ACSR Points Toward Proxy Fights

Even Harvard undergraduates like to dabble in stocks and bonds, and this Spring, students will play the market with University approval.

President Bok's establishment of the Advisory Committee on Shareholder Responsibility (ACSR) this Fall brought a potentially explosive issue under the Harvard umbrella. Last Spring, a group of black undergraduates, frustrated by Harvard's refusal to divest its portfolio of Gulf Oil stock, took over Harvard's "Wall Street"--Massachusetts Hall--in protest.

The black undergraduates, members of the Pan-African Liberation Committee (PALC), held Mass Hall for seven days. Harvard held out just as long, and in the end, refused to sell its Gulf investment, or to vote against Gulf in a proxy fight.

PALC charged that Gulf, through its operations in Angola, contributed to the well-being of the Portuguese government which holds Angola as a colony. PALC called for the University to acknowledge its social responsibility, and divest its 670,000 shares.

Bok, aware of the overwhelming student support for PALC's occupation of Mass Hall, reduced the possibility of student activism by setting up the ACSR. The student representatives to the ACSR have already given the Harvard community an indication of their political stance.

In their first vote, the students asked the University to oppose investment in Namibia by Continental Oil and Phillips Petroleum. Harvard owns 270,000 shares of Continental and 70,000 shares of Phillips.

But the full 15-member ACSR--five Faculty, five students, five alumni--does not seem as inclined to recommend similar policies. And even if it did, the ACSR's advisory nature does not insure that Bok would accept its recommendation.

At an open hearing of the ACSR this week, one other problem became apparent. Only four ACSR members appeared, hardly a strong showing for a meeting to consider the ACSR's position on 12 proxy questions, but not surprising.

Still, the no-show of most Faculty and alumni members indicates the ACSR's real lack of power. Although 12 of the companies in which Harvard owns stocks will face proxy fights in the next few months, no one at the open hearing offered a position on the upcoming battles. Instead, the meeting degenerated into a forum for the New American Movement, which had come to talk about Harvard's Vietnamese investments.