Putnam says the department's three other comparative politics specialists would not have been able to accommodate Gov 2105 into their academic schedules this term.

Dominguez refuses to comment on his case or on issues surrounding sexual harassment.

Sexual harassment committee members Laporte and Swift also criticize the Government Department for not doing enough to protect sexual harassment victims and government graduate students in general from the fallout of such incidents.

They say, for example, that the department has perennially rejected graduate student requests to appoint new or visiting faculty members to provide a "meaningful alternative" to professors implicated for sexual harassment.

As a result, graduate students say, at least five graduate students who came to study with Dominguez have since arranged to study with Dominguez have since arranged to study elsewhere to avoid further contact with the professor. Putnam has not been able to produce any specific statistics, but has confirmed that the number of graduate students in Latin American politics has dropped since 1983. It is unclear how many graduate students now study Latin American politics.

"All of us felt that the University had not taken sufficient action either to protect the victims of sexual harassment or to insure a viable work environment for students of Latin American politics who wished to continue in the field at Harvard," says Jeffrey W. Rubin, a sixth-year student in Latin American politics. "Most of those who left did so for this reason."

Sylvia Maxfield, a fifth-year graduate student, was once a student of Dominguez. She says she filed a sexual misconduct complaint against him, charging that he had both sexually harassed her and tried to pit her against the junior professor whose sexual harassment complaint resulted in Dominguez's discipline. Harvard as a matter of policy does not discuss specific cases or their settlements (Harvard's announcement of the Hibbs resignation was an extraordinary exception).

The University, Maxfield says, assured her that "Dominguez would never have anything to do with me again" and that she could still get her Ph.D. without any contact with the professor. Although Maxfield remains technically enrolled at Harvard, she is writing her dissertation at the University of San Diego.

The Government Department this term has only one specialist, Dominguez, in Latin American politics. From an academic perspective, the lack of another specialist in that field is not necessarily a problem for the department. The question is whether the department should search for another specialist because students find the first professor objectionable on ethical grounds.

"In principle it opens up a logistical nightmare for the University," Assistant Professor of Government Lisa Anderson says of the conflict between academics and ethics. "Harassment is not limited to sex--other forms can be equally serious. On what grounds do you have to have two faculties?"'

While some graduate students appear ready to continue pushing for the right to disassociation, others say they believe it is not constructive to dwell on past cases.

"Since the fact is that Jorge Dominguez is a member of this university, we must all try to make the best of it. What he did was wrong and very destructive, but we must now give him the benefit of the doubt that he will not abuse his position again," says one female government graduate student who asked not to be identified.

"We really don't have the right to play judge and jury and make a pariah out of someone who has by the University's procedures paid his dues," says Radcliffe Union of Students (RUS) President Ann Pellegrini '86. Pellegrini says she opposed Swift's decision to distribute the leaflet about Dominguez.

While RUS supports the right to disassociation, Pellegrini says she does not believe that putting particular professors in the public spotlight is the best way to free students from having to associate with certain professors.

Reputation Intact