The faces of security guards look the same as they did six months ago, when General Counsel Margaret H. Marshall was only two months into her job and her investigation of the guard unit was new and full of promise.

Back then, guards on both sides of the dispute over alleged discrimination by the unit's supervisors had high hopes for Marshall.

She had hired former FBI agent James A. Ring, now an investigator for her former law firm of Choate, Hall & Stewart, to interview guards. Guards, in general, liked Ring's independent status, and many thought the issue would finally be resolved.

Now, six months later, Marshall's probe appears to be seriously bogged down. Ring has not conducted an interview with a guard, sources say, in more than two months. And with the general counsel now on a summer vacation, the end of the probe is probably several weeks off.

So while the faces of guards have not changed, their voices have lost almost any hint of the hope they had in mid-winter. In interviews with two dozen security guards conducted during the past week, many said they feel personally betrayed by Marshall, who promised in a January 15 letter to provide guards "with a working environment free from any discriminatory practices, or the perception thereof."

That sense of betrayal, while present among guards on both sides of the discrimination dispute, is strongest among those who have charged discrimination publicly. Some had brought their complaints to then-General Counsel Daniel Steiner '54 in 1990, and the general counsel's office investigated their claims before, finding nothing wrong.

University Attorney Diane Patrick, who conducted that first probe in the spring of 1992, interviewed none of the guards who had alleged discrimination and offered no written report. For her trouble, some guards note wryly, Patrick was promoted to director of human resources for the University.

Meanwhile, morale in the guard unit remains low, and both sides of the dispute are edgy. Are the 11 former and current security employees who have charged discrimination correct in their accusations? Or are they misguided and, as some have suggested, motivated by a desire to cover-up their own spotty employment records?

"Everyone needs to see something come out of it," says one guard, who does not believe there is discrimination and, who, like all the guards, spoke only on condition of anonymity. "Most of the guards get along well. We need to show and prove that what these people say is hearsay."

While they wait for Marshall to answer these questions, the guards have begun to sound like men and women who feel they are stuck in a stalemate that was not of their own making. What's most frustrating, some say, is that Marshall--the person holding the life line--seems in no particular hurry to pull them out of the mess.

"Look at all the money they must have spent, hiring this guy Ring, having him do the interviews," says one minority guard, who spoke only on condition of anonymity. "And for what? No answer from Marshall, no change in the situation. They should have saved that money and given us raises."

In one sense, the University's investigation of the security guard department has been exhaustive and noteworthy. Ring has conducted, by The Crimson's estimate, some two dozen interviews ranging in length from 30 minutes to more than four hours.

That kind of intensive interviewing parallels the kind of exhaustive questioning used in reviews of many municipal police forces such as the one conducted in Los Angeles two years ago by now-Secretary of State Warren M. Christopher.

But while the interviewing has clearly been extensive, Marshall's probe, from the beginning, has not gone according to plan.

In some ways, that pleased guards. Ring often scheduled sessions that were too short to cover all the pertinent information, and some guards happily came back for extra discussions.

But the unannounced appearance of Choate, Hall & Stewart lawyer Karen Cartotto startled and upset many guards. Upon entering the Holyoke Center interviewing room to find Cartotto with Ring, many guards were told that they, too, could have someone accompany them.