Bee members also say the club is asrepresentative as it can be given the pool it hasto choose from.

"Harvard is obviously not the mostrepresentative," Stewart says. "The members of theclub are representative of the different kinds ofpeople at Harvard."

But many of the women who were punched but didnot join the organization say their decisions werebased on doubts about the Bee's commitment todiversity.

"They punch a lot of diverse people. The oneswho got in are the ones that you would expect toget in," says the sophomore who asked to remainanonymous.

She says she primarily saw members of thewomen's squash team at the punch events and womenshe knew form boarding school.

"I'm sure they take some people who didn't goto boarding school," this sophomore says, addingshe became good friends with some of the women shemet during the punch events. "But it's like payingmoney to have people be my friends. These peopleare cool. I just thought that we could be friendswithout being in the Bee."

Redmond says she felt the same way afterattending the first punch event.

"It was more diverse than I thought it to be,but I'd hesitate to characterize the Bee as adiverse organization," she says.

But Stewart says being admitted into the Bee isno different than becoming a member of severalother Harvard's extracurricular organizations.

"Just as when you're trying to become part ofor move up in any other students organization atHarvard, somewhere, somehow you have to impresssomebody," she says.

"It's meritocratic for its purposes," Stewartsays. "The purpose of the Bee is to have asocially engaging atmosphere."

Although Hoermann would not comment on thedetails of the punch process, the sophomore memberwho asked to remain anonymous says she was toldmembership is determined by consensus.

"The club is about people who can support otherpeople. We're not looking for a homogeneous groupof women," Hoermann says. "The reason I love theclub is because it's a dynamic group of women.Personally, when I'm thinking about who I wouldlike to share this experience with, I think on anindividual basis."

One of the Guys?

Without a building or a history of illustriousalumni, the Bee has struggled to become a campuspresence.