Amid the muffled roar coming from student protesters gathered below, the full Faculty yesterday voted to dismiss D. Drew Douglas, Class of 2000, by a vote of 119 to 19.

"The vote was extremely decisive in favor of dismissal," said Lawrence Buell, chair of the English department and Marquand professor of English. "It was a lopsided verdict and rightly so."

Douglas pled guilty in Middlesex Superior Court on Sept. 24, 1998, to a charge of indecent assault and battery--a lesser charge than rape. A rape charge against Douglas was not pressed at that time, but could be at a later date.

The Faculty vote was a response to an Administrative Board finding that a rape had occurred in the case. The woman assaulted by Douglas had brought her case before the Ad Board before pursuing legal action.

During a closed portion of yesterday's regularly scheduled full Faculty meeting, Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis '68 moved for dismissal on behalf of the Ad Board.

The decision effectively ends Douglas' career at Harvard. In order to return to Harvard, Douglas must petition the full Faculty to reapply for admission.

As a result of his court conviction, Douglas is serving 18 months of house arrest and is barred from returning to Harvard or contacting the woman he assaulted for five years. But even after that, his dismissal will likely be permanent.

"Dismissal is a separation from the College that is expected to be permanent. There are no circumstances foreseen today under which this student will be readmitted," said a Harvard statement released yesterday.

"Dismissal is the strongest sanction that has been voted in modern times for disciplining a student," the statement continued.

The Faculty did not consider the more severe punishment of expulsion, which would mandate that Douglas could not ever petition to return to Harvard. In recent decades, expulsion has only been used as punishment for admissions fraud.

One Faculty member said after the meeting that expulsion--called for in spite of tradition in recent weeks by the Coalition Against Sexual Violence--was not considered as an option during yesterday's meeting.

The Faculty rejected a proposal put forth by five members of the Faculty Council--an 18-member body that reviews proposed policy changes before sending them to the full Faculty--which recommended a "requirement to withdraw" for five years.

If the Faculty had approved this motion, Douglas could have returned to campus in five years, after petitioning the Ad Board and meeting any conditions it set. Withdrawal is considered a lesser punishment because the Ad Board traditionally is far more open to re-admitting students after their term of withdrawal.

One Faculty member said yesterday that the motion for dismissal carried an important message to students in addition to its concrete effect on Douglas.

"Many people believe that what we did was symbolically important for the institution," said the member of the Faculty.