Walter Leonard has allowed major appointments and promotion in associate and assistant deanships to slip by without regard to AA. He has been silent on the controversial non-tenure of Afro-American scholar Ephraim Issac. He has been given credit for increasing the number of Law School blacks (Crimson, Oct. 5, 1976) with no mention of the student activism which initiated and supported increased admissions. Moreover, having gone on record innumerable times criticizing the University's failure to improve the status of women and minorities, he has yet to do anything to turn the trend. Most likely Leondard's office will remain ineffectual because of a lack of support from the Council of Deans.

Without much trouble to see, it is undeniable that women and minorities have not made many significant gains. We can see that black student admissions are declining, from 7 per cent in the Class of '76, to below 6 per cent ever since.

A 4:1 male/female ratio was maintained until the Class of 1977 when the 2.5:1 ratio was adopted. Even with "sex blind" admissions, the ratio is only expected to reach 60/40 men to women in ten years or more.

For recruitment, although the vast majority of minority students attend inner city high school, fewer than 30 per cent of the blacks admitted at Harvard come from public schools.

For academic staff, although 70 per cent of Harvard' faculty are women, fewer than 10 per cent of the junior faculty and 3 per cent of the tenured faculty are women. The proportion of tenured blacks has declined from 1.6 per cent to 1.4 per cent during the Affirmative Action period.

For non-teaching employees, of the lowest ten salary grades, 82 per cent of those employed are women. Anyone working at Radcliffe (approximately 95 per cent female employees) is likely to earn less than men in comparable positions at Harvard.

In curriculum, Harvard offers 3000 courses, but only three of them cover women. For the seven years of existence for the Afro-American Department only two professors have been tenured. The precarious state of the Department is evinced in an alarming turnover rate of faculty.

One accomplishment of the Task Force last year was the compilation and presentation of 19 serious breeches in federal guidelines by Harvard University of its own AA plan. In a document presented to the Office of Civil Rights Compliance Review last spring, the Task Force cited specific discrepancies between Harvard University's current employment practices and the contents of its AA plan; specific discrepancies between its AA plan and the requirements of Revised Order 4; and cases of individual employees who have been victimized by either overt racial and sexual discrimination, or by employment practices which as a result discriminatory. The report, in effect, stripped away Harvard's liberal fig-leaf.

But the Task Force's most important work has been to rally students, workers and progressive faculty around the defense of democratic rights. Last year's two demonstrations pointed the way towards a political struggle. We have learned that political struggles establish a firmer base of unity than economic struggles. One of the cheapest things Harvard can give away is money. Developing a firm, committed political unity directed against the objective conditions of sexism, racism and national oppression is what students should strive for.

The Task Force has always held that total dependence upon legal channels is restrictive, requiring exceeding amounts of time and enormous financial expenses. More importantly, it must be recognized that laws in favor of oppressed people are a product of mass pressure. Without a mass movement, many legal victories are quickly and easily undermined. AA is one very beneficial mechanism for bringing about advancements for women and minorities which needs to be protected.

Yet we now stand at a time of ideological and political onslaught upon the gains of women and minorities led, in many cases, by the ideologues of racism and sexism at Harvard. In their ideological plans to invalidate AA, they are in effect calling for its abolition. In publications and lectures, Nathan Glazer propagates the view that AA is an instrument of unfairness. He bases his views on what he interprets as the progress of individual blacks into the system as a result of bootstrap pulling and the flexibility of the system operating with a sentiment for equal opportunity. He totally ignores the masses of urban working class blacks still earning one-half the wages of their white counterparts. To Glazer, AA represents unnecessary piles of bureaucratic headaches. We are told women and minorities have gained too much to the extent that "reverse racism" and affirmative discrimination now is rampant. This anti-AA propaganda is a rationalization for the stepped-up attacks on democratic rights and retrenchment that would send us back to the days when Harvard was synonomous with being white, male and rich.

In the past several weeks, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance has proposed major revisions of AA that could abolish AA in many industries and universities. In the proposed revisions, companies with less than 100 employees or $100,000 in contracts (versus 50 employees and $50,000 in contracts) are exempted from filing written AA plans. In addition, any employer receiving less that $10 million in contracts is also exempted from a prior review. This measure lets off the hook all but a half a dozen universities in the country. The campaign against AA, the call for drastic reductions in minority and women recruitment and admissions, the discrediting and weakening of Third World Studies, the growing repression and attacks in Third World communities are all linked in the current thrust against democratic rights and the sharpening of national, racial and sexual division. The stakes in the AA struggle are high.

What must be done to stem this reactionary tide? We must draw from the experiences and lessons of our struggles to realize once again only in mass movements have already won democratic rights been defended and additional progressive improvements been obtained. Because the attack on AA is a national campaign directed against a national program, the only possible means to deter this campaign involves building a mass student movement in defense of democratic rights.

It has been six months since the OCR compliance review and there has been no definite word. But we do not expect much in the way of enforcement by OCR. Its buddy-buddy relationship with Harvard makes it unlikely that the government will do more than slap Harvard on the hand and "encourage" it to make a "good faith effort" to solve the most blatant problems. But just as a band-aid cannot cure cancer, neither can a slap on the hand stop Harvard's historic policies of national, racial and sexual discrimination. The attacks on democratic rights exist beyond the bounds of Harvard and must be met in a movement not only among students, but also among workers and professional employees.

The announced departure of Walter Leonard, the University's chief AA officer, will create many uncertainties as to the University's commitment to AA. Although the TFAA has repeatedly requested participation in the selection process of a new officer, Bok has merely conceded to accept "advice." Moreover, a member of the search board, Phyllis Keller, has already publicly tried to rationalize the University's inaction in indirect response to the TFAA report to OCR last spring (Harvard Gazette, May 21, 1976). The TFAA questions the sincerity of these search board members in support of a strong AA program and their commitment to minorities and women. Federal AA guidelines strongly recommend that minorities and women (the "affected" classes) have input in the implementation, evaluation and monitering of an institution's AA program. This has not been Harvard's practice.

Nevertheless, the TFAA will continue to press for a major role in the selection of a new officer and demand a new job description with clearly delegated authority to enforce AA. There will also be an educational forum January 13th to introduce students to TFAA and AA. As the Task Force views it, key struggles for building the student movement must be 1) the opposition to the attacks on AA (the test case being at Harvard for the rest of the nation), 2) the determination of a replacement for Walter Leonard and formal, direct input into the AA structure of this University, 3) the demand for a new AA plan, 4) development of the struggle for greater recruitment, admissions and financial aid programs, 5) self-determination of the Afro-Am. Studies Department and finally, 6) the creations of Chicano-Boricua, Native American, Asian American and Women's Studies.

In the '60s, the student movement contributed significantly to the larger social mass movements. This remains the case for the '70s as we engage in a fierce struggle to protect hard-won rights and gains now under attack.

The fight for AA must be placed in the overall fight for democratic rights. An aggressive, visible student movement must be built to safeguard rights and press forward the elimination of discrimination and oppression. Harvard must be seen as the nexus of this reactionary campaign and so it is only appropriate Harvard be the site for a new era in the student movement.