Grad Women Ask Job Plan Release

The Graduate Women's Organization (GWO) is seeking Congressional aid in its continued efforts to gain public release of Harvards affirmative action plan for employment of women and minority groups in the University.

In a letter mailed yesterday to Sen. Edward M. Kennedy '54, the group asked for help in making both the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW) and the University "more sensitive to the needs of Harvard women employees." It specifically asked the Senator's aid in gaining publication of the Harvard affirmative action plan.

Copies of the letter were also sent to Sen. Edward Brooke (R-Mass.) and Rep. Thomas P. O'Neill (D-Mass.)

GWO claims that the summaries of the Harvard affirmative action plan released so far do not meet the Federal requirement that the beneficiaries of the plan know what is being done for them. "These Harvard summaries are so vague and haphazard in their references to women that we are not at all sure what steps are being taken to insure equal opportunity," the letter to Kennedy said.

The letter also complains of "little follow-through from HEW," and questions HEW's concern with sex discrimination.

In an earlier effort to force publication of the Harvard plan, GWO filed a complaint with the University Commission of Inquiry. The Commission's investigation-which began in early March-is still in progress.

"We've had letters from the parties involved and discussed some of the ideas; the next step is to meet with the two groups on the issues," Roger Rosenblatt, chairman of the Commission, said yesterday.

Edward Wright, assistant to the President for minority affairs, who has been defending University policy before the Commission, has not yet agreed to a request by the Commission in March asking for a meeting of the groups. He said he expects to reply "in the next couple days."

Jones said Wright's delay in replying "indicates the little concern there is for women in this University."

Wright's letter to the Commission of Inquiry in response to the GWO complaint contends that the University has already complied with the requirementto make its affirmative action plan known by releasing a summary of the plan.

He suggests that timetables and target numbers have been withheld because of doubts about "whether such figures are the best criteria for evaluating the sum commitment to which the University has set itself." "The procedures, options, and techniques that are utilized in developing new 'pipelines' for recruitment and hiring are more important," he said.

GWO, in another letter to the Commission of Inquiry, agreed with Wright that timetables and target numbers were only part of the solution, but questioned why this role argued against their disclosure. The letter also suggested that "pipelines" would be more effective if the beneficiaries knew about them.