"Until that ideal world comes into existence, it is a good idea to have at least one department that pays very close attention to gender issues."

--SUSAN R. SULEIMAN

The proposal was two years in the making, and the debate consumed most of the Nov. 18, 1986 Faculty Meeting. But just before 5:30 p.m., the Committee on Degrees in Women's Studies was approved by an almost unanimous vote of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

One lone voice was heard in dissent, that of Kenan Professor of Government Harvey C. Mansfield Jr. '53.

In the fall of 1986, of Stanford and the Ivy League schools, only Columbia and Harvard remained without a degree-granting program in women's studies.

Next month, Harvard's Committee on Degrees in Women's Studies turns 10 years old. Students and faculty members in the concentration have planned a year-long series of events, which kicked off with the appearance of author Maxine Hong Kingston earlier this month.

Yet in spite of a decade of recruiting well-known scholars, awarding magna and summa degrees and advising Hoopes prize theses, controversy remains about the worth of women's studies as an academic discipline.

"I still think more than ever that women's studies is a disgrace to Harvard," Mansfield says today. "It's characterized by shoddy scholarship, crackpot theories and tendentious, politicized classrooms."

One of Mansfield's strongest objections is that the faculty perspective on the committee lacks diversity.

"They're all conformist," Mansfield says. "They don't have any critics [of feminism] within the department, and they never invite any. They have nightmares about Camille Paglia."

However, both faculty and students adamantly defend the program.

Claire Patricia M. Prestel '98, who is a Crimson editor, says she thinks the women's studies concentration presents a reasonable variety of viewpoints.

"I think that a fair amount of diversity is allowed," Prestel says in an e-mail message. "But obviously, there isn't as much room for the antifeminist or the politically conservative point of view because the department naturally stands for inclusivity and interest in the problems of a historically subjugated group."

Women's studies concentrator Naomi K. Seiler '98 says the interdisciplinary nature of the program adds a lot of diversity to the women's studies experience.

And Mariko L. Ryono '99 cites flexibility as a positive aspect of the concentration.