Eight months ago, Vice President and General Counsel Margaret H. Marshall issued a report intended to heal Harvard's security guard unit, which was then bitterly divided over charges of discrimination made by unit employees.

"This report brings to a close a difficult chapter in the history of the security guard unit at Harvard," Marshall wrote in a memo to all of the University's roughly 100 guards after the report was released last summer.

Marshall said at the time the report's recommendations would be used to help solve many of the problems in the unit.

But eight months later--and nearly two years after the unit was rocked by the discrimination allegations--Harvard has yet to act on many of the report's 17 recommendations for improving the unit.

"I haven't seen any of the changes. It's been eight months, and they don't even have a new manual to give us," said another security guard, referring to one of the report's recommendations.

"I don't know why they're taking so long, unless they don't want to do it at all," said security guard Howard Reid, one the guards who alleged discriminatory acts. "More or less, the report served to cover their butts in the case of a lawsuit--that's all it was."

In independent interviews in 1992 and early 1993, 11 former and current security unit employees-including Reid--charged that the department's management discriminated against employees on the basis of race and ethnicity. Management officials denied the charges.

The Marshall Report found all allegations of discrimination to be groundless and blamed the guards, The Crimson and guard union steward Stephen G. McCombe for the controversy. The guards responded by arguing that James A. Ring--the investigator hired by Marshall to probe the allegations-had failed to follow up on leads they provided.

The guards also charged Ring had a conflict of interest because he worked with Marshall at the Boston law firms of Choate, Hall & Stewart.

But the security unit's head, Manager of Operations for Security Robert J. Dowling, and Police Chief Paul E. Johnson, who is Dowling's boss, insist that the report remains an important document. Many of the recommendation, they said this week, are still likely to be implemented.

"All of those recommendation are being looked at, some have been implemented and some are in the process," Johnson said. "More than that I'm not willing to say."

"I'm working on all of the recommendations," Dowling added.

But recent interviews with two dozen guards indicate that the report hasn't come close to achieving Marshall's stated goal of providing "a working environment free from any discriminatory practices, or the perception thereof."

The Marshall Report has resulted in a quieter unit, but very little else, guards said. Interviews with guards show the unit is still badly divided over the discrimination claims. And the report has done little to change opinions on either side.

For example, recommendations that standards for uniforms and interpersonal conduct be strictly enforced have been all but ignored, guards said.