Yale students Kate Crandall ’06 and Aaron Lambert ’06, who were charged with underage drinking at the Harvard-Yale Game last month, discuss their case with defense attornies at the Brighton courthouse yesterday.

It isn’t that Ashanti A. Decker ’02 denies she slapped a Harvard Business School (HBS) security guard during this year’s Harvard-Yale tailgates—she just alleges he pushed her first.

“I did slap him when he came forward at me,” Decker said. “It was all a defensive measure. It is very odd that Harvard would employ someone who uses physical violence on their alums.”

At a hearing yesterday, a Brighton District Court judge dismissed the charges against Decker concerning the alleged assault of Arthur W. Mckenzie at HBS during the Harvard-Yale festivities. Mckenzie agreed to drop the charges as long as Decker apologized for the incident.

“I was forced to apologize,” said Decker, who also dropped her counter complaint against the guard yesterday. “He didn’t apologize to me but it’s easier than having to come back.”

Decker contended that she and James D. Mayers ’02 entered the Harvard Business School to use the rest rooms on Nov. 20 when Mckenzie asked them to leave—along with some pushing and a few blows to the neck.

“He pushed us both and refused to give us his ID number or show us his badge,” Decker said. “He karate-chopped my friend in the neck a few times. I just came to visit. It’s ridiculous—you can’t just treat your alums this way.”

But Steven G. Catalano, Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) spokesman, said Decker did not mention to police that she had been assaulted that day.“These allegations of her being assaulted are new,” said Catalano, who also said police reports indicate that Mckenzie was the victim.

Decker, who received a summons to appear in court on the night of the incident but was not arrested, said she suspects her race was a factor. Both she and Mayer are black.

“I feel it’s very discriminatory,” said Decker. “If we were two older white men in blue blazers, he wouldn’t have screamed at us and he definitely would not have pushed us.”

But Catalano said race had nothing to do with the incident. And Decker’s attorney said the hearing did not confront the issue of race.

“It was a mutual dismissal,” said Burt A. Nadler, Decker’s attorney. “Each dropped the case against each other.”

Brighton’s court also heard two other Harvard-Yale cases yesterday—one charging two underage Yale students with possession of alcohol and another concerning a trespass offense committed by the leader of a police watchdog group.

Katie E. Crandall and Aaron L. Lambert, who declined to comment for this article, were sentenced to 20 hours of community service and required to attend two Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. Crandall was additionally ordered to write a letter of apology for allegedly pouring out her alcoholic beverage on the shoes of an officer.

“I don’t know you; I don’t know your relationship to alcohol,” said Judge A. Peter Anderson. “But it was such to bring you here. You might be saying to yourself, I go to Yale, that’s not going to happen to me...addiction to drugs or alcohol knows no class, knows no education.”

The two third-year Yale students were underage and Lambert allegedly presented the officer with false identification.