Lewis and Avery control the Trust, though a student and Faculty advisory committee will participate in the grant allocation process.

Top Radcliffe alumnae leaders say that Lewis has left potential donors feeling unenthusiastic about the Trust.

"They are not admitting that there is a problem with gender at Harvard--with date rape, final clubs, with anything," says an alumnae leader. "The problem is the dean, and if his office controls it, the Trust will not serve the same purpose I want my money to serve. They are using the name to suggest that it is a Radcliffe thing."

But Avery, one of Lewis's most ardent supporters, says she sees Lewis as receptive to women's issues, particularly matters of sexual violence and sexual harassment.

"I don't know why people feel that [Lewis doesn't care about these things]. I feel like it is very much the opposite. The Trust will be funding groups concerned with sexual harassment and sexual violence," Avery says. "I also worry when people think about women at Harvard that the first thing they jump to is rape or sexual violence. I don't think that is the only touch point for women at Harvard."

A Sometimes Stormy Relationship

Part of Lewis' problem in dealing with feminist undergraduates, now that they are officially his charges, might be that his reputation proceeds him.

From the first days of his tenure as dean in the spring of 1995, Lewis sought to clarify the relationship between Radcliffe and Harvard. But he interpreted the 1977 agreement in which Radcliffe "delegated" to Harvard College the responsibility for undergraduate instruction in a literal way.

In a pre-merger world, as dean of the College, Lewis saw himself responsible for all undergraduate affairs. He bristled at the slightest hint of Radcliffe supervision.

This attitude angered students and alumnae even then.

"He was the most rabid of the anti-Radcliffe administrators," says a source experienced with both Lewis and the Radcliffe administration.

Lewis was adamant that he would supervise every undergraduate--male and female.

Lewis says women are done a disservice if they get any special treatment.

"[He] doesn't make assumptions on people based on particular characteristics. He doesn't assume that you are a member of the group," says Marlyn McGrath Lewis '70-'73, director of admissions for Harvard College and Lewis' wife.

Harry Lewis says he hates any distinction--any distinction at all--that separates men and women at Harvard.

"Nothing we do should make distinctions on the basis of gender or race," he says.