading, from travel, and from formal academic study. But little if anything can substitute for the experience of continued association
with others who are different from ourselves, and who challenge
us-even as we challenge them.

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• In selecting those students who will be offered places, the whole
must be seen to be genuinely greater than the sum of the parts.
When an individual student is admitted, the decision is rarely if
ever the result of a circumscribed choice between two-or three, or
a very few-applicants who are viewed as being in direct competition for a single place. The proper analogy is not a race between a
few individuals, where one wins and the others lose. Once a standard of high quality has been assured, there are still many more
can<lidates than there are spaces available. At that point, the question is how to admit not only individuals, but also an entire entering class of students who-in their collective variety-are likely to
have a strong capacity to teach and to learn from one another.
Such a process of selection involves the conscious consideration
of different forms of diversity. In this process-as I stated earlierquotas or set-asides in admissions are not acceptable. By the same
token, efforts to prohibit, categorically and absolutely, the consideration of particular characteristics or criteria are no less arbitrary
than to accord such factors a completely sheltered, insulated form
of protection or status.

2.

I

N CLOSING, I want to emphasize that we need not-and should
not~romanticize the idea of diversity in order to reach a sensible and realistic assessment of its positive value. Mill, Felton,
Eliot, and others were anything but sentimental in their outlook,
and the complex circumstances of our own historical moment
demand nothing less. Mill understood only too well that unfettered discussion and argument-stimulated by diversity-can
sometimes inflame situations rather than resolve them:

The tendency of all opinions to become sectarian is not cured by the freest
discussion, but is often heightened and exacerbated thereby .... But it is
not on the impassioned partisan, it is on the calmer and more disinterested
bystander, that this collision of opinions works its salutary effect .... There
is always hope when people are forced to listen to both sides ... .74

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For Mill, diversity-and the clash of freely expressed opinions--could be divisive, and he expected no immediate solutions;
but he saw that the long-term dangers ·and risks of insulating or
isolating individuals and groups from one another are likely to be
greater than the risks of creating opportunities for direct exchange
and contact. In the. end there are no guarantees. There is only the
hope that is created when people "listen to both sides"-or indeed .
to many sides.
This was precisely President Felton's conclusion; long ago,
when Harvard made more conscious efforts to enroll different
kinds of students, from different regions of the nation. lt seemed
clear to Felton that, so long as there were serious regional and
other differences straining the fabric of _the nation, education
should attempt to reduce the hazards of separation and division,
rather than reinforcing or perpetuating them. The gains in mutual
understanding and tolerance-even in the midst of argument and
intermittent tension-would ultimately outweigh the dangers th.at
could so easily result from sustained isolation and lack of even
rudimentary understanding.
This perspective surely provides the basis for a response to those
of us--and I include mysel~ho are seriously concerned about
fragmentation, sectarianism, and incidents of tension or conflict
between groups in our contemporary society. The present situation
in the United States is particularly difficult in many respects. At
the same time, we need to remember that--from its earliest origins--this nation's experiment in diversity has always been complex, and has involved significant strain as well as episodes of
violence. Indeed, by most measures, our contemporary predicament is not more severe, and, in some respects is less so, than that
which existed throughout much of the nineteenth and early twen- ·
tieth centuries. ln this regard, we should bear in mind the memory
of the_ disruptive and often violent incidents that took place in the
· decades leading to the Civil War;-the terrible War itself; the difficult and divisive history of the Reconstruction; and so much of the
turbulence that marked the era of the "new immigrants":
Outside, the mob battered down the prison gates and spread out into the
prison. They hunted through the corridors and comers and found s~ of the
acquitted men in a small courtyard used for exercise. There, men dressed i_n

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frock coats and derby hats from close range of 20 feet pumped over a hundred rifle shots and gunshot blasts into the six men, tearing their bodies
apart while others cheered. 75

The year was 1891. The acquitted men, so far as we know, were
in fact innocent, but feelings and suspicion ran so high that
respectable citizens refused to accept the verdict of a court, and
administered their own form of justice. One prisoner, still halfalive after the shootings, was dragged several blocks and then, with
great deliberation and applause, was hanged from a lamppost.
This incident might well have been described.:......at the time-in
any one_ of several ways: as an incident involving "foreigners,"
immigrants, or members of different "racial" groups. But the foreign or racial groups were not white and black. They were Irish
and Italians who had settled in the South. As it happened, the victims were southern "Mediterranean" Italians, and the episode was
not unique. Three more Italians were lynched in Louisiana in
1896, and five similar lynchings took place in 1899. If the Italians
suffered, however, the Irish were also afflicted, as were Jews and
other groups. African-Americans, as we know, experienced the
most frequent and persistent violence, as well as systematic legal
and other forms of discrimination.
AU the new immigrant groups and "races" were to some extent
at risk. And the risks-as well as the strong sense of group identity-did not disappear as quickly or easily as many of us may now
wish to believe. It took the better part of a century, after the 1840s,
before some of the new immigrant groups were substantially integrated, and even then many doors remained largely closed-certainly to Jews, but also to large portions of the Irish, Italian, and
other populations.
As we know, as late as the early 1960s, many private colleges
and universities (not to mention private clubs and other organizations) still retained effective quotas with respect to Jews. Nor were
there substantial numbers of Catholics in many of these institutions-quite apart from African-Americans, Asian-Americans,
Native Americans, Hispanic-Americans, and other minorities.
Women, moreover, were often entirely excluded. In certain cases,
this situation was the reflection of expressed individual and group
preferences. But few people doubt that there were strong de facto
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restrictions in effect-and indeed, in the case of AfricanAmericans, legal restrictions.
Attitudes, habits, and prejudices fade slowly, and perhaps never
as completely as we might hope. Moreover, if the better part of a
century was required before many "white" groups were able to
enter fully into the life of the nation-groups who had experienced
neither slavery nor systematic legal discrimination-how much
time should be estimated for a similar process to take place with
respect to African-Americans, for whom official segregation in
many aspects of daily life continued to exist into the 1960s? How
soon should we expect forms of group identification-and some
patterns of self-separation-to vanish? ·
The extent of our nation's success in dealing with diversity can
be measured only in the full light of our entire history. Without
such a long-term view, as well as an informed awareness of what
can be achieved in a heterogeneous society (and at what speed), we
will almost certainly undervalue all that has been accomplished so
far, and we wm be tempted to overdramatize the shock effect of
periodic incidents: incidents that can easily be interpreted as evidence of crisis or failure, when in 'fact they are often no more than
signs of the inescapable if unsettling stresses which exist in a large
and complex democratic society such as ours.
As we try to assess the progress that has been made to date, particularly on our college and university campuses, we ought to ask
whether there are ways to evaluate-more systematically-the
degree of success that has so far been realized. Are there concrete
lessons that can be learned from the experience of the past quarterccntury? Are there certain kinds of institutional arrangements,
norms, an_d stated expectations that enhance the experience of
diversity and learning for students and others-and are there some
that affect it more negatively?
Clearly, we have much more institutional knowledge and experience now than even a decade ago, and far more than we had in
1970. 'We also have a growing body of alumni (still relatively
young) who have graduated since the late 1960s, when Harvard
and many other institutions became gradually more inclusive.
Universities-and individull1 scholars-are now in a position to
begin to draw on this cumulative knowledge in an effort to evalu57

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ate our recent history, and to see which measures have been relatively effective, which have been less fruitful, and which remain
uncertain. We will not find definitive answers, but neither should
we simply draw blanks. Studies of this kind would not only be useful in Jhcmselves, but would help to make clear that our institu,tions are still very much in the midst of a national experiment in
diversity, and that we are committed to learning from it in order to
ensure its success.
Meanwhile, as I look at the present situation on many of our
campuses, I believe that the achieved level of tolerance and
respect--among thousands and thousands of students-is extraordinary. How many of us would have predicted, in 1950 or 1960,
that so great a number of talented and dissimilar stud~nts would be
studying together and learning from one another after so brief a
passage of time? No similar transformation has ever before taken
place in the long history of higher education, either in this country
or elsewhere.
This is not a moment for national self-congratulation. But neither
is it a moment to underestimate the substantial human and institutional achievements-in terms of education and diversity-of the past
few decades. These achievements have their roots, as we have seen, in
ideas and actions that reach back more than a century in our history.
The record is impressive. The progress, however imperfect, is inspiring. That progress must be sustained and strengthened. To change
course now would be to turn aside from many decades of difficult but
steady hope and fulfillment, in order to follow pathways far less
bright, and far less full of promise.

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Notes
II

EARLY IDEAS OF DIVERSITY:
NINETEENTH CENTURY BEGINNINGS
1. Principles ofPolitical Economy (1848), bk. III, ch. XVII, sec. 5.
2. On Liberty (1859), pt. II.
3. Ibid.
4. The Idea qfa University (1852), discourse \1, sec. 9.
5. Ibid.
6. Report of the President to the Board of Overseers 1859~60, 6.
7. The Education ofHenry Adams (1907), ch. IV.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. "The Function of Education in Democratic Society," in Educational Reform
(New York: Century Co., 1901), 408.
11. "The Contemporary American Conception of Equality Among Men as a Social
and Political Ideal" (oration delivered at University of Missouri, June 2, 1909), 17.
12. "Liberty in Education," in Educatipnal Reform, 146-47.
13. "The Contemporary American Conception of Equality," 17.
14. "The Aims of the Higher Education," in Educational Reform, 23 7.
15. Ibid., 238.
16. Ibid., 239.
17. Ibid.
18. "The Function of Education in Democratic Society," in Educational Reform, 414.
19. ''The Aims of the Higher Education," in Educational Reform, 240-41, 249.

