Dean Lewis Declines to Alter Radcliffe Diplomas

While there is now a good chance that Harvard graduates will be rewarded with a Latin sheepskin after four years of effort, it is equally probable that women's diplomas will remain different from their male counterparts'.

Last week Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis '68 refused to sign the Undergraduate Council's Act for Equal Harvard-Radcliffe Baccalaureate Diplomas, which was designed to bring women's diplomas on par with men's by adding Lewis' signature to female graduates' diplomas.

But Lewis did sign the Latin Diploma Bill, which would reinstate Latin as the official language of the diplomas if approved by the Committee on Undergraduate Education.

Council President Beth A. Stewart '99 said she thinks Lewis' decision not to approve the equal diplomas bill will make it difficult for the council to pursue the equalization of diplomas.

"I really think that at this point it is not likely that anything will come of this bill," Stewart said.

At Harvard men and women receive different signatures on their diplomas based on the historic separation of Radcliffe and Harvard. Men's diplomas have the signatures of the University President, the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the Dean of Harvard College and their House co-masters.

The President of Radcliffe College, rather than the Dean of the College, signs women's diplomas, and there is no Harvard College seal on them.

The council passed a bill on Feb. 22 calling for the addition of Lewis's signature and the seal to women's diplomas. But council members voted to retain the Radcliffe president's signature on women's diplomas, saying women are enrolled in both the College and Radcliffe, while men are simply students of the College.

For the bill to take effect in the College it needed the approval of an administrative committee that could not consider it without Lewis' signature and active sponsorship, according to Stewart.

Lewis declined to advance the bill, calling it "confusing" with only "modest changes."

"I can't see any good reason, given the sharp division of opinion on this question, to go through the many layers of approvals needed to make this change, simply to effect the modest alteration of adding a signature to women's diplomas in their long-standing form," Lewis wrote in an e-mail message to Stewart.

Taking issue with Lewis' use of the term "modest," Emma C. Cheuse '98, a sponsor of the bill, said these changes are very important to women's rights.

"We don't think it's just a modest alteration," she said. "We expected him to symbolically support women's full participation in Harvard College."

In an e-mail message to The Crimson, Lewis said the use of the word "equal" in the bill is confusing.

"Since the bill does not call for men and women to get the same diplomas, it is hard for me to understand in what way the diplomas would be `equalized' by this bill," he said.

Cheuse said she and the other sponsors do not understand Lewis' objections.

"Our first step is to question his decision. Hetook issue with the title, not the bill," Cheusesaid.

"He didn't respond to us. We made two differentattempts to talk to him. He didn't arrange ameeting. He didn't speak with us," she said.

In an effort to understand Lewis' refusal tosign a bill that does not initiate radicalchanges, Stewart said a larger debate lies behindthe attempts at diploma reform.

"The subtext of this discussion, even if notthe intent of [Cheuse and Anna M. Baldwin'00, thebill's co-sponsors], is the issue of what thefuture of Radcliffe is going to be," Stewart said.

Lewis may not be willing to renegotiate theentire agreement between Harvard and Radcliffe forsuch a small change, she added.

The bill could still have a future but is notlikely to succeed, according to Stewart.

"What could happen [is that] the sponsors ofthe bill could decide to put it on the agenda of astudent-faculty committee," Stewart said. "WithoutDean Lewis's support it would probably not do wellin the College [because he sits on many of thecommittees on whose consensus the decisionrests]."

Cheuse said she does not plan to drop the issuebecause it affects many students at Harvard, butshe said she is uncertain about her next step.

"A lot of students were interested in thisissue, so we want to make sure people understandthe decision," she said. "We want to find out howother students want to proceed."

She added, "We may have to pursue other avenuesthat are not the traditional ones."

But, in an e-mail message to The Crimson, Lewisquestioned the amount of support behind the bill.

"The bill came out of the U.C. on a very splitvote, without the support of the students whooriginally proposed it," he wrote.

Eric M. Nelson '99, chair of the StudentAffairs Committee of the council, said Lewisnotified him of the decision the week beforespring break. Lewis also sent Stewart an e-mailmessage, reiterating the same information

"Our first step is to question his decision. Hetook issue with the title, not the bill," Cheusesaid.

"He didn't respond to us. We made two differentattempts to talk to him. He didn't arrange ameeting. He didn't speak with us," she said.

In an effort to understand Lewis' refusal tosign a bill that does not initiate radicalchanges, Stewart said a larger debate lies behindthe attempts at diploma reform.

"The subtext of this discussion, even if notthe intent of [Cheuse and Anna M. Baldwin'00, thebill's co-sponsors], is the issue of what thefuture of Radcliffe is going to be," Stewart said.

Lewis may not be willing to renegotiate theentire agreement between Harvard and Radcliffe forsuch a small change, she added.

The bill could still have a future but is notlikely to succeed, according to Stewart.

"What could happen [is that] the sponsors ofthe bill could decide to put it on the agenda of astudent-faculty committee," Stewart said. "WithoutDean Lewis's support it would probably not do wellin the College [because he sits on many of thecommittees on whose consensus the decisionrests]."

Cheuse said she does not plan to drop the issuebecause it affects many students at Harvard, butshe said she is uncertain about her next step.

"A lot of students were interested in thisissue, so we want to make sure people understandthe decision," she said. "We want to find out howother students want to proceed."

She added, "We may have to pursue other avenuesthat are not the traditional ones."

But, in an e-mail message to The Crimson, Lewisquestioned the amount of support behind the bill.

"The bill came out of the U.C. on a very splitvote, without the support of the students whooriginally proposed it," he wrote.

Eric M. Nelson '99, chair of the StudentAffairs Committee of the council, said Lewisnotified him of the decision the week beforespring break. Lewis also sent Stewart an e-mailmessage, reiterating the same information