Fundraisers contacted at several universities this week said Harvard should consider carefully whether to accept a $1 million donation made by an agent of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI).

Last year, Ghaith R. Pharaon, a 1965 Harvard Business School alumnus, gave his graduate alma mater as much as $1 million on the occasion of his 25th reunion. He has already paid an initial installment of $100,000, according to alumni sources.

The Saudi financier was fined $37 million last month by the Federal Reserve Bank for secretly acting on behalf of BCCI in the takeovers of American banks, and his American assets were seized by the Justice Department.

Business School officials reached yesterday declined comment on the Pharaon pledge, saying that gifts to the school are a private matter.

William H. Boardman, director of capital giving for the University, said that Harvard is conscientious in analyzing each pledge.

"Each case is analyzed individually," Boardman said. "Things are looked at very carefully at all major universities and especially here."

Indeed, administrators at other universities said this week they too examine donation sources closely. At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), for instance, fundraiser George Ramonat said his school would "find a way to return the money," if a contribution were made under circumstances similar to the Pharaon case.

Although some fundraisers were reluctant to comment on the Harvard Business School donor, they said the situation must be considered in light of public perception.

"You would want to make a judgement as to whether the public association of the donor to the school would be detrimental in terms of its reputation, ethics and its effect on other potential donors," said Samuel F. Babbitt, senior vice-president at Brown University and director of the school's current capital campaign.

"There is an ethical issue there--there's no question about it," said W. Michael Hoffman, director of the Center for Business Ethics at Bentley College.

Given complicated ethical issues surrounding some donors, there are often ways to compromise rather than return such gifts altogether, Hoffman said.

"Maybe you ought not to name a building after him, but if the guy wants to help your cause, which you think is morally worthy, it might not be inappropriate to take the money," the ethics scholar said.

Others said the ethical line should be drawn along legal boundaries. "Unless there's something which clearly indicates that the money came from something which was clearly not legal, then the university wouldn't step in," said Frederick C. Nahm, a fundraising administrator at the University of Pennsylvania.

Lecturer on Business Administration Joseph L. Badaracco, the coordinator of the ethics curriculum at Harvard Business School, agreed.

"It's not the role of any university to make prejudgments about what courts and regulatory bodies are going to decide," Badaracco said. "In the interim, a large, generous contribution should probably be accepted."