The Student-Faculty Advisory Council (SFAC) yesterday debated whether the University should offer courses and teachers with more diverse points of view.

The argument in the Winthrop House Junior Common Room centered on the lack of Marxists in the social science departments here.

"There aren't any Marxists on this Faculty with the exception of three or four lonely and under-paid teaching fellows," said George Ross, teaching fellow in Government. "Why is this true?"

Oscar Handlin, Charles Warren Professor of American History, countered: "The last time I encountered this argument was from William Buckley, who was complaining about the lack of followers of Adam Smith in the economics department at Yale."

Phlogiston

"I read Marx," he continued. "I have been significantly influenced by the Marxist tradition ... But to ask why there are so few Marxists here is to ask why there are no chemists here who teach the phlogiston tradition."

Barrington Moore, lecturer on Sociology, added, "I suspect the practical reason we don't have Marxists here is that they can't get visas."

Merle Fainsod, Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor, attacked those who were pushing for more Marxists:

"I think we can claim considerable diversity in the government department. What you're really asking for is not diversity but homogeneity of your type.

"If you could remake it, the University would sing one song--your song."

Encounter On Marxism

The encounter on Marxism came near the end of a two-hour debate on the role of the University in society. The debate was begun by three representatives from the Seudents for a Democratic Society, who had been invited to appear at the SFAC meeting by the members.

SDS charged Middle South Utilities and its subsidiary Mississippi Power and Light Co. with discriminatory hiring practices.

Frances L. Ansley '69, co-chairman of SDS, read with a mock Southern accent from an interview with a Mississippi Power director. The director admitted that his firm hired very few "colored folks."

Asked how they would change the University's investment policies, the SDS representatives failed to provide specific answers. They stressed that change should come "from below."