"The department needed a complete new vision to turn it around; it had few people and it was not flourishing," McKay says. "I felt that I didn't have the temperament that could recreate the department the way Gates has."

As far as Harvard's difficulty in attracting black women to campus, Professor of Public Health Practice Deborah Prothrow-Stith, a black woman, says the school's location is an important consideration.

"Boston and the Boston area have not been attractive and often has required extra efforts to recruit people to this area from Atlanta, D.C. and Chicago where more blacks are active in the social, political and cultural life of the city," says Prothrow-Stith, who is also assistant dean of faculty development at the School of Public Health (SPH).

However, McKay does not believe her offer of tenure represents a true effort by Harvard to attract a more racially diverse Faculty.

"That is a very bad example for the country, and it's not for an absence of qualified candidates." McKay says. "The effort, it seems to me, to seek out and court well known black faculty, but especially women, has been lagging behind [at Harvard] for 25 years."

"The University should certainly have done a better job over the last two decades," she adds.

Like McKay, Professor of Law Chales J. Ogletree Jr. criticizes Harvard's lack of women of color, calling it "repugnant," noting that FAS' particular situation is "striking and in many respects inexcusable."

However, Ogletree also notes that many of Harvard's top adminstrators have spoken publicly about the need to promote diversity.

"Harvard has recognized that diversity is important, among many educational components, in a strong curricular program," he says. "This is an issue we have discussed with [President Neil L. Rudenstine]. He has expressed a commitment to improving the situation."

Adminstrative Response

In fact, administrators like Rudenstine and Dean of FAS Jeremy R. Knowles blame Harvard's history for the lack of minority faculty, stating in many speeches and articles that their own commitment to the issue is strong.

Both have pointed repeatedly to the infrequency of attrition, meaning that spots open up only as people retire or new chairs are created.

Moreover, Knowles points to structural changes in the tenure system meant to benefit women and minority candidates.

"Departments are required to show that they have--in search letters and in their own investigations of the field of candidates--looked carefully for women candidates and for under-represented minority candidates," Knowles writes in a fax.

Rudenstine also says that Harvard fares badly in national comparisons of tenured faculties because Harvard does not tenure on the assistant or associate levels, where younger scholars are to be found.