Williams said at the time of the incident thathe viewed the call as "a light-hearted" prank.

But the events of that night, which came at atime when racist incidents were making headlinesnationwide, prompted administrators to create astudent-faculty committee on race relations. Initially,the window-breaking and the phone calls were thoughtto be related.

According to the student who was punished forbreaking the window, he and his three companionshurled the oranges with a slingshot from the NorthHouse breezeway following a drunken snowball fightin the Quad.

Patterson was on his way home from a party andwas also drunk when he witnessed the shattering ofthe bell-desk window, the student said.

Patterson, who is a starting defensive back onthe varsity football team, then returned to hisroom, informed his roommate of what he had seen,and placed the call to Williams. His roommate thenfollowed with his prank call asking about the"draft."

The student involved in breaking the windowsaid that he and his friends found out about thephone calls the following morning.

"We said [to Patterson], 'What did you say thatfor?' and he said, `I can't believe I said that.It was so totally stupid,'" according to thestudent involved in breaking the window.

The student involved in the window-breakingsaid he and his three companions decided not tocome forward to University officials about theiractions for fear of being seen as racists."Because of Dartmouth and Howard Beach it seemedwe were really going to take a hosing for this.Better to let it blow over, which it did," thestudent involved in breaking the window said.

Around the time of Commencement, the studentswere informed that the Ad Board was aware of theirnames. The student invovled in the window-breakingsaid he and his three companions decided to comefoward after they were notified that the Ad Boardviewed the phone calls as separate from theiraction.

The four students also paid for a replacementwindow, said Hanna M. Hastings, co-master of NorthHouse.

The student added that their names came tolight following a lengthy, unofficialinvestigation by Tim Galloway, a North Housepre-law tutor. Galloway graduated from Harvard LawSchool in June and could not be reached forcomment.

Since some of the students involved had alreadyleft for the summer, the Ad Board elected topostpone the hearing until this fall. "We dealtwith this case as soon as we could," Jewett said