After years of talk about the problems of the low rate of tenure among female Faculty members and lack of female leadership in student extracurriculars, 1997 was a year of action.

Students, professors and alumni have all publicly challenged the University's stated commitment to gender equity, saying Harvard's public stance is not reflected by its private actions.

The conflict surrounding women's issues at Harvard came under particularly intense scrutiny this year, several times putting the University into the national spotlight.

A protest in support of a female junior Faculty member denied tenure, the formation of a senior gift fund to be held in escrow contingent upon an increase in the number of female senior Faculty members and the election of the first female president of the student body all made national news this year.

The year was also marked by alumnae's fighting to maintain Radcliffe's place as an important institution. Graduates protested a University Hall letter to Radcliffe alumnae, saying the letter showed the University no longer regarded Radcliffe as an important figure in the fund-raising process.

At the undergraduate level, the Radcliffe Union of Students (RUS) also decided to take a more activist approach, approving a draft constitution which allowed the group to take political stands and incorporate a self-described radical wing called Radcliffe Women's Action Coalition (RADWAC).

Denied

The decision of President Neil L. Rudenstine to deny tenure to Associate Professor of Government Bonnie Honig led many in the academic community to wonder whether the University's public commitment to diversity is matched in its private decisions.

Rudenstine's decision was vigorously protested in letters to the president by graduate students, junior Faculty members and, most significantly, 15 female senior professors.

The letters followed shortly after Rudenstine spearheaded a 62-university coalition to print a thre e-quarter page advertisement in The New York Times proclaiming the importance of diversity in higher education.

The senior professors' letter, which was termed a "near revolutionary act" by The New York Times, said Rudenstine's decision to deny tenure to Honig "was almost incomprehensible given [his] publicly stated commitment to the equality of women."

Professors also criticized Rudenstine's decision in the media.

"The decision is simply infuriating and it suggests the presence of a double standard," said Professor of Government Seyla Benhabib, a signatory of the female professors' letter.

Rudenstine said he does not try to anticipate the reaction to any of his decisions and that the public outcry had not changed his stance on the Honig case.

"It's a part of my duty as President of this University to do justice," he said. "If it were my duty to do what everyone wants that would be another matter." (See related story, this page.)