Calling for the protection of free speech, Thomson Professor of Government Harvey C. Mansfield, Jr. last night defended his remarks linking grade inflation to the influx of Black students on campus.

Deflecting attacks on his controversial statements, Mansfield told the charged audience of more than 400 at an Institute of Politics panel discussion that he can prove his assertions, and that he does not consider them racist.

"I can prove it with my own observations and the observations of others. I saw this in my TPs, and I even felt an impulse in myself to do this," he said during a panel discussion on "The ABC's of Grade Inflation."

"The University is about the search for truth. Our motto is Veritas. It isn't about feeling good," Mansfield said.

Mansfield said the University needs "a greater range of frank speech on the issue of race," although students in the audience challenged the professor and charged that his statements were racist.

Mansfield's remarks have provoked a wave of controversy in the past month and constituted one grievance listed in a flyer titled "The Peculiar Institution," distributed last week by a coalition of nine minority groups.

The flyer demanded an apology for the statements, but coalition organizer and Black Students Association President Zaheer R. Ali '94 said Mansfield's speech last night was not sufficient.

"As far as I'm concerned, the issue is not resolved," Ali said. "The BSA] is still pursuing other means to bring about the resolution of this issue."

Despite the hissing and hostile questioning from members of the audience, Mansfield did not waver in his assertions about the origins of grade inflation, pointing to what he said were detrimental actions of professors who raised grades in the 70s.

"The desire was on the part of the white professors to do a benefit to Black students newly arrived in great numbers. What welcome would it be to give them C's?" he asked the racially diverse audience.

President Neil L. Rudenstine and Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles have both advanced alternative explanations lot grade inflation, saying that the phenomenon has nothing to do with increased recruitment.

"Blacks suffer more from inept good will on the part of whites than they do from racism," Mansfield said.

Dean of Students Archie C. Epps III criticized Mansfield's remarks after the discussion.

"I don't agree with Professor Mansfield, and having lived through that period, I was not aware of the attitudes he attributes to my professors," Epps said.

"Indeed, to the contrary, I believe that Black students had to struggle to find their place at Harvard and to have their excellence recognized," Epps said. "Grade inflation was well underway before the arrival of large numbers of Black students."

Today, grade inflation is not race related and Black students do not receive more lenient grades than do other students, Mansfield said.

"I wasn't making a remark about right now but a historical remark," Mansfield said. "I rather think [Black students] do not get inflated grades."

Though much of the question-and-answer session following the panel discussion involved Mansfield's previous remarks, organizers said the Harvard Political Union planned the panel before the events of the past week.

Panel moderator Alvin I. Bragg Jr 195, the vice-president of the Black Students' Association and chair of the political union, asked participants to concentrate on the issues of the ideal mean grade and on the grading discrepancy between the natural sciences and the humanities.

Much of the debate focused on whether a policy of grade deflation would benefit of harm Harvard students.

Mansfield called overall inflation a process of "debasing the currency" in academics. "It's unjust. It buries and obscures necessary distinctions, of academic judgment," he said.

"It's true that grades are not the be-all and end-all, but grades are important to us in our community. Being a student to us means being a good student," Mansfield said.

Dianne Reeder '93, editor emeritus of The Harvard Salient, said students would benefit from grade deflation.

"In some departments. A stands for average. It is literally impossible to earn an above-average grade," she said. "A C from Harvard should mean intelligent work."

Reeder said lower grades would not hurt students applying to jobs and graduate programs. If we adopted a policy that ended grade inflation." She said, "the world would know."

But Sean M. Becker '94, co-chair of the Undergraduate Council's Academics Committee, said that grade deflation would have serious negative effects.

"Over the past 25 years, grades have gone up in every single institution." Becker said. "We are in the same job pool with those students whose grades have been artificially inflated,". he said.

Becker argued for more professorial involvement in the grading process instead of overall grade deflation.

Grade deflation "will create a more stressful, competitive environment in which we are competing as much for grades, for grades' sake, as for learning for knowledge's sake," Becker said