The Hillel Society will sponsor a panel discussion on the effect of Federal anti-discrimination programs on the merit system of University hiring at Harvard on Sunday.

Daniel Steiner '54, general counsel to the University, will moderate the four-member panel which will discuss the Department of Health, Education and Welfare's affirmative action program, a system of guidelines for the hiring of women and minorities by institutions with Federal contracts.

"I think that there has been a feeling in general, in parts of the University, that there is a conflict between the notions of affirmative action and meritocracy," Steiner said yesterday.

"This has been a concern to Jewish groups and to other people in the University, and I think the idea in a University community is to open such controversies to public discussion and hold them up to the light to see what they are all about," Steiner said.

Four Participants

Nathan Glazer, professor of Education and Social Structure, Alan Dershowitz, professor of Law, Roger Rosenblatt, assistant professor of English, and Walter Leonard, special assistant to President Bok, will be the four panel members.

The symposium will be held in Emerson Hall 105 Sunday at 3 p.m.