JU
DIVERSITY AND RACE:
SOME TURN-OF-THE-CENTURY DILEMMAS

20. Oscar Handlin, Boston's Immigrants, rev. ed. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press, 1959), 185 (quoting the Boston American, Oct. 21, 1837, and
Mayor Theodore Lyman of Boston).
21. Ibid., 144-45.
22. Ibid., 206.

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23. Ibid., 226.
24. Ibid.
25. "The Contemporary American Conception of Equality," 19.
26. Ibid., 22.
27. Stephan Therns~rom, "Poor but Hopefull Scholars," in Glimpses of the Ha:rvard
. Past (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1986), 126.
28. Ibid., 127.
29. Ibid., 126,128.
30. The Education ofHenry Adams, ch. IV.
31. "College Is Like the World," in The Harvard Book, rev. ed. William Bentinck~
Smith (Cambridge, Mass.: Harwrd University Press, 1986), 284.
32. Ibid., 284-85.
33. "The Field and Function of the Private Negro College!' (1933) in The
Education ofBlack People, ed. Herbert Aptheker (Amherst; Mass.: University of
Massachusetts Preas, 1973), 89.
34. Ibid.

IV
SOME TWENTIETH CENTURY CHALLENGES:
STRUCTURES, ADMISSIONS, AND TESTS
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.

Report of the President to the Board of Overseers 1927-28, 10.
Ibid., 13.
Ibid., 14.
Report of the President to the Board of Overseers 1936-37, 19.
"Harvard Lies at the End of the Subway,w in The Harvard Book (1986), 294-95.
Ibid., 295.
Report of the President to the Board of Overseers 1950-51, 15.
Ibid.
Nicholas Lemann, '1The Structure of Success in America," Atlantic Monthly,
Aug. 1995, and "The Great Sorting," .Atlantic Monthly, Sept. 1995.
·
44. Faculty of Arts and Sciences Admission and Scholarship Committee Report
[hereinafter Admission Committee Report] 1960-61, Official Register of
Harvard University, vol. LIX, no. 26, 197.
45. Admission Committee Report 1963-64, Official Register of Harvard
University, vol. Llm, no. 27, 91.
46. Admission Committee Report 1964-65, Official Register of Harvard
· University, vol. LXIII, no. 29, 102.
.
47. Admission Committee Report 1966-67, Official Register of Harvard
University, vol. LXV, no. 25, 114.
48 .. admission Committee Report 1963-64, 92.
49. Admission Committee Report 1964-65, 100-01.
50. Idea ofa University, discoJlrse VI, sec. 9.

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V

CIVIL RIGHTS LEGISLATION AND THE BAKKE CASE

51. No single opinion represented the views of a majority of the Court, although
brief passages of Justice Powell's pivotal opinion stated the judgment of the
Court on -the key issues in dispute.
52. Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265,. 291 (1978)
(opinion of Powell, J.); see also ibid., 356-62 (opinion of Brennan, J., et al.).
53. Ibid., 320 (opinion of Powell, J.); see also ibid., 356-62 (opinion of Brennan,
J., et al.).
·
54. Ibid., 320; see also ibid., 355-56 (opinion of Brennan, J., et al.).
55. An attempt, for instance, to compensate for previous general "societal discrimination" against minorities was judged by Justice Powell not to be an adequate
reason for giving special consideration to minority candidates in admissions,
because there had been no determination that the University of California at
Davis had itself engaged in discriminatory practices requiring remedial effort.
Ibid., 307-10. Four Justices of the Court--those who along with Justice Powell
formed ·the majority concluding that race could be used· as a "phis factor" in
university admissions-took a different view of the "societal discrimination"
issue. Ibid., 362 (opinion of Brennan, J., et al.) ("remedying the effects of past
societal discrimination is ..• · sufficiently important to justify the use of raceconscious admissions programs where there is a sound basis for concluding that
minority underrepresentation is substantial and chronic, and that the handicap
of past discrimination is impeding access of minorities" to the university).
56. Ibid., 314.
57. Ibid., 312 (quoting 354 U.S. 234,263 (1957)(concurring in result)).
58. Ibid., 312.
59. Ibid., 312 (quoting 385 U.S. 589, 603 (1967)).
60. Ibid., 313.
· 61. Ibid., 312 (quoting Keyishian v. Board of Regents, 385 U.S. 589, 603 (1967)).
62. Ibid., 316.
63. Ibid., 323-24.
64. Ibid., 406.
65. Ibid., 317-18.
66. Ibid., 313.
67. Ibid., 314 (quoting Sweattv. Painter, 339 U.S. 629,634 (1950)).
68. Ibid., 314.
69. Report of the President to the Board o(Overseers 1935-36, 10.

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VI

POSSIBLE FUTURE DIRECTIONS

70. U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Educational Attainment
in the United States: March 1993 and 1992, table 18.
71. National Research Council, Summary Report 1990: Doctorate Recipients from
United States Universities, tables S-1 and S-2; National Research Council,
Summary Report 1993: Doctorate Recipients from United States Universities,
tables A-2 and B-2.
·
72. U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics,
Digest of Educatirm Statistics 1995, tables 266 and 261; Digest of Education
Statistic, 1980, tables 112 and 111. Degrees awarded to nonresident aliens are
not included.
73. For example, see above, part III.2, pp. 14-16.

VII
ADMISSIONS: THE 1990S AND BRYOND

74. On Liberty, pt. II.
75. Jerre Mangione and Ben Morreale, La Storia: Five Centuries of the Italian
American Experience (New York: Harper-Collins, 1992), 209.
·

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It is my sad duty to conclude this report with a list of those among
the active and retired ranks of the University who died during the
calendar years 1993 and 1994. They include Paul Codman Cabot,
Treasurer of Harvard College from 1948 to 1965, who died on
September 1, 1994, at the age of 95; Albert Lindsay Nickerson,
Overseer from 1959 to 1965 and Fellow of Harvard College from
1965 to.1975, who died on August 7, 1994, at the age of 83; and
four other former Overseers: R. Ammi Cutter, Overseer from 1966
to 1972 who died on November 28, 1993, at the age of 91; Arthur
Theodore Lyman, Overseer from 1979 to 1985, who died on July
1, 1993, at the age of 73; Lewis Thomas, Overseer from 1976 to
1982, who died on December 3, 1993, at the age of80; and Jerome
B. Wiesner, Overseer from 1987 to 1993, who died on October
21, 1994, at the age of 79. Harvard was honored by the distinguished service of these former members of its governing boards,
and by that of the men and women named in the pages that follow.

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Necrology
)AMES LUTHER ADAMS, Edward Mallinckrodt, Jr. Professor of Divinity, Emeritus,
died on July 26, 1994, at the age of 92. An expert on social ethics and a leading
Unitarian scholar, Professor Adams began teaching at Harvard Divinity School in
1956. He lectured on religious issues in law, economics, and civic affairs, and was
co-.director of a Harvard Busiaess School seminar on religion and public-policy
decision making. He was keenly interested in issues lying at the intersection of religion, public policy, and social responsibility. Born in Ritzville, Washington, he
earned his bachelor's degree from the University of Minnesota in 1924, his master's
degree from Harvard in 1930, and his doctorate from the University of Chicago in
1947. He taught at Meadville Theological School in Chicago for 20 years before
joining the Harvard faculty. After retiring from Harvard in 1968, Professor Adams
began four years as Distinguished Professor of Social Ethics at Andover Newton
Theological School. An authority on the philosopher and theologian Paul Tillich,
he was the author of Paul Tillich's Philosophy of Culture, Science, and Religion. His
many other writings include An Examined Faith: Social Context and Religious
Commitment. He was editor of the Journal qf Liberal Religion, Faith and Freedom,
The Christian Register, and the .Journal ofLiberal Ministry. He served as president of
the American Society for Christian Ethics, president of the Society for the
Scientific Study of Religion, and chairman of the Massachusetts Civil Liberties
Union's committee on church and state. After his ordination to the Unitarian ministry, he was a minister at churches in Massachusetts from 1927 to 1935.
HENRY FREEMAN ALLEN, Henry Willard Williams Clinical Professor of
Ophthalmology, Emeritus, died on December 23, 1993, at the age of 77. Born in
Boston, he graduated from Harvard College in 1939 and· from Harvard l\1edical
School in 1943. A sixth-generation surgeon, he was a descendant of the Warren
family, whose members helped found the Medical School and the Massachusetts
General Hospital. Following service in World War II as a captain in the Army
Medical Corps in Germany, Dr. Allen did his residency in ophthalmology at the
Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary. He was chief of ophthalmology there from
1968. to 1973. President of the Channing Home from 1956 to 1962, Dr. Allen
helped. to establish the Channing Laboratory, the William Ellery Channing
Pfofessorship, and the Harriet Ryan Albee Professorship at the Medical School. He
volunteered his surgical services at the Binder-Schweitzer Hospital in Pucalpa,
Peru, as well as in Haiti, Saudi Arabia, and the Sioux. Indian Nation in South
Dakota. He was a trustee of the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, the
Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown, and the Massachusetts Eye and Ear

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Infirmary. For 25 years Dr. Allen directed the Lancaster course in ophthalmology
at Colby College, which drew faculty from across the United States to teach medical residents from all over the world, His Harvard appointments included Assistant
Clinical Professor of Ophthalmology (1957), Associate Clinical Professor of
Ophthalmology (1965), Clinical Professor (1968) and the Williams Clinical
Professorship of Ophthalmology (1970).

