Staying The Course

Lewis says he has done nothing to change Harvard's alcohol policy since he became dean in 1995.

But even if the letter of Harvard's law is the same, the spirit behind it has undergone noticeable change since the beginning of his tenure.

Proctors and tutors say that Harvard has cracked down on enforcement of its alcohol policies in the past few years in response to specific events. For instance, DeGreeff says the Ad Board handed out much tougher penalties for a period immediately following Krueger's death.

"Last year I thought the decisions were a little more even-handed," DeGreeff says.

Lewis agrees that the administration has grown increasingly vigilant about alcohol use but denies that this translates into more disciplinary action--instead he has been aggressive in promoting counseling programs.

"There actually aren't very many cases where alcohol is an explicit part of the basis for an Ad Board sanction--less than two dozen per year," he writes in an e-mail.

Small-scale changes to the College's rules--like administrators' recent decision to ban kegs at future Harvard-Yale football games--do not merit much attention as indicators of a larger ideological crackdown, Lewis argues.