For three years now Harvard has been trying to meet federal standards for a non-discriminatory hiring plan. For three years Harvard has failed--an inability that has not only displeased the government and certain groups inside the University, but which has cost Harvard an estimated $250,000.

About a month-and-a-half ago, one officer in the regional office of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare indicated that Harvard's affirmative action proposal would finally win federal approval. This week, the same reviewer said that the government would neither accept nor reject the University's latest proposal.

Just one day before HEW reviewer Robert Randolph revealed his office's intentions, the University's affirmative action coordinator speculated that Harvard's prominent status in the academic world might be a stumbling block to federal acceptance of the University's five-volume program.

The government may be evaluating Harvard's plan very cautiously, Walter J. Leonard, special assistant to President Bok, said last week, and that may be the cause of the long-overdue federal review of the proposal submitted by the University three months ago.

Ordinarily, HEW response is required--without penalty--to respond to an institution's affirmative action plan within 45 days.

But Randolph said Tuesday that HEW will send the University its long analysis of Harvard's plan within two weeks, and that the letter of findings would request additions and clarifications from the University.

At the same time, Randolph said that HEW would probably accept Harvard's plan by the first of the year if the University continues to move at its present pace.

Randolph suggested that the size of Harvard's plan--1500 pages--has bogged down HEW's analysis.

Leonard said he is "not terribly disturbed" by the government's delay in responding to Harvard's proposal. He too stressed the length of the plan.

But he also thinks that HEW reviewers are being particularly careful that the hiring plan "follows the spirit and the letter of the law."

"Because of Harvard's relative position in the community of academic institutions, many consider the Harvard plan a kind of model," Leonard said.

Changing government regulations as well as deans and department chairmen opposed to government interference in University hiring have hindered Harvard's past attempts to produce an acceptable plan.

Randolph said this week that the latter remain largely responsible for the inadequacy of the Harvard plan. The central administration seems cooperative, he said, but many departments have still failed to supply HEW with documentation of University's "good faith efforts."