HENRY B. ARTHUR, George M. Moffett Professor of Agriculture and Business,
EmtJritus, died May 16, 1993, at the age of 89. Born in Gloversville, New York, he
graduated from Union College in 1926. He received master's and doctoral degrees
in economics from Harvard in 1931 and 1935, and began a long career as an econo~
mist in industry and government. He served as chief of the Marshall Plan Program
Review in Paris, and was a member of the Wage Stabilization Board during the
Korean War. He joined the Harvard Business School faculty in 1960 to become the
first Moffett Professor of Agriculture and Business. Professor Arthur analyzed
management and training programs 'in India and Central America, and lectured
throughout the world. After his retirement in 1970 he wrote on business ethics and
developed the first course on the subject at Harvard's Extension School, where
taught from 1984 to 1990. The Henry B. Arthur Fund for Business Ethics was
established at the Business School in 1987, and the school awarded him its
Distinguished Service Award in 1992.

he

WILLIAM BENTINCK-SMITH, Honorary Curator of Type Specimens and Letter
Design in the Harvard College Library, died on Janua1y 19, 1993, three days befon:
his 79th birthday. Mr. Bentinck-Smith served as an administrative officer for more
than forty years under Harvard presidents Conant, Pusey, and Bok, and was later an
active member of the University Library Visiting Committee. After graduating from
Harvard College in 1937, he earned his M.S. in journalism from Columbia University
in 1938 and became a reporter for the Boston Globe. In 1940 he was named managing
editor of the Harvard Alumni Bulletin (now Haroard Magazine). After three years of
decorated service in the Navy during World Ww: II, he returned to the Bulletin as its
editor. From 1954 to 1971 he served as assistant to President Nathan M. Pusey, and
from 1957 to 1964 was also editor of Harvard Today. He subsequently became an
associate in the Office of the Secretary to the University, working with the governing
boards. An authority on Harvard history, Mr. Bentinck-Smith was also the Library's
resident expert on type design. Among his. historical works are Building ,1 Great
Library: The Coolidge Years (1976) and Haroar:d University History of Named Chairs
(Vol. I, 1991). He was editor of The Haruard Book (1953, revised 1982), an anthology
of writings about the College and its history, and of More Lives of Harvard Scholars
(1986), a collection of memorial minutes. His interest in typography was sparked by
his friendship with Philip Hofer (1898-1984), founder and curator of the College
Library's Department of Printing and Graphic Arts. Mr. Bentinck-Smith gave much
of his time to volunteer activities at Ilai.vard and elsewhere. He served as secretary of
his College class, secretary of the Charity of Edward Hopkins, a director of the
Associated Harvard Alumni, and president of the Signet Associates. In 1987 he was
awarded the Harvard Medal for his services to the University.

66

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BrGNAMI, Professor of Pathology (Neuropathology), died on August 5, 1994,
at the age of 64. A Harvard Medical School professor since 1976, Dr. Bignami was
internationally known for his contributions to the understanding of brain and spinal
cord degeneration and regeneration. For fourteen years he was associate chief of staff
for research and development at the Brockton/West Roxbury Veterans
Administration Medical Center. Born in Montreux, Switzerland, he graduated from
Italy's lnstituto M. Massimo and earned his medical degree at the University of
Rome. He came to the United States in 1969 and served as Associate Professor of
Pathology at Stanford University. The author of more than 200 scientific papers, he
was noted for his explication of the pathnlogical mechanisms involved in diseases of
the central nervous system, including Jakob-Creutzfeldt disease.
AMICO

WALTER FRANCIS BoGNER, Professor uf Architecture, Emeritus, died on June 16,
1993, at the age of 93. Born in Providence and educated in Europe, he studied
architecture in Austria and at Harvard. In 1925 he won the Rotch Traveling
Fellowship in architecture and spent two years traveling and studying in Europe as
a visiting fellow at the American Academy in Rome. He began teaching at the
Harvard Graduate School of Design in 1927, became a full professor in 1946, and
retired in 1966. Professor Bogner used his Third Year Design studios to develop
research programs on postwar problems of housing and school facilities. He wrote
urban design manuals, several books on school design, and master planning studies
for Boston, Milwaukee, and San Francisco. In 1951 he served as consultant to the
German Ministry of Housing for the rebuilding of eleven German cities under the
Marshall Plan. Throughout his career he maintained a private practice in
Cambridge, designing schools, hospitals, and private homes in New England. His
interest in civic improvement led to the Back Bay Center Project for Boston in
1953. Professor Bogner was a fellow of the American Institute of Architects, a
member of the Boston Society of Architects, and a founder of the AIA teacher
training program through the Association of the Collegiate Schools of
Architecture.
UwE KLAUS BRINKMANN, Associate Professor of International HealthEpidemiology in the Faculty of Public Health, died June 19, 1993, while in
Fortaleza, Brazil, on field research. He was 52. Born in Hamburg, Germany, he
earned a medical degree at the University of Berlin in 1966. He went on to take a
degree in tropical public health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical
Medicine in 1970 and a doctorate in epidemiology and tropical medicine from the
University of Hamburg in 1981. Dr. Brinkmann attained world stature as a teacher
in epidemiology at the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Hamburg from 1974 to
1982, and at the Institute for Tropical Hygiene at Heidelberg. He did much
research in developing countries, and served residencies in Togo, Ghana, Ethiopia,
Liberia, Burkina Faso, Guatemala, Mali, and Thailand. During the 1980s he taught
postgraduate courses throughout Europe. He published nearly one hundred scientific papers on tropical diseases, and was an expert on the impact of malaria on
Africa and the transmission of the AIDS virus in Thailand. In 1990 he joined the
Harvard School of Public Health faculty in the departments of Epidemiology,

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Population and International Health, and Tropical Public Health. He led an inter,disciplinary group studying the emergence .of new infectious diseases as a result of
· changes in the global environment, human settlement, and human behavior.
DooGLAS WALLACE BRYANT, Professor of Bibliography ·and Librarian, Emeritus,.
and former Director of the University Library, died on June 12, 1994, at the age of
80. Professor Bryant's pioneering work in computerization and resource sharing
helped transform library management. Born in Boston, he earned his bachelor's
degree from Stanford University and his master's· degree in library science from the
University of Michigan. He joined Harvard's library staff in 1952, after serving as .
director of U.S. Information Service libraries at the American Embassy in London;
He became University Librarian in 1964 and was appointed director of the library
system in 1972. He was named Professor of Bibliography that same year. AB director of Harvard's library system he oversaw the establishment of .ten new library.
buildings, including the Countway Library of Medicine aQ.d Pusey Library. Under
his leadership the Harvard collections grew from 7.25 million to 10 million. volumes. He was instrumental in establishing the N~tional Union Catalog of all publications produced in the United States, and in creating a computer-based catalog of
works to be made freely available to scholars. This later became a national consortium called the Research Libraries Group. He was honored in 1973 with the establishment of the Douglas W.Bryant Fellowship program, awarded annually to
promote s~olarly research by Harvard library staff. After retiring from Harvard in·
1979, Professor Bryant became executive director of the American Trust for the
British Library; from 1990 to 1994 he served as its president. Over the course of his
career he had many significant professional associations with UNESCO, the
International Federation of Library Associations, the Center for Research Libraries,
the Ford Foundation, and the London School of Economics.
FRANK MoRTON CARPENTER, Fisher Professor of Natural History, Emeritus, and
Al!')Cander Agassiz Professor of Zoology, Emeritus, died on January 18, 1994, at the
age of 91. A renowned specialist in the evolution of insects, he performed studies of
the structures of living and fossil insects that helped reconstruct the past 25 0 million years of insect life. His life's work, titled Superclau Hexapoda, was published by
the Geological Society of America in 1992. It is regarded as the first comprehensive
work of its kind, covering all the known history of fossil insects. He was also a coauthor of The Classification efInsects, published in 1954. Born in Boston, he began··
his ·affiliation.with Harvard at the age of sixteen, when he joined the Cambridge
Entomological Club. He graduated from Harvard College in 1926 and remained at
the University to earn his master's·and doctoral degrees. He held appointments at
Harvard for more than 45 years, becoming· Agassiz Professor of Zoology in 1945 ·
and Fisher Professor of Natural History in 1969. He served as curator of fossil
insects in the Museum of·Comparative Zoology from 1936 until his retirement in
1973; and was chairman of the biology department in the 1950s. He also served as.
acting associate dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, as acting director of the University Extension program, !lnd as president of the Harvard chapter of
Phi Beta Kappa. For nearly 30 years he was managing editor of the entomological

