The U.S. attorney general, Michael B. Mukasey, is still the designated speaker at Boston College Law School’s commencement this spring, but he will not be receiving the law school’s top honor, The Boston Globe reported.

The move, which the law school’s dean announced to students today, was seen as a compromise to soothe a campus debate over the decision last month to invite Mr. Mukasey to speak. Some students, faculty members, and alumni protested the invitation because of the attorney general’s refusal to declare that a prison-interrogation technique known as waterboarding constitutes torture.

The dean, John Garvey, said the decision not to bestow the Founder’s Medal on Mr. Mukasey was not a personal one. The school will no longer award the medal to any commencement speaker, he said. “This is a policy decision that will make it easier for us to invite people of his prominence in the future,” Mr. Garvey told the Globe. —Charles Huckabee