Administration Ignores Grade Inflation

To the editors:

I would like to thank Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis ’68 for providing the graph that accompanied his article on grade inflation (Opinion, “The Racial Theory of Grade Inflation,” April 23). The graph, showing the percentage of students on the Dean’s List from 1921 until now, supports my argument rather than his, and my concern rather than his ho-hum attitude on the matter.

The graph shows that grades leaped upward remarkably in the late 1960s to 1970. They then remained at this extraordinarily high level and in the last 15 years have gone still higher. Can you believe a University with what looks like 90 percent of its students on the Dean’s List!

It is certainly notable that those on the Dean’s List went from 20 percent to 40 percent from 1920 to 1960—a doubling. But then there was another doubling from 1960 to 1970—only 10 years! And instead of falling, grades remained high and are still going higher. Lewis’s attempt to reduce this pattern to an average rise over the whole period from 1920 is laughably misleading.

As to the causes of grade inflation, I have given my view. The Dean’s own comments about 1970, the year of the greatest increase, suggest that two of the reasons I suggested, Faculty reaction to the Vietnam War and support of affirmative action, were indeed significant. What is the Dean’s explanation for why grades once inflated remain so high and continue to climb?

I reiterate that I do not have a “racial theory of grade inflation,” and frankly I am getting tired of Lewis’s indignant attempts to brand me, and get me stomped on, as “divisive.” The difficulty is with the teachers, and with a don’t-care administration, not with the students.

Harvey C. Mansfield ’53