According to Barber, a small but vocal minority turned the council vote into a fight for the very existence of Radcliffe through the use of urgent e-mail messages and petitions sent to the council e-mail list.

"They were very successful in their outreach efforts. I have to give them credit, but they employed some propaganda methods that we weren't willing to use," she says.

The Feminist Perspective

As students decide whether they believe Radcliffe still deserves a place on women's diplomas, both sides of the debate attempt to characterize themselves as women's rights advocates.

"We had kind of naively thought that the issue would speak for itself," Barber says. "We thought that anyone who called themselves a feminist would have to say that women aren't getting equal treatment and that isn't right."

But for those who support continuing Radcliffe's seal and Wilson's signature on women's diplomas, the debate centers on recognizing the benefits they feel Radcliffe offers undergraduate women--benefits they believe Harvard has been unable to duplicate.

"Taking the Radcliffe seal and Linda Wilson's signature off my diploma is not going to change the fact that I didn't find the resources I needed at Harvard," Bagneris says. "What it does do is erase the history of Radcliffe."

"For me, that signature needs to be there, not only because I got my education from Radcliffe, but as a symbol of all that I didn't get at Harvard," she says.