But some Harvard professors and administrators disagree. They say the PC "problem" is more fiction than reality.

"Much of it is the creation of the media," says Henry Rosovsky, outgoing acting dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS)."

But even with many faculty and administrators refusing to acknowledge the presence of liberal orthodoxy, outgoing President Derek C. Bok notes that there is some problem, but that it is often exaggerated.

"I think there are certainly zealous students and student groups that have sometimes been a bit overbearing in trying to press their particular point of view and that, therefore, have inhibited some of their fellow students from expressing themselves," says Bok. "I think there are probably some professors who have at least said things...that have suggested a little less than what I would regard as tolerance for freedom of ideas."

"But I still believe that the PC issue has been overblown, that it represents to some extent a conservative backlash against universities, that a limited number of incidents has been repeated over and over again," Bok continues.

Many scholars say What they fear more than the perceived problem of PC is a backlash that could halt the gains that liberal scholarship has made. PC has, unfortunately, been an effective rallying cry for conservatives, they say.

"What amazes me is how the political right has latched onto the word and treated it as a battle cry of dogma," says Gregory Nagy, Jones professor of classical Greek literature. "It is hype being spread from above, by people with political axes to grind."

"People are latching on to isolated incidents to show how the other side is intolerant, but it is simply a way of masking the fact of assualt on freedom of speech by the other side," he continues.

Nagy says he remembers when the term PC was used in a joking, self-mocking manner by "avant-garde" students at Currier House at the beginning of his tenure as Master of the dorm.

Although the majority of Harvard professors interviewed say PC does not pose a problem for scholars or students, a growing movement to counteract its influence is gaining momentum. Already, several prominent University professors have joined an organization whose goal is to counteract what they say is the leftist indoctrination of students through the curriculum.

The group--called the National Association of Scholars (NAS)--was formed in 1987 to protect traditional canon from changes which would have added women and minority voices. The canon has become a symbol of embattled scholarship in the time of "political correctness."

NAS members, which include Harvard scholars Wilson, Thernstrom, and Thomson Professor of Government Harvey C. Mansfield '53, say that universities must retain the traditional canon or risk fragmenting education and depriving students of a solid intellectual base for their studies.

According to NAS's official literature, the group is "devoted to preserving the traditional western curriculum" and disclaims the importance of PC areas of scholarship such as women's studies and Afro-American studies.

Says the NAS statement, "an examination of many women's studies and minority studies courses and programs disclose little study of other cultures, but maintains that too often these fields are put into the curriculum for political, not academic reasons."

Thernstrom criticizes Harvard's creation of an Afro-American studies department. He says that in order to avoid the staffing problems currently faced by the field of concentration, the area of study should have been made a committee. He blames the lack of Afro-American scholars to the PC belief that only Blacks can teach the subject, but only a tiny number of Blacks have taken doctorates in the subject.