And Marshall herself appears to have made some efforts to reach out to guards. After Yard security guard Steven Thompson, who was one of those charging discrimination, asked Marshall for a heater for the Johnston Gate guard shack recently, the general counsel arranged for one the next day.

But carrying out recommendations designed to prevent discrimination has been left largely to Dowling--an awkward position for someone who has himself been accused of discriminatory acts.

Dowling said he has taken the initiative on trying to heal the unit by publishing a newsletter called "The Communicator" which occasionally deals with issues of race and ethnicity.

"We have been through many trying times during the last few years, and I believe we can not stress how important it is that any perception of racism or act of discrimination be reported immediately so we may nip it in the bud," Dowling wrote in the December newsletter.

"But let us also understand that racism and/or discrimination used as an excuse only to muddy the waters will not be tolerated," Dowling added.

Any changes will come too late for two of the guards who alleged discrimination. Both Pierre R. Voss and Viatcheslav Abramian lost their jobs after alleging publicly that they were harassed on the job by their supervisors.

The supervisors denied their charges. And Security department management claimed that both employees were bad workers with long histories of disciplinary problems who deserved to be terminated.

Both Voss and Abramian countercharged that management trumped up disciplinary infractions against them in an attempt to get them fired. Voss and Abramian are two of four guards currently being represented by Waltham attorney Richard H. Spicer in discrimination complaints against the University.

Abramian was briefly homeless, and Voss has not been able to find work since he was effectively fired last July. Voss had to wait longer for the firing to be made official, and the University delayed the guard's appeal of the decision for five months in an apparent violation of the the guard union contract.

Voss, who was the first security employee to make public charges, blasted the report as a "cover-up" in an interview this week. The former guard, who was all but accused of lying about his charges in the report, said he still believed coming forward was the proper thing to do.

"If hadn't said anything in the first place, no one else would have come forward," Voss said. "They got rid of me, but at least some people's eyes were opened. It will be harder for them to do this type of thing again."