The Harvard/Radcliffe Racial Issues Study Group charged Harvard plays a key role in maintaining social attitudes which "oppress people on the basis of their national origin or color" in a report issued Monday.

The study, designed to "illustrate the depth of racism at Harvard," stated that academic racism and cultural repression plague the University.

Archie C. Epps III, dean of students, and Nancy Randolph, special assistant to the president, both declined to comment on the report yesterday, saying they had not had a chance to study it.

The report recommends that Harvard:

* Establish a Third World cultural center;

* Hire more Third World recruitment officers.

* increase recruitment of Third World students from working class backgrounds;

* Establish and extend courses on Asian-American, Hispanic and Jewish-American studies:

* Tenure four additional faculty in the Afro-American Studies department and increase financial support for the department;

* Acknowledge the renaming of the Engelhard Library at the Kennedy School as the Steve Biko Memorial Library;

* Divest of all stocks and holdings of companies and banks that do business in South Africa.

Worried

"What most concerns me is that the recommendations would not be acceptable to the Harvard community as a whole," Peter A. Dale, Adams House senior tutor and a member of the race relations committee formed by Epps said yesterday.

Unfair

The charge that the University doesn't fulfill its responsibility to Third World groups is unfair, Dale said, adding the University spends large amounts of money to make Third World students feel welcome.