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journal Psyche. In 1993 Professor Carpenter received the Thomas Say Award from
the Entomological Society of America in recognition of his lifelong contributions
to the study of insects. He was awarded the Paleontological Society Medal in 1975,
and was an honorary fellow of the Royal Entomological Society.
HoLLIS BURNLEY CHENERY, Thomas D. Cabot Professor of Economics, Emeritus,
died on September 1, 1994, at the age of 76. An expert on international economics,
he served as vice president for development policy at the W odd Bank between terms
as Professor of Economics at Harvard. He was Professor of Economics from 1965 to
1972 and Cabot Professor from 1982 to 1988. During his tenure at Harvard he was
associated with the Ha1vard Development Advisory Service, which later became the
Harvard Institute for International Development. Born in Richmond, Virginia, he
earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics from the University of Arizona in 1939
and a second bachelor's degree in engineering from the University of Oklahoma in
1942. He worked as an engineer for gas and oil companies before entering the Air
Force in 1942 and rising to the rank of captain. After World War H he earned a
master's degree in economics from the University of Virginia and a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard. From 1949 to 1953 he worked as an economist with the U.S.
Economic Cooperation Administration, directing economic analysis programs in
Paris, Rome, and Ankara. He was a profos~or of economics at Stanford University
from 1952 to 1961, and served as co-director of Stanford's Research Center for
Economic Growth. He was a Guggenheim Fellow in 1961. In that year he joined
the United States Agency for International Development, where he rose to become
an assistant administrator. He was the author or co-author of several publications,
including Structural Change and Development Policy; Patterns of Development, 19501970; and Arabian Oil: America's Stake in the Middle East.
DAVID GLENDENNING CooAN, Henry Willard Williams Professor of
Ophthalmology, Emeritus, died September 9, 1993, at the age of 85. Born in Fall
River, Massachusetts, Dr. Cogan graduated from Dartmouth College in 1929 and
1 earned his medical degree at Harvard Medical School. He completed his residency
in ophthalmology at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, where he later
became director of the ophthalmic laboratories and director of the eye pathology
department. Dr. Cogan's first appointment at Harvard Medical School began in
1935; from 1943 to 1973 he was director of its Howe Laboratory of
Ophthalmology. He became Professor of Ophthalmology in 1955, and from 1962
to 1968 he chaired the Department of Ophthalmology. Dr. Cogan was widely recognized as one of the world's leading clinical ophthalmologists and educators. His
textbook Neurology and the Visual System was published in 1966; it remains an
important reference work for ophthalmologists and neurologists. His studies of
atomic bomb victims in Hiroshima and Nagasaki led to significant findings on
cataract development and radiation damage to the eyes. Dr. Cogan retired from
Harvard in 1974 and joined the National Eye Institute in Bethesda, Maryland,
where he was chief of neuro-ophthalmology froin 1974 to 1985 and senior medical
officer from 1985 until his death. He was a founder of the American Ophthalmic
History Society and the recipient of many professional awards, including the

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Procter Medal of the Association for Research in Vision, the Howe Medal of the:
American Ophthalmological Society, and the Gonin Medal of the International·
Council of Ophthalmology.

OLIVER CoPE, Professor of Surgery, Emeritus, died on April 30, 1994, at the age of
91. A Massachusetts General Hospital physician for more than 60 ye~s, Dr. Cope
was the first chief of staff of the Shriners Burns Institute. His wide range of expertise covered endocrinology, treatments for burn victims, diseases of the breast, and.
psychosomatic illness. Born in Germantown; Pennsylvania, he graduated from
Harvard College in 1923 and from Harvard Medical School in 1~28. He began his·
thirty-nine-year affiliation with Harvard Medical School in 1930 as an Assistant in
Surgery, was appointed Professor of Sul'gery in 1963 and assumed emeritus status.
in 1969. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941,Dr. Cope helped develop the.
use of petroleum jelly wraps and intravenous fluids for burn management, which
became the method of treatment used by the U.S. military. At the end of the war·
he turned his attention to the treatment of burned children. In the 1940s Dr. Cope
questioned the routine prescription of radical mastectomies and advoca~d lumpec- ·
tomies combined with radiation and drug therapy. After retiring in 1969, he devoted his time to improving the physical and emotional care of women with breast
c~ncer. Dr. Cope urged medical educators to place more emphasis on the behavioral
sciences and on the mental and emotional aspects of illness. He was the author of
several books, including Management ofthe Coconut Grove Burns at the Massachusetts
General Hospital; The Breast; and Man, Mind and Medicine: The Doctor's Education.
BERNARD DAVID DAVIS, Adele Lehman Professor of Bacteriology and Immunology,

Emeritus, died on January 14, 1994, at the age of 78. Dr. Davis was one of the first
scientists to suggest that penicillin could be used to isolate bacterial mutants. His
groundbreaking research was fundamental in advancing the study of genetics. Born
in Franklin, Massachusetts,· he graduated from Harvard College in 1936 and from·.
the Medical School in 1940. From 1942 to 1954 he worked for the U.S. Public
Health Service, where he headed a tuberculosis research lab. He came to Harvard
Medical School in 1957 to head the department of bacteriology and immunology,
and was appointed to the Lehman Professorship of Bacteria and Immunology in
1962. In the 1970s he published essays in scientific journals and in the lay press on
the relations between science and society. Through op-ed pieces in The Wall Street
Journal and The New York Times he defended the value of scientific research. His .
many awards include the 1989 Hoechst-Roussel Award for his research on antibi-:
otics, and the 1989 Selman A Waksman Award in Microbiology from the National,
Academy of Sciences for his technique in isolating bacterial mutants. He was the
author of Storm Over Biology and a textbook on microbiology, and was a member of
the National Academy of Science and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
RussELL GERARD DAVIS, Professor of Educado~ Emeritus, died April 30, 1993, af
the age of 70. Born and raised in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, he graduated cum laud,..
from Hol:y Cross in 1943. He also attended classes at Dartmouth College. He served._
as a Marine rifleman from 1942 to 1946 and fought in the Peleliu and Okinawa:

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campaigns. His experiences were the basis for his novel Marine at War, which
deglamorizes war and the military. From 1946 to 1951, he taught at the Cranwell
School in Lenox. He began graduate studies in linguistics at Harvard in 1951, but
was called to service as a visiting expert for the Army in Okinawa, Japan, and Korea.
He completed his master's degree in education at Ilarvard in 1953 and his doctorate
in education in 1955. Between 1955 and 1957, he served as a diplomat in Ethiopia
with the U.S. International Cooperation Administration. His experience led to the
publication of two collections of children's stories, Ten Thousand Desert Swords and
The Lion's Whiskers, and a romantic novel, Strangers in .Africa. Between 1957 and
1960, he was an assistant professor of education at Boston College and director of
the Office of Research. In 1962 he organized the Center for Studies in Education
· and Development at Harvard, and in 1967 was named Professor of Education and
Development. He served on the Gardner Commission to Vietnam in 1968, and
from 1968 to 1969 wa.s director of the Peace Corps in East Asia and the Pacific
regions. Professor Davis was also director of a $3 million project to improve education planning in developing nations from 1976 to 1980. His activities at Harvard
were interdisciplinary; he joined the Center for Population Studies in the School of
Public Health in 1969 and the Harvard Institute for International Development in
1974. Professor Davis retired in 1989. He was a fellow of the American Academy of
Sciences and a member of several professional organizations.
CHARLES WILLIAM EuoT II, former Charles Eliot Professor of Landscape
Architecture and Professor of City and Regional Planning, died March 16, 1993, at
the age of 93. Born in Cambridge, he was the grandson of Charles William Eliot,
· Harvard's president from 1869 to 1909. He attended the Browne and Nichols
School and served in World War 1 in the American Red Cross Ambulance Service
in Italy and in the U.S. Army Field Artillery. He graduated from Harvard College
in 1920 and received a master's degree from the Harvard School of Landscape
Architecture in 1923. A.fter a year of additional study in Europe, he returned to
Boston and drafted plans for Arlington, Bedford, Duxbury, and Yarmouth. He then
went to Washington, D.C., to become city planner and director of the National
Capital Park and Planning Commission. From 1933 to-1943 he was executive officer and director of the National Resources Planning Board in the executive office of
the President. When the board was dissolved.in 1943, he went to California as
director of the Haynes Foundation. In the early 1950s he returned to Harvard,
where he was appointed Charles Eliot Professor of Landscape Architecture. The
chair is named for his uncle, a landscape artist who worked with Frederick Law
Olmsted to develop the Boston park system. Professor Eliot retired from the
School of Design in 1966 and became a planning consllltant. He served on the
boards of numerous organizations, including the National Parks Association, the
National Symphony Orchestra, the American Society of Planning Officials, and the
Metropolitan Area Planning Council.
KENDALL EMERSON, JR., Professor of Medicine, Emeritus, died April 20, 1993, at
the age of 86. Born in Worcester, Dr. Emerson was a 1929 graduate of Yale
University and 1933 graduate of Harvard Medical School. After an internship at

