For many, the case of the Harvard Law Revue is closed.

With few exceptions, the parody of an article by the late Mary Joe Frug has been universally condemned--from faculty to students to the president of the Harvard Law Review, Emily R. Schulman '85.

The annual Revue spoof edition, intended only for internal distribution, was leaked this year to a group of students at the Law School. They immediately and forcefully condemned the piece, "He-Manifesto of Post-Mortem Legal Feminism (From The Desk of Mary Doe)." The piece mocked Frug's article, "A Postmodern Feminist Legal Manifesto."

And if the title was not sufficiently morbid, the Revue was distributed on the first anniversary of Frug's murder in Cambridge.

The nature of the parody is no longer controversial, but its implications go beyond Mary Joe Frug. Student activists, as well as a contingent of liberal professors, have seized upon the incident to condemn the Law School, its faculty appointments committee and its overall treatment of women and minorities.

And inside the Law Review, for decades the arena of the Law School's elite, the parody has sparked a debate over the journal's treatment of women and feminist scholarship.

Specifically, a group of editors, mostly women, as well as some professors say the spoof was a new twist on a recurring theme, symptomatic of more widespread disrespect towards women at the prestigious journal.

"Women aren't looked upon as the upper crust of the Law Review," says second-year Law student and Review editor Rebecca L. Eisenberg. "Women are not given as much credit for their intelligence and achievements."

"The general atmosphere makes me feel like we're breaking into a male institution," Eisenberg says.

Eisenberg's sentiments were echoed in a letter written by 15 Law School professors and addressed to the Law School community April 20.

"Many students have experienced the Review, like much of the Law School, as an environment that is seriously hostile to women," the professors wrote.

Professor of Law Elizabeth Bartholet, who signed the letter, described the journal to The Crimson as "an extraordinarily exclusive white male preserve."

Judging from the debate in the Law School as a whole, critics of the Review have a substantial following, but by no means represent universal opinion.

Still, the journals' critics are more outspoken than its advocates. Editors who have defended the journal from such criticism in the past would not comment for this report, deferring queries to Schulman, the Review's president.

Sings posted in the Review's Gannett House offices instruct staffers to refuse comment, saying that only Schulman should talk to the press. Schulman, who has herself condemned the Frug parody while defending the Review, did not return repeated phone calls over the last month.