WETHINKS they doth protest too much.

In what may have been the longest single piece of writing ever to appear on The Crimson's opinion page, officials from the admissions office of Harvard and Radcliffe yesterday assailed The Crimson's recent series of editorials attacking Harvard's policies of preferential treatment for recruited athletes and children of alumni.

Their response uses a tactic that lawyers call "arguing in the alternative." It's as if an attorney defended a client accused of stealing a car and denting the fender by saying, "He didn't steal the car, and if he did, the fender isn't dented, and if it is dented, it was dented before my client stole the car."

Dean of Admissions William R. Fitzsimmons '67 and company argue that there isn't any difference between the way athletes and legacies and other applicants are treated, and if there is, the differences are not "meaningful," and if there are meaningful differences, they are perfectly excusable.

A masterwork of evasion and obfuscation, the official response recites the entire litany of official excuses for the policies, regardless of relevance, factual correctness or mutual contradiction. A few examples:

SAT scores are no big deal. The officials begin by attacking our supposed faith in the Scholastic Aptitude Test, arguing that the SAT is a poor indicator of academic prowess and that it discriminates against minorities and the economically disadvantaged. Considering that the authors of the response are quick to point out the 314 National Merit Scholarship winners in the Class of 1994 (the most in the country, they boast)--indicating a certain respect for the SAT--their argument strikes us as a bit hypocritical and contradictory.

Furthermore, we readily acknowledge that the SAT is a poor indicator of an applicant's worthiness. That's why we noted in our editorials that legacies and athletes--according to Harvard's own figures--score significantly worse than non-athlete, non-legacies in every single area of comparison, (except for the athletic rating, of course).

OK, but the disparities in SAT scores are no big deal. The response attacks The Crimson's mention of the disparity in the SAT scores between athletes and legacies and their non-athlete, non-legacy counterparts. It argues that the 130- and 35-point average differences are not "meaningful"--even though the Department of Education found them to be statistically significant--because there is not much difference between an applicant with a 1430 and an applicant with a 1300. Of course, over such a large pool, an average difference of this magnitude most certainly is meaningful. Fitzsimmons & Co. use up a lot of ink singing the praises of Harvard's truly gifted student athletes, and The Crimson has been careful to acknowledge them, too. The question remains: doesn't that mean that seriously marginal candidates are pulling down the curve?

OK, the differences are a big deal--but they're justified. The response argues that the socioeconomic and ethnic diversity of recruited athletes justifies their lower academic standing. To this, we have several questions in response. Are you talking about every sport? Does that include crew? Fencing? How many minorities play on the hockey team? How many working-class students are recruited to play lacrosse? (Fitzsimmons told a Crimson reporter, "I think you know which sports we're talking about.") How does ethnic and socioeconomic diversity explain the excusal of academic deficiencies among legacies, who presumably come from some of the nation's most prosperous families?

Legacy status is just a tie-breaker. Before The Crimson obtained information to the contrary, Harvard officials (including President Derek C. Bok) stated that legacy status was only used to break a tie between otherwise equally qualified candidates. Harvard explained legacies' disproportionate rate of admission (about three times the norm) by pointing out that children of Harvard alumni were likely to have been raised in an environment conducive to educational attainment. Now we know that the average admitted legacy is not more qualified, or even equally qualified, but less qualified than the average admitted non-legacy.

With this deception exposed, the administration turned to its backup excuse:

We need the money. Legacy admissions are a financial necessity. Happy alumni whose kids are guaranteed preferential treatment are more likely to give.

Washington Monthly editor Charles Peters once identified the "Firemen First Principle" whereby bureaucrats threatened with a budget cut insist that the only way to economize is to cut essential services. Whenever a conflict between ethical propriety and financial gain arises, Harvard invariably announces that need-blind admissions--not $35,000 to paint "artistic" stripes on the Quad--would be the first thing to go. By means of an accounting gimmick, Harvard sees that alumni contributions are channeled into scholarship funds, making it seem that every last dollar of alumni contributions is necessary to maintain need-blind admissions. It's an illusion.

Besides, how "need-blind" is an admissions policy that grants 20 percent of the places in each class to students admitted under the assumption that, hey, admitting them will be good for alumni contributions?

Two-hundred years ago, the French monarchy sold sinecures--hereditary privileges that virtually guaranteed the recipient wealth and status. The revenue from these sales improved the Crown's capacity to provide for the poor. Today, Harvard offers hereditary privileges that virtually guarantee the recipient wealth and status. The donations stemming from this privilege allegedly improve the College's capacity to provide for the poor. If Fitzsimmons cannot see the injustice in this, then perhaps the moral anesthetization of Harvard has proceeded farther than Allan Bloom feared.