Harvard students receive piles of publications at their doorsteps every day, most of them filled with stories and opinions on campus events and issues.

The Harvard campus is fickle. Most of the time the publications go from doormat to trash can without a second thought. But sometimes, for some reason, the campus latches on to an issue and decides to consider it important. Then, the whole college is reading and writing, talking and sometimes listening.

The funny thing about Harvard, and perhaps the world in general, is that one year an issue can be hot and the next year the same issue will be virtually ignored by the general student body--even if the powers that be continue to debate it.

Last year's losing issue was ROTC, In 1989, students debated the issue in classes and dining halls. But the students body barely peeped this year when the issue returned to the Administration's front burner. The hot subjects last year or at least last semester, were Harvard Law School protests and campus race relations.

The protests and discussions will continue. But the pundits can never be sure which issues have the staying power to excite and incite students for more than a semester.

Law School

One issue that is certain to survive is the debate over women and minority faculty hiring at Harvard Law school. Last spring, law students besieged their school with protests, rallies and sit-ins demanding that more women and people of color be represented on the faculty.

The protests were driven by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court's decision to hear arguments about whether the Law School's Coalition for Civil Rights--a student group composed of six minority organizations and the Women's Law Association--had the standing to sue the University for alleged discriminatory hiring practices.

If the Court this summer rules in the students' favor, the school will again be the site of protests and rallies.

Race Relations

Race Relations will surely top this semester's agenda, as well. Dean of students Archie C. Epps III has been recently appointed to coordinate the actions of the Colleges' two race relations offices, the Harvard Foundation for Intercultural and Race Relations and the Office of Race Relations and Minority Affairs.

Epps' appointment comes after a semester of tensions. In April, the director of the Harvard Foundation, S. Allen Counter, wrote a letter to The Crimson accusing the newspaper of bias in its reporting of minority issues.

In the letter, Counter accused The Crimson of directing news and editorial content toward an "agenda" aligned with Jewish students who frequent Harvard Hillel. Those remarks and others in Counter's letter drew the ire of many Jewish student.

An angry response to Counter's letter on the editorial page of The Crimson upset minority groups, which rallied to Counter and the Foundation's side.

The Black Students Association doordropped a leaflet accusing the Harvard police, the conservative campus magazine Peninsula, Harvard Law School and The Crimson of insensitivity toward Black students.