"I think the administration only responds when they are fearful of some type of rebellious activity or bad publicity," says Ali.

Dean of Students Archie C. Epps III called the BSA flyer a "real eye-opener," and initiated a comprehensive program last fall to reevaluate race relations at the College, including a student-faculty committee and a series of workshops and picnics.

Ali says these efforts have produced few concrete results. "I saw very little come of most of those meetings [of the committee]," he says.

"It's really an issue of dependence," he says. "We cannot depend on the College administration to help us do what we need to do to strengthen ourselves as individuals and as a collective group."

Ali says controversial comments in January by Thomson Professor of Government Harvey C. Mansfield Jr., '53 which alleged that grade inflation was the result of Harvard's attempt to recruit Black students, illustrate the institutional racism which pervades Harvard.

"Harvey Mansfield has tenure. He is an institution at Harvard," says Ali.

Mansfield, reached last night, declined to comment.

"We didn't see anybody stand up for us," says Ali. "I haven't seen anyone say anything."

Ali says Black students feel disenfranchised at the College.

"What contributes to our feeling of estrangement is that we do not see a reflection of ourselves in the institution," he says. "We do not see an affirmation of our being here."

And one man who has been an advocate for Black students, Ali says, has faced unfair criticism. Ali fends Harvard Foundation Director S. Allen Counter, who made comments last spring which The Crimson and several Hillel leaders called anti-Semitic. At the time, a coalition of minority organizations expressed support for Counter.

More recently, Epps said he placed part of the blame for the College's problems with race relations on the Foundation "since it is where Harvard College has put most of its resources."

"What most Black students are saying to themselves [about Counter] is: here's one Black man who has stood up for us and this is what happens," says Ali. "So clearly, there is no one for us at Harvard."

Ali expresses concern about rumors of College plans to scuttle Counter's and Assistant Dean Hilda Hernandez-Gravelle's race relations bureaucracies as part of its "restructuring" program, saying that such institutions need to be strengthened.

You sit a Harvard graduate and a high school drop-out down and they will tell you the same thing about their prospects of being Black in America.