Graduating seniors from Harvard and Radcliffe staged an equal admissions demonstration for today's Commencement exercises, making this the third year in succession that Commencement included expressions of student dissent.

About 75 per cent of the Radcliffe Class of 1971 who wore caps and gowns-about 200 altogether-went through with a peaceful protest for equal admissions between Harvard and Radcliffe by pinning silk-screened biological symbols to the backs of their gowns.

Organizers of the protest also furnished 1100 armbands with an equals sign for parents and Harvard seniors sympathetic to their cause. By noon yesterday, less than 100 armbands remained and all were gone by early this morning.

SDS was reportedly planning a separate, disruptive demonstration protesting Harvard's refusal to fill in "Muddy Pond" on University property in Jamaica Plain where two black children drowned in May.

But the University's announcement Monday that it is filling in most of the Pond-to a depth of less than one foot-squelched those plans.

SDS reportedly decided instead to protest the separation from the University of three Harvard students charged with harassing Sargent Kennedy '28, secretary to the Governing Boards, during an earlier demonstration against the pond.

At today's exercise, however, the threatened SDS disruption failed to materialize, and the ceremony came off smoothly.

Elliott L. Richardson '41, secretary of Health, Education and Welfare in the Nixon Administration, and A. Philip Randolph, a civil rights leader and former head of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, headed the list of honorary degree recipients at the 320th Harvard Commencement today.

The University awarded honorary degrees to ten men and two women in the ceremony in Tercentenary Theater. Included in the list were two political-literary figures - one black, one white - from Africa: Leopold Sedhar Senghor, President of Senegal and a widely know poet and essayist, and Alan Paton, South African novelist and outspoken opponent of the policy of apartheid in that country.

Helen Louise Gardner, Merton Professor of English Literature at Oxford University known for her studies of the Metaphysical poets, received the degree of Doctor of Letters, as did Paton and Senghor.

Randolph and Richardson were named Doctors of Laws, as were four men who have played roles in the governance of Harvard. They are: Dr. Dana L. Farnsworth, Oliver Professor of Hygiene and retiring Director of the University Health Services; Henry J. Friendly '23, Federal Judge and - like Richardson - a former member of Harvard's Board of Overseers; R. Keith Kane '22, a New York Attorney and, until last year, Senior Fellow of the Harvard Corporation, and John L. Loeb '24, a New York financier and another former member of the Board of Overseers.

Max Delbruck, professor of Biology at California Institute of Technology who is known for his pioneering work in molecular biology and genetics, received the degree of Doctor of Science. Kenzo Tange, a Japanese architect, was named Doctor of Arts.

And Verna Corinne Johnson - currently administrative assistant to Dean Dunlop, who has served in that capacity for seven deans or acting deans of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences - received the degree of Master of Arts.

Today's ceremony, at which 1066 Harvard and 270 Radcliffe seniors received their degrees, was the second joint Harvard-Radcliffe Commencement. Hundreds of Radcliffe women and Harvard men participated in a peaceful protest asking the University to change its admissions policy to allow enrollment of equal numbers of men and women (See story at right).

Richardson served as Undersecretary of State in the Nixon administration until mid-1970, when he was named head of HEW. He replaced in that post Robert Finch, a close friend of Nixon who moved to the White House to become an adviser to the President. He was frequently mentioned during the fall as a possible candidate for the Harvard Presidency, but some observers felt that his close identification with the Nixon Administration would make him unpalatable to students; also, he lacked the "primary academic commitment" which the Corporation had announced early in the search as a vital criterion for the selection.