He has acted consistently too. For example, Lewis was willing to silence "Radcliffe" cheers at the opening exercises for first years in 1998.

Tradition deemed that the women in the audience yell "Radcliffe," in response to the Glee Club's persistent chant of "Harvard" in the song "Harvardiana"--playful banter between the men and the women.

But in 1998, Lewis asked the Glee Club's director to quiet the Radcliffe Choral Society and their intermittent cheers of "Radcliffe."

There would be no bantering. Lewis would permit only the refrain of "Harvard."

He was insistent that men and women be treated exactly equal--no special favors, no special cheers.

But in trying to obliterate every hint of a relationship between Radcliffe and female undergraduates, Lewis has alienated many of the women he deigns to dean.

Leaders of campus women's groups, alumnae and administrators say that he has been slow to address the more controversial issues of sexual violence and sexual harassment on campus.

"We are all works in progress, so is he. When we say equal opportunity, there may be some things that individuals--women--wish to have,

that Harvard hasn't thought about," McGrath Lewis says.

But for Radcliffe, the problem was more than Lewis' image.

Lewis disdained what Radcliffe had come to embody under the leadership of President Linda S. Wilson and chairman of the board of the trustees, Nancy-Beth G. Sheerr '71, sources say.

"Harry thought Wilson and Sheerr were ill-equipped administrators driving a distinguished institution into the ground," says the source experienced with both Radcliffe and Lewis. The 1977 agreement required Harvard to consult with Radcliffe on certain appointments, such as the selection of House masters. Once Harvard had made a selection for such a position, Lewis would venture up Garden Street to Radcliffe Yard and climb the steps of Fay House to get what he says he felt was akin to a rubber stamp of approval.

Lewis, he readily admits, found these jaunts uncomfortable.

"They were the most awkward meetings I've ever had," Lewis says. "Nothing uncivil, just odd."

The last dean of Radcliffe College, Phillipa Bovet, says that issues of communication were a source of conflict between Lewis and Wilson.