Last night's debate over the budget was marked by a bitter exchange between two of the council's most visible members, Hyman and Coffey. The two ran a close race for president last spring that Hyman ultimately won.

Coffey aggressively criticized the president for the failure of some of the council's campus life events last year, saying the president was irresponsibly deflecting the blame onto the Campus Life Committee.

Hyman in turn claimed a mandate, saying that Coffey "failed to understand who the campus voted for last spring."

In the only other business of the meeting, the council defeated a resolution, 36-17, that would have criticized the annual college rankings of U.S. News and World Report.

Students at Stanford University are attempting to organize a nationwide movement to convince the magazine to dump its current rankings system. The students have attacked the ratings as shallow and subjective but dangerous because so many students and administrators take them seriously.

"The U.S. News is a complete sham," said guest bill sponsor Jedediah S. Purdy '97, who is not a council member. "They can jiggle the statistics to make the top 10 and the top 25 come out however they like."

Many council members opposed the measure because they said they felt Harvard's involvement would appear to be a reaction to its fall in the rankings.

"If people can't figure out [the rankings'] credibility for themselves, it is not our responsibility," said Michele A. Manahan'98