"I can prove it with my own observations and the observations of others," Mansfield said. "I saw this in my TFs, and I even felt an impulse in myself to do this."

But many graduates and professors said these observations aren't sufficient proof for what they consider to be an extraordinarily strong statement.

Carlton L. Guthrie '74, president of a metal stamping firm in Lansing, Michigan, called Mansfield's statement "weird" and said he believed grade inflation was the result of a "reevaluation" of higher education and its missions during that time.

"I know a lot of Black students who got C's-myself included," said Guthrie. "That's a pretty dubious statement, unless he has some evidence to prove it."

Some Black alumni said they were personally affronted by Mansfield's comments. Asked about the professor's statements, William F. Kuntz II '72, a partner in a Wall Street law firm, proceeded to recite his resume, which included three post-graduate degrees and a stint on New York City's police civilian review board.

"It's just sad that Mansfield feels that way," Kuntz said.

Although former students like Kuntz reject the notion of a link between race and grade inflation, there is universal acknowledgement that grades rose on campuses nationwide during the '60s and '70s.

Studies performed by the Carnegie Council for the Advancement of Teaching found that while 35 percent of all grades were B or above in 1969, by 1976, 59 percent of all grades were B or above. Carnegie also found that the average grades received by college students rose every year from 1964 to 1974.

A survey of 50 universities nationwide conducted in 1974 by the Office of Institutional Research at the University of California Berkeley yielded similar results. The survey found that the percentage of A grades more than doubled, from 16 to 34 percent, between the early '60s and 1974, according to Arthur E. Levine, chair of Harvard's Institute for Education.

A smaller study of 16 universities performed by the same office found that the mean grade point average rose from 2.47 to 2.94 during the same period, on a 4.0 scale.

But Levine, who has written extensively on the grading, says this inflation predates the arrival of large numbers of Black students at universities.

"The grade inflation actually begins before the influx of minority students," Levine said.

College officials said this week the number of Black students increased slightly during most of the 1960s, reaching 55 in 1968. The next year, after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and a strong minority recruitment effort, Black enrollment began to increase at a much faster pace.

But College officials say that the conjunction of the two trends was merely coincidental.

"I think you'll find Blacks got a range of grades including C's, and it was a real struggle as their grades improved as they spent more time at Harvard," said Dean of Students Archie C. Epps III, who is conducting his own investigation of Mansfield's thesis.