When asked in an e-mail message about how the College should respond to underage students who drink a beer while watching the Super Bowl, he wrote, "This behavior is illegal."

Parag Y. Shah '02 says that he has gotten a dean's warning on more than one occasion for drinking casually and responsibly with friends.

"Their standard operating procedure is a zero tolerance procedure--you have one beer and you're wrong," he says.

In fact, some college administrators at Harvard and beyond say they have mixed feelings about the law. There is a pervading sense that colleges forbid alcohol to students under the age of 21 only because they think it is important that students obey the law, even if they themselves do not agree with it.

"Red lights--may be tiresome, but we do obey them," Dean Knowles explained.

In the past, Harvard's policies were less strictly enforced.

When Kelsey D. Wirth '91 was a first-year in Massachusetts Hall, it never occurred to her that she might get in trouble for throwing a party in her room. Although Harvard had an alcohol policy on the books, it was, she remembers, mostly a formality.