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Harvard University
Presbyterian Hospital in New York City, he became a research fellow in the depart~
ment of pharmacology at Johns Hopkins Medical School. Dr. Emerson did his resi. dency in the metabolic'study unit there. From 1939 until 1942 he worked at the
Rockefuller Institute for Medical Research in New York City. As a lieutenant in the
Navy he was stationed in the Pacific during World War II. In 1946 he joined the
department of medicine at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital (now Brigham and
Women's Hospital) as an associate in medicine, He became an assistant professor at
the Medical School in 1949. He subsequently became Associate Clinical Professor
and, in 1967, Clinical Professor of Medicine. From 1960 until 1967 he was a visit:
ing physician to the Boston Lying-In Hospital, where he was chief of medicine
from 1967 until his retirement from the Medical School in 1973. He was later
appointed physician to the University Health Services at Harvard Law School. Dr;
Emerson was a member of the Royal Society of Medicine, the American Society for
Clinical Investigatien, the Federation for Clinical Research, the American Diabetic
Association, the American Clinic.al and Climatological Association, the Endocrine
Society, and the American College of Physicians.
ERIK HoMBURGRR ERIKSON, Professor of Human Development, Emeritus, died on
May 12, 1994, at the age of 91. A psychoanalyst who profoundly reshaped views of
human development, he was best known for his theory that each stage of life, frorri
infancy and early childhood on, is associated with a specific psychological struggle.
that contributes to a major aspect of personality. Born in Frankfurt am Main;
Germany, he graduated from the Vienna Psychoanalytic Institute in 1933 and emigrated to the United States the same year. He became a naturalized citizen in 1939.
From 1933 to 1935 he taught and did research at Harvard Medical School. He then
joined the faculty at Yale University's School of Medicine, and moved to the
University of California at Berkeley in 1939. He returned to Massachusetts in 195i
to b~come associated with the Austen Riggs Center in Stockbridge. In 1960 he
rejoined the Harvard faculty as Professor of Human Development. He retired in
1970, but was Godkin Lecturer at Harvard in 1972, He was the author of many
books, including Childhood and Society (1950), the first of several books exploring
the development of human personality and ways in which various societies deal with
stages of the life cycle. Another book, Gandhi's Truth, won the National Book
Award in philosophy and science, the Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction, and the
Melcher Award of the Unitarian Univetsalist Association. Professor Erikson was a
trustee of Radcliffe College and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and
Sciences; a member emeritus of the National Academy of Education; a life member
of the American Psychoanalytic Association; an ·honorary member of Phl Beta
Kappa; and a member of the Cambridge Science Club and the Signet Society.
HowARD BARRACLOUGH FELL, Professor of Invertebrate Zoology, Emeritus, died
on April 21, 1994, at the age of 76. He joined the Harvard faculty in 1964, became
P~ofessor of Invertebrate Zoology in 1965, and served as curator of invertebrate
zoology at the Museum of Comparative Zoology. His research focused on cvolu~
tion, general problems of marine biogeography, biology of deep-sea bottom faunae,
and systematics, morphology and paleontology of the Echinodermata. Born iri

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Lewes, England, he earned his hachelor's and master's degrees from the University
of New Zealand, and his doctorate in zoology from the University of Edinburgh.
He taught at the University of Victoria in New Zealand before coming to Harvard.
His honors included the Hector Medal and Prize and the Hutton Medal.
FRANK BuRT FREIDEL, JR., Charles Warren Professor of American History,
Emeritus, died January 25, 1993, at the age of 76. Born in Brooklyn, New York, he
received his bachelor's degree from the University of Southern California in 1937.
He earned his master's degree in 1939 and his doctorate in-1942 from the
University of Wisconsin. After teaching at several colleges he came to Harvard in
1955 as a full professor. He was appointe,1 Charles Warren Professor of American
History in 1972. In 1981 he retired from Harvard, and served as Bullitt Professor of
History at the University of Washington in Seattle until 1986. Professor Freidel
wrote twelve books and was co-author or editor of several more. Having come of
age in the Depression, he was an admirer of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, about
whom he published six books 11w.l was writing a seventh at the time of his death.
The seventh book was to have been a short biography of Roosc:velt for college use.
Among his other works were Splendid Little War, a pictorial history of the SpanishAmerican War; America in the Twentieth Century; and the two-volume A History of
the United States. Professor Freidel was a past president of the Organization of
American Historians, and a member of the New England History Teachers'
Association, the Massachusetts Historical Society, the Sm1thern Historical
Association, and the Colonial Society. He was :l fellow of the American Academy
of Arts and Sciences, and a member of the American Historical Association and the
American Antiquarian Society.
DANIEL HERTZ FuNKENSTEIN, Professor of Psychiatry, Emeritus, died on January 28,
1994, at the age of 83. Born in Atlanta, he attended the University of Georgia and
received his medical degree from Tulane University in 1934. He was briefly in priYate
practice before volunteering as a flight surgeon in the Army Air Corps. His four years
of service in World War II brought him decorations that included the Silver Star and
Bronze .Star. In 1946 he moved to Boston and retrained in psychiatry at the
Massachusetts Mental Health Center, where he later served as director of education
and research. He was also director of research for the Harvard University Health
Services. He held appointments in the Harvard Medical School from 1946 until his
retirement in 1976. He served on the school's admissions committee from 1952 until
1976, and contributed to the development of the combined M.D.-Ph.D. program for
Harvard and MIT. After retiring, he was chief of staff at the Brockton Veterans'
Administration Medical Center, where he had been a consultant for 30 .years. Dr.
Funkenstein was the author of numerous articles and two books in the areas of psychophysiology and .medical education. He also had a private psychiatry practice,
· which included counseling students interested in medical careers. He was an active
member of the American Psychiatric Association for more than two decades.
PARK SPEARIN GERALD, Professor of Pediatrics, Emeritus, died July 9, 1993, at the
age of 72. Dr. Gerald was born in Omaha and graduated in 1943 from Iowa State

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College. He took his medical degree from Creighton University School of Medicine,
Omaha, in 1947. He received training in cytogenetics in the Galton Laboratory of
London's University College, where he was an honnrary research assistant. In 1959,
after service in the Army Medical Corps, he became a clinical fellow and resident at
Children's Hospital Medical Center. There he developd the clinical genetics unit,·
and served as its chief. He also taught pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. His
research into genetic disturbances and birth defects· led to the authorship of more
than a hundred scientific papers and seats on tlie editorial boards of the New
England Journal ofMedicine and other leading medical journals, After his' retirement
in 1991, Dr. Gerald was active in the Boston Computer Society.
ERWIN NATHANIEL GRISWOLD, Laagdell Professor of Law, Emeritus, died on
November 19, 1994, at the age of 90. Dean of Harvard Law School for 21 years,
Professor Griswold also served as solicitor general of the United States under two
presidents. Born in East Cleveland, Ohio, he earned his bachelor's and master's
degrees from Oberlin College before entering Harvard Law School, where he
received his LL.B. in 1928 and a doctorate the next year. After gradu~ting he served
as special assistant to the attorney general in Washington. He returned to Harvard as.
an assistant professor in 1934, and became Professor of Law the following year. He
was appointed to the Charles Stebbins Fairchild chair in law and became dean in
1946. Under his leadership the Law School developed its International Legal Studies
Program and International Tai:: Program. He doubled the size of the faculty without
appreciably increasing the size of the student body, ancl oversaw the enrollment of
the first women students in 1950. Professor Griswold left Harvard to serve as solicitor general under· Presidents Johnson and Nixon. He served on the U.S. Civil Rights
Commission and was an expert witness for Thurgood Marshall in cases that laid the
foundation for the Supreme Court's desegregation order in Brown v. Board of
Education. ]n 1979 the Law School dedicated Griswold Hall in honor of his contributions; Professor Griswold held leadership positions in many organizations, and
was a trustee of Oberlin College and the Harvard Law Review Association,
HARRIET LouISE HARDY, Clinical Professor of Occnpational Health in the
Department of Preventive Medicine, Emerita, died October 13, 1993, at the age of
87. Born in Arlington, Dr. Hardy graduated from Wellesley College in 1928 and
earneJ her medical degree at Cornell University Medical School in 1932. She began
her medical career as physician at the Northfield School in western Massachusetts;
in 1939 she became college physician at Radcliffe College. Thro,;ghout her career
Dr. Hardy fought against diseases caused by occupational exposure to dangerous·
substances. In the 1940s she identifieq beryllium as the source of an often fatal respiratory illness contracted by workers in plants manufacturing fluorescent lamps.
She also worked with the Atomic Energy Commission to study hazards of nuclear
energy. Dr. Hardy established an occupational medicine clinic at Massachusetts
General Hospital in 1947, and she was its director until her retirement in 1971. She
also established the National Beryllium Registry, a unit that became a model for
tracking occupational hazards and establishing guidelines for their control. She led
the Occupational Medic.al Service at MIT for more than twenty years and was an

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advisor on safety considerations relating to the institute's first nuclear reactor. In
1971 she was named clinical professor in the Harvard Medical School's Department
of Medicine-the first woman appointed to a full professorship at the school. Dr.
Hardy published her memoirs, Challenging Man-Made Disease, in 1983. Among her
awards were the American Medical Women's Association's Medical Woman of the
Year, the Award of.Merit of the American Academy of Occupational Medicine, the
Alice Hamilton Award of the New York Academy of Science, and awards from the
American Public Health Association.
EMARY HARKEN, Clinical Professor of Surgery, Emeritus, died August 27,
1993, at the age of 83. Born in Osceola, Iowa, Dr. Harken earned his bachelor's
and medical degrees at Harvard, trained at Bellevue Hospital in New York City,
and then went to London on a New York Academy of Medicine fellowship. During
World War II he remained in London, served with the Army Medical Corps, and
did pioneering work in cardiac surgery. He is recognized as the first surgeon to have
had repeated success in wartime heart surgery: he , emoved bullets and shrapnel
from the hearts of about 130 wounded soldiers without a sing!t fatality. Dr. Harken
taught at Tufts University for two years and then came to Harvard, where he taught
and practiced from 1948 to 1970. He was chief of thoracic surgery at Peter Bent
Brigham Hospital, now Brigham and Women's Hospital, and held a parallel post at
Mt. Auburn Hospital in Cambridge. In 1951 he opened the world's first intensive
care unit at the Brigham; he later opened a second unit, which was named for him,
at Mt. Auburn Hospital. In the 1960s Dr. Harken and his colleagues developed the
first pacemaker, artificial valves, and other devices to help imperfect hearts function
normally. Dr. Harken also addressed the e.motional concerns of his patients and
gathered four of his cardiac patients to form a support group. That effort grew into
J\,lcnded Hearts, an international organization with tens of thousands of members.
Dr. Harken also helped found Action on Smoking and Health, Heart House, and
the American Board of Thoracic Surgery. He wrote or edited more than two hundred scientific articles and several books, and served on the boards of eight journals.
Dr. Harken was a former president of the American College of Cardiology and the
Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation.
DWIGHT

