THE Afro-American Studies Department's future is no more certain now than when the Department was founded four years ago. Perhaps it is wrong to greet each new era in the Department's history on a gloomy note--and Afro is on the verge of a new era. But the cynicism and distrust that has always surrounded the Department's development is typical of the troubles of Harvard's black studies program.

The Afro-American Studies Department, created by a Faculty resolution on April 22, 1969, was born when student militancy was at its peak. The Department's novel constitution was a largely unmilitant Faculty's concession to the demands of a highly politicized student body. Since then, the Faculty, generally feeling it had unwisely "given in" to student pressure, has never been fully comfortable with Afro and has never given it full support. Now that the tide of student radicalism has apparently ebbed, the Faculty, under the guidance of a new Dean, Henry Rosovsky, is ready to put the Afro Department into a form more to its liking.

From the very beginning the new concentration's critics claimed Harvard's Afro Department was an unworkable proposition. In 1969 the immediate issue was students voting rights on tenured faculty appointments. Critics suggested that Afro would never attract a top-notch teaching staff because no professor of any stature would subject himself to students' cross-examination.

The presence of students on the Department's executive board remains an issue in the debate, but it has been pushed from the fore-front by charges that the Department is intolerably weak academically due to the mismanagement of Afro chairman Ewart Guinier '33.

Guinier came to Harvard from Columbia's Urban Center in the fall of 1969. He is currently Afro's only tenured member and his direction of the Department has placed him in the middle of a long gathering storm. Presumably, the first step in the Faculty's restructuring effort will be to ease Guinier from power and then replace him.

A preliminary indication that Guinier will not long continue in his capacity as chairman came when the Committee to Review The Department of Afro-American Studies, chaired by Wade McCree, a judge in Detroit, Mich., issued its report to the Faculty in October 1972. Recommendation IIIa of the report was: "The chairmanship of the Department should be on a rotating basis every three or four years in accordance with Harvard practice." The upcoming academic year will be Guinier's fourth as Afro's chairman.

Guinier denounced recommendation IIIa, saying that at Harvard there is no explicit requirement to rotate a Departmental chairmanship and he called the authors of the report "ignorant" of University practice. Guinier said earlier this month that no attempt to remove him is currently in progress.

Guinier's denial of any effort to replace him may be nothing more than wishful thinking. On January 16, 1973 the Faculty voted to form a search committee to find "one or more" additional tenured professors for the Afro faculty. The resolution's sponsor, H. Stuart Hughes, Gurney Professor of History and Political Science, would not say if the intent of his measure was that one of the new faculty members become chairman. But judging from the Review Committee report that prompted the resolution, that was clearly the Faculty's intention.

Recommendation IIIb of the Review Committee's report said that at least two more tenured positions, to be filled by a search committee, should be created. It also recommended that one of the new appointees "take over the chairmanship as early as practicable on the customary rotating basis."

While the Review Committee never called for the naming of a new chairman on any grounds other than "Harvard practice," many detractors of the Department want Guinier removed because they think he is an incompetent administrator.

The most vocal of Guinier's opponents is Martin L. Kilson, professor of Government. Earlier this month Kilson called Guinier "an intellectual and academic disgrace". "Guinier," Kilson added, "is not a scholar at the Harvard level." Another of Guinier's detractors is Orlando Patterson, professor of Sociology Once a member of the Afro faculty, Patterson left the Department in disagreement with the way it was run. In a memo to the Review Committee, Patterson wrote that Guinier "lacks the academic, administrative, and personal qualities for the job of chairman. Not having an academic or intellectual background, he is extremely insecure in his relations with qualified persons, especially any senior or potentially senior person."

Guinier does not remain undefended in the Afro controversy. Derrick A. Bell, professor of Law, said of Guinier that "he has great courage to stick it out over the abuse and criticism he has taken." Bell cited the lack of cooperation Guinier has received from prestigious Faculty members. "Kilson," Bell said, "hasn't done much in a positive way."

Guinier has come to his own defense in the Afro debate. He claims that under his direction the Department has grown and prospered. At the beginning of the month Guinier said of Afro's fall semester offerings: "There are 19 very interesting courses--the most and best ever." Of his detractors Guinier will only say, "Men say foolish things sometimes."

HOWEVER much the Afro debate manifests itself as a clash of personalities, the political and academic issues that hinge upon the outcome remain more important. Although racial considerations are rarely mentioned in the current Faculty discussions of the Department the fact remains that the Faculty's decisions when it restructures Afro will have a profound effect on the undergraduate careers of the majority of Harvard's black students.

The Department's opponents want to "depoliticize" it and restructure it so that Afro's academic quality and rigor are equal to the other departments. While denying that his department is inferior, Guinier contends that to impose the standards of other concentrations on Afro would be tantamount to denying in policy differences which exist in fact.