Dean of the College Harry R Lewis' '68 office on the first floor of University Hall is large, with yellow walls. A low, round table sits in the middle, covered with rocks and mineral samples from a lapidary shop near Lewis' Montana summer retreat.

During interviews and conversations, Lewis often puts one foot on the table, crosses his legs, picks up a rock and tosses it from hand to hand as he looks around the room. All while he's talking.

"It's his general attitude, you see the look on his face as he leans back in his chair--like you're stupid. He's lounging, and you are there, trying to get a point across," says Kathryn B. Clancy '01, the president of the Radcliffe Union of Students. "He conveys the attitude that you are not important."

Impressions like these can be lethal--especially for a white, male, middle-aged computer scientist trying to come across as sensitive to women's issues.

To those already critical of Harvard's treatment of women, Harry Lewis' words and actions only confirm that Harvard is a men's club after all.

The Lyman Common Room in Radcliffe's Agassiz House was once full of feminist literature and displays, like the infamous "boob board."

No such space exists under the auspices of Harvard College, and with Harvard's non-discrimination policy, Lewis says it never will.

There is simply no room at Harvard for groups that will not admit both men and women, Lewis says.

But Harvard students, Radcliffe Institute administrators and alumnae say the playing field for men and women remains uneven, and they say that women need institutional support--a type of support they feel Lewis will not give.

Playing By Harvard's Rules

Though Lewis was not privy to the negotiations that led to the much publicized Harvard-Radcliffe merger last October, he was handed the outcome and is now responsible for implementing its details.

It is Lewis who must apply the deal's minutia and make the merger agreement come alive. Hence, the Radcliffe Travelling Fellowships were transferred to Harvard College's Office of Career Services and the Radcliffe Externship program was opened to men.

Lewis grounds his opinion about gender at Harvard in the College's non-discrimination policy--a rule established in 1977 in negotiation with Radcliffe that said no Harvard recognized student group would deny a student membership on the basis of his or her gender.

But casualties of the Harvard rule--and Lewis's interpretation of it--are everywhere.

For example, the Radcliffe Science Alliance brought interested first-year women to campus a week early for intensive seminars about science at Harvard. The Science Alliance didn't make the cut at Harvard.

"It's disappointing. It's feasible for Harvard to take it on," says Elizabeth D. Chao '01, head of Women in Science at Harvard and Radcliffe (WISHR). "Instead, it has been swept under the rug, and people are sad and upset."