ErnAR lNGVALD HAUGEN, Victor S. Thomas Professor of Scandinavian and
Linguistics, Emeritus, died on June 20, 1994, at the age of 88. H~ was born to
Norwegian immigrant parents in Sioux City, Iowa. His interest in Scandinavian
culture began in boyhood, during a two-year visit to his parents' home town of
Opdal in central Norway. He earned his bachelor's degree from St. Olaf College
and his master's and Ph.D. degrees from the University of.Illinois. He taught
Scandinavian languages at the University of Wisconsin for 29 years before joining
the Harvard faculty in 1960. He retired in 1975. His work tq promote the study
and understanding of Scandinavian culture in the United States earned him the
Order of St. Olaf, First Class, the highest honor bestowed by the Norwegian
Government. He. was also honored by Sweden, which name~ him a commander of
the North Star. He lectured at various universities iri the United States, Europe,
andJapan, and was the author of many books, dictionaries, and biographies.

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RICHARD JULIUS HERRNSTEIN, Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology, died on
September 13, 1994, at the age of 64. He was an experimental psychologist whose
theories on the inheritance ofintelligence and criminal behavior catalyzed a national
debate. Born in New York City, he graduated from City College of New York in
1952 and earned his doctorate at Harvard in 1955. He conducted research at the
Walter Reed Army Institute of Research and was a lecturer in psychology and a
research associate at the University of Maryland before joining the Harvard faculty
in 1958. Professor Herrnstein taught psychology for 36 years at Harvard. After serv~
ing as Associate Professor of Psychology and director of the Psychological
Laboratories, he became chairman of the Department of Psychology, a position he
held until 1971. He was appointed Professor of Psychology in 1967. He served on
many departmental and University committees, including the Harvard-Radcliffe
Admissions Committee, the Advisory Committee on Honorary Degrees, and the
Committee on the Use of Human Subjects in Research. Professor Herrnstei11's controversial article L Q., published in the September 1971 issue of The Atlantic Monthly,
contended that I.Q is largely inherited and cannot be significantly enhanced by
social programs. His 1973 book IQ and Meritocracy spurred a debate on the merits of
I.Q testing. He was also co-author of Crime and Human Nature and of The Bell
Curve: Intelligmce and Class Structim in American Life, published shortly after his
death. He was a Guggenheim Fellow, a Sloan Foundation Fellow, a Russell Sage
Foundation Fellow, and a recipient of the Lewis P. and Linda L. Geyser Prize.
PETER H&ss, Professor of Cellular and Molecular Physiology, died March 4, 1993,
at the age of 41. Born in Swit7.erland in 1951, Dr. Hess earned his medical degree
in 1979 from the University of Bern, Switzerland. A biophysicist, he was best
known for his rese,u·cl1 on ion channels in nerve and cardiac muscle cells. He was·
appointed a faculty member at Harrard Medical School in 1986 and became a full
professor in 1992. Dr. Hess was an active promoter of the School's M.D.-Ph.D:
program, and he served on the program's admissions committee for six years. An
accomplished violinist, he often performed at Medical School events.
·
THORKILD JACOBSEN, Professor of Assyriology, Emeritus, died on J\1ay 2, 1993, at
the age of 88. Born and schooled in Denmark, he came to America in 1927 on a
$1,000 fellowship offered by the University of Chicago. After completing his doc~
torate he directed the 1930 excavation of the 2,600-year-old Sennacherib aqueduct
at Jerwan, Iraq, which was the world's oldest known aqueduct at the time. In 1950
he helped unearth Sumerian clay tablets and translate cuneiform compositions writ~
ten 3,800 years earlier. His team also discovered a 6,000-year-old irrigation canal·
that paralleled the Euphrates River. He became professor of Assyriology at Harvard
in 1962, and retired in 1974. He dedicated his life to deciphering poetry and religious writings composed in Sumerian, a 3,000-year-old Mesopotamian language
with no known precursor or offspring. He compiled dictionaries, explicated ancient
hymns, poems, and epics, and edited professional journals induding Sennacherib's
Aqueduct at Jerwan, 8111,w·i(ln Poetry in Trandatian, 1],e Asryrian Dictionaty of the
Oriental Institute, and The journal of .Cuneiform Studies. Professor Jacobsen was a

member of the Royal Danish Academy of the Arts and Sciences, the American

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Philosophical Society, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciem;es. He retired
as president of the American Oriental Society only days before his death. His fifteen fellowships and dozen positions included a fellowship at the National
Humanities Center and a visiting professorship at the University of London.
WILLIAM DOUGLAS KAPLAN, Professor of Radiology, died on March 30, 1994, at
the age of 56. He was chief of oncologic nuclear medicine at the Dana-Farber
Cancer Institute for more than 15 years and was credited with popularizing the use
of nuclear medicine to trace the lymphatic system in preparation for radiation therapy. He was also widely known for his contributions to brain tumor imaging. Born in
Washington, D.C., he graduated from the University of Maryland and the
University of Maryland School of Medicine. After an internship in internal medicine
and a residency in diagnostic radio!Ob'Y at Washington Hospital Center, he completed his training in nuclear medicine at Peter Bent Brigham and Children's Hospital
in Boston. He began his twenty-three-year affiliation with Harvard Medical School
in 1971 as a Clinical Fellow in Radiology and became Professor of Radiology in
1992. Deeply concerned about the education of nuclear medicine technologists, Dr.
Kaplan worked with the training program at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy
and Allied Health Sciences. He bequeathed to the program his collection of nuclear
medicine journals. He was a fellow of the American College of Nuclear Physicians
and a member of many advisory boards and committees.
ROGER THOMSON KELLEHER, Professor of Psychobiology in the Department of
Psychiatry, died on May 19, 1994, at the age of 67. He was a pharmacologist internationally recognized for basic scientific studies on drugs used to modify behavior.
Born in New Haven, Connecticut, he was a 1950 graduate of the University of
Connecticut. He received his Ph.D. in experimental psychology from New York
University in 1955. At the Yerkes Laboratories of Primate Biology in Florida he
developed a primate research program based on the behavioral principles advanced
by the late B.F. Skinner. In 1957 he conducted research on chlorpromazine and
other antischizophrenic drugs at Smith, Kline and French Laboratories. He joined
the Department of Pharmacology at Harvard Medical School in 1961 and was
appointed professor of psychobiology in 1972, when he also became chairman of
the Department of Behavioral Biology at the New England Regional Primate
Research Center. His research was concerned with systematic studies of the effects
of drug abuse in primates, and the influence of behavioral activities on cardiovascular and other physiological functions. He was a fellow of the American Association
for the Advancement of Science and a director of the Society for the Experimental
Analysis of Behavior.
JoHN ARTHUR KIRKPATRICK, JR., Professor of Radiology, died on May 8, 1994, at
the age of 68. Born in Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, he graduated from Franklin and
Marshall College and earned his medical degree in 1949 from Temple University
School of Medicine, where he began his radiology residency after service in the U.S,
Navy. He completed his training at Children's Hospital in Boston and returned to
Philadelphia, where he was director of the radiology program at St. Christopher's

