THE monolithic ship of state of Harvard University is lost at sea; it seems unable to stay its own course. In recent years, a general mood of conservatism--that clings to the status quo with renewed and often thoughtless vigor--has pervaded our country and our university. Harvard has mired itself in these sullied waters, dragging its venerable name through the mud and endangering its position of leadership in the intellectual community. Presently facing a plethora of controversial moral and ethical issues, the University has chosen to shamelessly cower from its responsibilities, instead of standing firmly on the high ground.

What are Harvard's responsibilities? At the very least they are those which the University has set for itself. Harvard should not advocate one goal and then act in a contrary fashion. But Harvard says one thing and does another. Harvard applies a double standard to the actions of the University and the students.

Harvard prides itself on diversity: "Diversity is the hallmark of the Harvard/Radcliffe experience" claims the Official Register of Harvard University. Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences A. Michael Spence, in his address to the Class of 1992, lauded the diversity he saw at Harvard. He failed to mention, however, the conspicuous lack of minorities and women on his very own faculty.

The Resolution on Rights and Responsibilities, reproduced in the 1988-89 Handbook for Students states "the University [is a] community ideally characterized by free expression,...respect for the dignity of others, and openness to constructive change." And yet the University invests its image and considerable endowment in South Africa, supporting a regime that denies Blacks these same rights to free expression, respect for their dignity, and the openness for changing the aparthied system.

"The University must affirm, assure and protect the rights of its members to organize," the Resolution goes on to say. Yet the University has done everything within its power to prevent the formation of the Harvard Union of Technical and Clerical Workers before capitulating last week. In fact, Harvard claims that the very rights it seeks to protect, those to "convene and conduct public meetings, publicly demonstrate...in orderly fashion advocate, and publicize by print sign and voice," have been used against it unfairly.

THE Handbook for Students also devotes a page-and-a-half to a discourse on the evils of discrimination, including sexual discrimination. It expects students to "exhaust institutional routes for complaints before seeking legal redress under public law." Yet the University did not fulfil its moral obligation to fight discrimination by failing to endorse Lisa Schkolnick's legal complaint against the Fly Club when her options here were closed.

The Resolution maintains that "reasoned dissent plays a particularly vital part in [the University's] existence." Harvard, however, has sought to close off its own alumni's route for expressing dissent through the Board of Overseers by empowering a committee that seeks to pass the "reforms" recommended in its Young Report.

HARVARD maintains these positions and then wonders why minority and women students and faculty applications are down, and why there is such widespread discontent with the administration. Harvard is either too native to recognize or too boorish to acknowledge the blatant hypocrisy and fraud it is engaging in. Harvard is so powerful and rich that it raises serious questions of integrity when the University fails to act progressively--especially since the University need not worry about alumni support or public opinion as other schools must.

We have learned that Harvard can do almost anything. It can persuade Nobel Laureates, who did not even bother to go to Sweden to pick up their awards, to speak here. It can refuse the President of the United States an honorary degree, and it can turn away more than 85 percent of the people who apply here.

Yes, Harvard can do pretty much as it wants--misrepresent itself to prospective applicants and the world at large, engage in utter hypocrisy, support racist terrorist regimes, and keep its faculty segregated--and still be protected by 350 years of Ivy tradition. Harvard can also take the moral stands its own Resolution of Rights and Responsibilities calls on it to do. It can take the moral and ethical leadership its scholastic leadership has afforded the opportunity for. It has nothing to lose.

Why then, except for a close-minded boorish conservative mentality, has Harvard not chosen to follow the course it has set for itself?