But in Cambridge, the debate is not over whether the city should have affirmative action, but over whether it is doing enough to place minorities in positions of power.

And although minorities made up 42.5 percent of the city's hiring from April 1994 to April 1995, only one full department--the Cambridge Police--is headed by a minority. Police Commissioner Perry L. Anderson Jr., appointed in 1991, is the first Black to be named the city's top cop.

At least one elected official, Reeves, says he thinks the city has been remiss in its efforts to hire minorities.

"The African-American community has been part of the backbone in the city and has yet to realize its potential," Reeves says. "There has been an affirmative action policy and a recision of the policy. I don't think there has been significant devotion to affirmative action."

Rev. L. Nelson Foxx, rector of St. Bartholomew's Church in Area Four, agrees. "If you say that you have 30 to 35 percent minority representation in this city, then every department should reflect that, not just the lower echelons," he said. "It's sort of like an imposed glass ceiling."

Why the Shortage?

Critics of Cambridge's affirmative action policies point to an array of causes for the lack of minority representation in the upper echelons of city government.

But among administrators and activists interviewed there is little consensus on what has caused the lack of minority administrators. Some believe the cause is simply subtle racism. But others point to the structure of municipal government with its complex service-rules, designed to guard against corruption, but making the recruitment of qualified minorities difficult if not impossible.

"You have wasted 25 years trying to get minorities in through affirmative action, which has not worked," says activist Saundra Graham, a former City Council member. "It has worked for women, it has not worked for people of color. That says to me there's only one issue, and that's racism."

Graham believes the city administration cannot invigorate its affirmative action program because it is largely white.

"If you have an all-white staff choosing the candidates, if you don't have any amongst them when you discuss [affirmative action], out of sight is out of mind," she says.

Others point to the political uniqueness of Cambridge, a small, mostly white city with a progressive tradition but a system of electoral politics based on favors and give-and-take.

"It's a political problem, primarily," says Lester P. Lee Jr., a rent control activist who teaches American history at Wheelock College in Boston. "It's one of patronage. Patronage is when it flows primarily through a kinship network."

"The top-echelon jobs minorities have been excluded from--that's Bob Healy's fault," Lee added. "If Bob Healy were seriously committed to diversity in the city, he would have hired in his cabinet someone of color to run a major department."

And some see the city's failure as a lack of enthusiasm and commitment to the goals of affirmative action, first outlined in Cambridge in 1971.