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Ho.spital and a profes"Sor of radiology at Temple University for the next 20 years. In
1974 he returned to Boston to become radiologist-in-chief at Children's.Hospital
and Professor of Radiology at Harvard Medical School. Fellows who trained with
him established the Kirkpatrick Society in his honor in 1991. Children's Hospital
and Harvard Medical School established the John A. Kirkpatrick Professorship in
1994. He was president of the American Roentgen Ray Society, the Society for
Pediatric Radiology, and the International Skeletal Society, and was a member of
the National Academy of Sciences and an honorary member of sixteen medical
societies overseas. He was awarded gold medals from several organizations, including the American College of Radiology and the Society for Pediatric Radiology. He
also received the Waldo E. Nelson Achievement Award from St. Christopher's
Hospital for outstanding contributions to children's health care. He was the author
of108 scientific papers and 43 books and chapters on pediatrics and radiology.
HARVEY LEIBENSTEIN, Andclot Professor of Economics and Population, Emeritus,
died on February 28, 1994, at the age of 71. Professor Leibenstein developed several original economic theories, including the concept ofX-efficiency analysis. Born_
in Russia, raised and educated in Montreal, he earned degrees from Northwestern
and Princeton Universities. He taught economics at Princeton and the University of
California at Berkeley before joining the Harvard faculty in 1966 as a visiting professor of economics. He was appointed to the Andelot Professorship of Economics·
and Population in 1967. He was an active member of Harvard's Hillel community
and an honorary associate of Leverett House. The author of nine books 011 economic theory, he was particularly int.crested in the economic development of low~
income countries and organizational analysis. His 1987 book, Inside the Firm: -Thi
Inefficiencies ef Hierarchy, challenged many established theories of organizational
management. A Guggenheim Fellow, he was also a member of the Institute for
Advanced Study, Princeton ..
HARRY TucHMAN LEVIN, Irving Babbitt Professor of Comparative Literature,
Emeritus, died on May 29, 1994, at the age of 81. Professor Levin was considered a
founder of comparative literature as a discipline and played a central role in the
developm_ent of Harvard's department of comparative literature. Born in
Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1912, he graduated from Haivard College in 1933 anci
began his first teaching appointment at Harvard in 1939 as an instructor in English.
He was an associate of Eliot House and Walter Channing Cabot Fellow in the
Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Named to the Babbitt Professorship of Comparative
Literature in 1960, he assumed emeritus status in 1983. He was a leading authority
on Shakespeare ~d the author of many books, including James Joyce: A Critical
Introduction. Published in 1941, it was considered the first major study on the works.
of Joyce. He received many honorary degrees, including degrees from Oxford
University, the University of Paris-Sorbonne, and the University of St. Andrews.
HAROLD DAVID LEVINE, Clinical Professor of Medicine, Emeritus, died April 8,
1993, at the age of 85. He was a graduate of Brookline (Mass.) High School, a
1929 graduate of Harvard College, and a 1932 graduate of Harvard Medical
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School, where he was elected to the Boylston Medical Society. He interned in
pathology at Beth Israel Hospital, then completed an internship and assistant residency in medicine at Peter Bent .Brigham Hospital (now.Brigham and Women's
Hospital). From 1934 until 1941 Dr. Levine was a general practitioner and surgeon
in Bristol, New Hampshire. He served on the medical staff of Franklin Hospital in
Franklin, New Hampshire, and the Margaret Pillsbury Hospital in Concord, New
Hampshire. During World War II he served with the Arm}'. Medical Corps in
Harvard units at Fort Dix, New Jersey, and in the South Pacific, New Guinea, and
in the Philippines as chief of the Medical Service of the 35th General Hospital. In
1946 he began a cardiac consultation practice in Boston and headed the
Electrocardiographic Laboratory at the Brigham. He worked at Brigham and
Women's for many years and concluded his practice at Deaconess Hospital in 1989.
His Harvard faculty appointments included Assistant Clinical Professor in 1958,
Associate Clinical Professor in 1967, and Clinical Professor from 1973 until his
retirement in 1974. He was president of the Massachusetts chapter of the American
Heart Association.
JAMES JosEPH LINGANE, Professor of Chemistry, Emeritus, died on March 14,
1994, at the age of 84. A specialist in analytical chemistry, he was appointed an
instructor in chemistry at Harvard in 1941. He became Professor of Chemistry in
1952 and assumed emeritus status in 1976. He served as a member of the Board of
Freshman Advisers from 1942 until 1972. Born in St. Paul, Minnesota, he received
his doctorate from the University of Minnesota in 1938. His many awards included
the Gordon Research Conference Award from the American Association for the
Advancement of Science, and the Fisher Award from the American Chemistry
Society. He was a member of the American Chemistry Society, and the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences, and an honorary member of the British Society of
Analytical Chemists.
LYNN HAROLD LOOMIS, Dwight Parker Robinson Professor of Mathematics,
Emeritus, died on June 9, 1994, at the age of 79. Born in Afton, New York, he
graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1937, and earned his master's
degree in 1938 and a Ph.D. in 1942, both from Harvard. He began teaching at
Harvard in 1938 and joined the Society of Fellows as a Junior Fellow the following
year. He was appointed Associate Professor of Mathematics with tenure in 1946,
became Professor of Mathematics in 1956, and assumed emeritus status twentyseven years l~ter. His research, initially in function theory, turned to abstract analysis, and he published a number of articles on the subject, and the book, Abstract
Harmonic Analysis. He was also the author of several texts on calculus. He was a
member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
JEAN MAYER, former Professor of Nutrition and Lecturer in the History of Public
Health, died January 1, 1993, at the age of 72. One of the world's leading nutritionists, he left Harvard in 1976 to assume the presidency of Tufts University. He was
born in Paris and educated at the University of Paris, where he earned two baccalaureate degrees, master's degrees in physics and biology, and a doctor of science degree.

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After service in the French army in World War II, when he was fourteen times decorated, he emigrated to the United States. He received his Ph.D. from Yale University
in 1948 and joined the Harvard faculty in 1950. He became an American citizen in
1957. He was appointed Professor of Nutrition in 1965, and in 1973 was named
Master of Dudley House. As a researcher he was particularly noted for his pioneering
studies of obesity and the regulation of hunger. A founder of the National Council on
Hunger and Malnutrition, he was a consultant to agencies of the United Nations aiid
to three U.S. presidents. In 1969 he organized the White House Conference on
Food, Nutrition, and Health. For his efforts to improve American nutritional st~-dards and alleviate world hunger, he received two presidential awards.
MARIAN WILKINS RoPEs FIELDING, Associate Clinical Professor ·of Medicine,
Emerita, died on December 24, 1994, at the age of 91. A specialist in the_ treatmerit
of arthritis and lupus, she was born in Salem, Massachusetts, and graduated from
.Smith College. She earned a master's degree at MIT before graduating fromJohm
Hopkins Medical School in 1931. She began her sixty-year affiliation with Harvard
Medical School in 1934 as a research fellow, was appointed Associate Clinical
Professor of Medicine in 1962, and assumed emerita status in 1970. Dr. Ropes
Fielding wrote two books on lupus, and articles published in medical journals. She
was a member of the board of directors of the New England Home for the Deaf.
RoBERT OSHER ScHLAIFER, William Ziegler Professor of Business Administration,
Emeritus, died onJuly 24, 1994, at the age of 79. An expert on decision analysis and
managerial economics, Professor Schlaifer was a member of the Business School
faculty from 1948 until his retirement in 1985. Born in Vermillion, South· Dakota,
he graduated from Amherst College and earned his doctorate in ancient history at
Harvard. He was appointed an instructor in history in 1939; in 1943 he served as:a
physics instructor and physicist at Harvard's Underwater Sound Laboratory. He
was the author of several books, including Probability and Statistics far Business
Decisions and Applied Statistical Decision Theories. He had recently completed work
on a computer program called AQP, which is designed to make statistical da1;;l
analysis accessible to the non-expert.
·
NATHAN BILL TALBOT, Charles Wilder Professor of Pediatrics, Emeritus, died on
June 7, 1994, at the age of 84. Art· authority on child development and the preveri:tion of psychological and behavioral disorders in children, Dr. Talbot was chief of
children's service at Massachusetts General Hospital for 15 years. Born in Boston, he
graduated from Harvard College and Harvard Medical School. He specialized in pediatric endocrinology and developed Boston's first pediatric endocrinology clinic and laboratory at Children's Hospital. During World Wru: II he was a member of the task
force that developed optimal life-raft rations for the army and navy. He was appointed
an assistant professor at the Medical School in 1945 and Professor of Pediatrics in
1962. Dr. Talbot wrote extensively on child development and strove to integrate the
social, behavioral, and biological aspects of child health. He was the author of five
books, including Raising Children in Modern America. He was the recipient of the
Mead Johnson and Borden awards from the American Academy of Pediatrics.

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KtRIL TARANOVSKY, Professor of Slav.ic Languages and Literatures, Emeritus, died
January 18, 1993, at the age of 81. He was born in Yuriev, Russia (now Tartu,
Estonia), and grew up in Tartu, St. Petersburg, and Kharkov. In the aftermath of the
Bolshevik revolution and during the ensuing civil war, the Taranovsky family moved
to Yugoslavia, where he graduated from high school and received a law degree from
the University of Belgrade in 1933. He worked briefly translating Russian poetry into
Serbo-Croatian and returneµ. to the w1iversity to earn a degree in Slavic languages in
1936. After teaching at the University of Belgrade for more than two decades, he
came to Harvard as a visiting lecturer in 1958. He taught at the University of
California, Los Angeles, from 1959 to 1963 and then returned to Harvard as
Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures until his retirement in 1981. After
retiring from Harvard, he taught at the University of Wisconsin and at the University
of Belgrade, where he continued his work on the analysis of Russian poetry.
SAMUEL EDMUND THORNE, Charles Stebbins Fairchild Professor of Legal History,
Emeritus, died on April 7, 1994, at the age of 86. An authority on English legal history and common law, Professor Thqme wrote the five-volume work Bracton on the
Laws and Customs of England which serves as the basis for the continuing study of
the relationship between sociopolitical history and the evolution of English common law in the twelfth century. Born in New York, he graduated from City College
in 1927 and Harvard Law School in 1930. After teaching at Northwestern and Yale
universities, he became a professor at Harvard Law School in 1956. He retired in
1978. He was awarded honorary degrees from Yale, Wesleyan, and Cambridge universities, and was a member of the American Historical Society, the American
Society of Legal Historians, and the Guggenheim Foundation.
JOHN GORDON TORREY, Charles Bullard Professor of Forestry, Emeritus, and former
Director of the Harvard Forest, died January 7, 1993, at the age of 71. Born in
Philadelphia, he graduated from Williams College in 1942, and received a master's
degree in 1947 and a Ph.D. in 1950, both from Harvard. He was a captain in the
Army Medical Administration Corps during World War II, serving with the 317th
Station Hospital in Europe from 1943 to 1946. He taught at the University of
California, Berkeley, from 1949 to 1960 and came to Harvard as Professor of Botany
in 1960. He was director of the Maria Moors Cabot Foundation for Botanical
Research from 1966 to 1976, and director of the Harvard Forest in Petersham,
Massachusetts, from 1984 to 1991. He held the Charles Bullard Professorship of
Forestry from 1984 until his retirement in 1991. Professor Torrey studied and conducted research in England, Germany, Scodand, Australia, and the United States.
He published widely, and was a member of, or adviser to, many scientific policy
boards and agencies, serving on the editorial boards of several scientific journals.
DONALD THEODORE TRAUTMAN, Henry Shattuck Professor of Law, died
September 18, 1993, at the age of 69. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, he earned his bachelor's degree in economics at Harvard College in 1946 and his law degree in 1951
from Harvard Law School, where he was case editor of the Harvard Law Review.
After graduation he clerked ·for Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter.

