One of the things that happens to [Harvard junior faculty] is that since we've all been exceptions, all been lucky, a lot of us in our own way deep in the backs of our minds try to feel we will be the exception this time too."

Diminished expectations are healthy for other reasons, too, Klein says. "One of the dangers of Harvard is that you begin to feel that there's no place else. Students, even the ones who hate this place, have a hard time accepting the idea that they will not be at Harvard next year and not getting all the perks that come with saying 'I'm a Harvard student.' It's the validation par-excellence."

Though she acknowledges she doesn't fit the Harvard pattern, Klein insists that she's felt no pressure from the University because of her political views. "I have not felt persecuted or sought out because of my politics. I don't think the University is out to get me. I don't think they think about me at all....Given my position, I could be Mao Zedong and it really wouldn't matter."

Being a woman at Harvard is more difficult--not because of the administrative discrimination, but because "this has been a men's club." After years of "dealing with women in the context of wife, daughter or lover, all of a sudden they have to deal with them in a new way, as a colleague," Klein says. "For the well-meaning, as well as for those who think women have brains the size of peas, it's a difficult social transition," she adds.

Conversations with her colleagues include "lots of sexual innuendoes," she says. "Do you appreciate those as sexual harassment?" she asks, answering that she doesn't think they are. "Or do you appreciate them as people saying something because they don't know what else to say?" The awkwardness that marks casual conversations may also blight the tenure process, Klein fears. "Women that are as highly evaluated (as men) have to be exceptional. I don't see a recognition that having role models is an important part of an intellectual environment." And there are other pressures Klein says she creates for herself: "I feel strong incentives to always be perfect because if I'm not, it's not "Ethel Klein is a mediocre academic,' it's that women are mediocre academics.'"

Most of Klein's colleagues say she's accepted in the department; "Half our assistant professors are women, and many of our course deal with politics in one way or another," Sidney Verba'53, former Government Department chairman, says. Verba terms Klein's research "very exciting and innovative, specifically the work on the women's movement, and more generally in the area of quantitative analysis. She came here very highly trained," he adds.

One reason Klein says she doubts she'll be given tenure here is that the University's standards for appointments are "conservative.... You have to reach a level of excellence that is very hard to attain in seven years," Klein says. "You have to be at a point where you're already well entrenched, so they really look outside. Harvard is sort of like the Yankees--they want the best team money can buy. They may be somewhat behind the discipline at times, but they always manage to have, at least on the roster, the most noted people in the world."

Klein won't positively commit more than the "first part" of her life to academia. Should she quit,"I've had people say to me that they think I should run for public office. I don't think I could ever do that--it's unclear to me whether individuals in public positions really can do anything," she says.

And anyway, she adds, "People in most professions really don't have the luxury of thinking.... I really do like to think."