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Appointed Assistant Professor of Law at Harvard Law School in 1953, he became
Professor of Law in 1956. He was named Charles Stebbins Fairchild Professor of
Law in 1980' and Shattuck Professor of Law in 1981. A specialist _in accounting,
choice. of law, and admiralty law especially pertaining to issues of federal jurisdiction, Professor Trautman was co-author of two texts, Materials on Accounting (1959)
and Law efMultistate Problems (1965). He held a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1969.
He was a leader in the .use of computers in legal education and served as faculty
adviser.to the Law School's Education Technology Department. He.had·been pres,
ident, vice president, and editCJrial chairman of the Center for Computer Assisted
Legal Instruction and was a member of the State Department's Advisory
Committee on Private International Law.
JAMES ROLAND WARE, Associate Professor of Chinese, Emeritus, died February 27,
1993, at the age of 91. After receiving bachelor's and master's degrees from the
University of Pennsylvania, he earned his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1932. Professor
Ware joined the Harvard University faculty in 1936 as an assistant professor of
Chinese. He was Associate Professor from 1939 until his retirement in 1968; For
many years he taught literary Chinese and edited many texts used in language class~ .
es. He also translated the sayings of Confucius and Chuang Chou into English.
AMOS NIVEN WILDER, Hollis Professor of Divinity, Emeritus, died May 1, 1993, a;t
the age of 97. Born in Madison, Wisconsin,. he spent much of his boyhood in
China, where his father was American consul in Hong Kong and Shanghai. Afte~
serving in World War I as an ambulance-driver and artillery corporal, he took his
bachelor's degree at Yale University in 1920. He was a Belgian-American Fellow at
the University of Brussels and a divinity student at Mansfield College, Oxford; a:t
Oxford he met Albert Schweitzer and se1ved as his secretary. Wilder completed his
bachelor's degree in divinity at Yale Divinity School in 1924, and received his
Ph.D. in 1933: While finishing his dissertation, he taught at Hamilton College and
then joined the faculty of Andover _Newton Theological School. He taught at the
Chicago Theological Seminary- and the Federated Faculty of the University of
Chicago from 1943 to 1954. Professor Wilder came to Harvard that year as
Professor of New Testament Interpretation at the Divinity School. He was Hollis
Professor of Divinity from 1956 until his retirement in 1963. His scholarly work
reflected the literary interest he shared with his brother, the late Thornton Wilder;°
:He advocated a literary approach to biblical studies, with an emphasis on compara-:
tive literature. Among his many publications are Eschatology and E~hics in the

Teaching efJesus; The Spiritual Aspects of the New Poetry; Early Christian Rhetoric:.
The Language ef the Gospel; The New Voice: Religion, Literature, Hermeneutics; The
Bible and the Literary Critic; and Armageddon Re.visited: A World War I journa(
Professor Wilder was chairman of the Society for the Arts, Religion, and
Contemporary Culture in Chicago.
DONALD WYMAN, Horticulturist, Emeritus, died September 6, 1993, at the age of
89. Born in Templeton, California, he graduated from Pennsylvania State
University and earned his doctorate in ornamental horticulture from Cornell

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University in 1935. I-le was appointed Horticulturist of the Arnold Arboretum in
1936, a position he held until his retirement in 1970. During his career he wrote
approximately' one hundred articles for horticultural magazines in the United
States, Canada, and Great Britain; for 29 years he was editor of Arnoldia, the magazine of the Arnold Arboretum Mr. Wyman also wrote the reference work Wyman's
Gardening Encyclopedia. He earned some of the most prestigious awards in his field,
including the Liberty Hyde Bailey Medal (American Horticultural Society), the
George Robert White Medal (Massachusetts Horticultural Society), and the Veitch
Memorial Gold Me,lal (Royal Horticultural Society of London). He served as president, director, and trustee of the American Horticultural Society and trustee of the
Massachusetts Horticultural Society.
ALONZO SMYTHE YERBY, Professor of Health Services Administration in the
Faculty of Public Health, Emeritus, died on February 16, 1994, at the age of 72: A
distinguished figure in public health at the state, federal, and international levels,
Dr. Yerby was· committed to community welfare. Born in Augusta, Georgia, he
graduated from the University of Chicago and attended Meharry Medical College,
receiving his M.D. in 1946. In 1948, he received a master's degree in public health
from Harvard. He served as director of the Health Insurance Plan of Greater New
York, as department commissioner for medical affairs for the New York State
Department of Welfare, and as executive director of New York City's Department
of Public Welfare. He joined the Harvard School of Public Health in 1966 as
Professor and Chairman of the Department of l lealth Services Administration, and
served as Associate Dean for Community Affairs from 1969 to 1974. After assuming emeritus status at Harvard in 1982, he became Professor of Preventive
Medicine and Biometrics and director of the Division of Health Services
Administration in the School of Medicine, Uniformed St:rvices University of the
Health Sciences in Maryland. In honor of Dr. Yerby' s service, the School of Public
Health established the Alonzo Yerby Public Health Award and Distinguished
Lecture Series. In 1964 he received the City of New York Public Service Award for
Professional Achievement.
Louis ZETZEL, Clinical Professor of Medicine, Emeritus, died on September 13,
1993, a,t the age of 84. Born in Chelsea, Dr. Zetzel graduated from Harvard
College in 1929 and received his medical degree from Harvard Medical School in
1934. After completing his medical training with fellowships in New York and
Philadelphia, he joined the staff at Beth Israel Hospital, where he was chief of gastroenterology from 1956 to 1968. During World War ll he served in the Army
Medical Corps. Dr. Zet7el was an expert on diseases of the digestive tract. From
1936 to 1975 he held appointments at the Harvard Medical School, where he sat
for many years on the admissions committee. He became Clinical Professor of
Medicine in 1967. On his 75th birthday, a visiting professorship in gastroenterology was established in his name at the Medical School. After retiring from Harvard
in 1975, Dr. Zetzel continuecl in privatt, practice; he continued to make house calls
until his retirement in 1986.

83

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Harvard Univer.dty
Special mention is made of the. following members of the Harvard community who
served the University with dedication and-distinction:
Glenn Ewing Behringer, former Associate Clinical Professor of Surgery, who died
on March 10, 1994, at the age of 72; Doris Ruth Bennett, Clinical Instructor of
Pediatrics, who died on April 22, 1994, at the age of 70; Paul Donham, former
Associate Professor of Business Administration, who died on April 15, -1993, at the
age of 78; Robin Michael Evans, Lecturer in Architecture, who ·died on February
19, 1993, at the age of 48; Kenµeth William Haskins, former Senior Lecturer on
Education, who died on December 13, 1994, at the age of71; Ralph Lazzaro, for.:
mer Director of Language Studies in the Divinity-School. and Lecturer on Church
History, who died on September 10, 1994, at the age of 79; Abraham Pollen, fore
mer Assistant Clinical·Professor of Ophthalmology, who died on June 28, 1994, at
the age of 80; Hugo H. Monte:ro, former Senior Lecturer on Romance: Languages
and Literatures, who died on September 17, 1994, at the age of 72; Eugene
Rossitch, Jr., Assistant Professor of Surgery, who died on November 18, 1994, at
the age of 35; Mark A. Saroyan; Assistant Professor of Government, who died on
July 21, 1994 at the age of 34; Julius Silberger, Assistant Clinical Professor of.
Psychiatry, who died on October 31, 1994, at the age of 65; Vincent Solomita, for.:.
mer Assistant Professor of Design, who died· on March 11, 1994, at the age of 73;
Denise Jouasset Strieder, Associate Professor of Pediatrics, who died on October
17, 1994, at the age of 65; George Putnam· Sturgis, former Assistant Clinical
Professor of Medicine, who died on Marc.h 11, 1993, at t4e age of 87; Demetrius
·George Traggis, former Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the Sidney Farber
Cancer Center, who died on May 4, 1994, at the age of77; and Rudolph William
Vollman, Associate Clinical Professor of Surgery, who died on March 26, 1994, at
t~eageof59.

Neil L. Rudenstine
President
January 1_996

Lists_. containing all resignations accepted during the academic· years 1993-94 and
1994-95, all promotions, elections to established chairs, and all appointments with~
out 1imit of time voted during the academic yeais 1993-94 and 1994-95, as well a~
lists of visiting professors and lecturers, are on deposit in th~ office of the Secretary.
to the University, and in the Archives.
·

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