College Opinion Varies on Divestiture

While Harvard's investments in firms operating in South Africa prompted an unusual string of student protests in recent weeks, the issue of divestiture has prompted a wide range of reaction at other colleges across the country.

In a survey this week of 22 colleges nationwide, administrators and students in 13 campuses said that their schools have either divested of their holdings in firms operating in South Africa or are actively debating the question. But at the other nine schools, divestiture from South Africa appears to be an issue attracting little attention.

At Duke University in Durham, N.C., Larry Kaplow, news editor for the student newspaper. The Chronicle said, "No one much demonstrates down here on anything." South Africa's apartheid policies, Kaplow said, have not been the subject of debate for several years.

At Cornell University's Ithaca, N.Y. campus, the widespread student protests for divestiture of a year ago have fizzled. Observers there attribute the collapse of organized protest to a governing board of trustees which, one student said, "persistently ignored the entire issue of divestiture."

Several Cornell students said that the low level of interest in divestiture may be a result of Cornell's policy of investing only in those corporations abiding by the Sullivan principles, a set of fair-labor practices developed in 1976.

Harvard officials have acknowledged the Sullivan guidelines as a reasonable set of investment standards, but have failed to pay strict attention to them when deciding how to handle its $2 billion portfolio. Most of the recent protests--including a student hunger strike (see story, page four)--have urged the Corporation to divest itself of all holdings in South Africa.

As it has been at Harvard, debate on some other campuses has been fierce. At Columbia, the University Senate--a student-faculty body that advises the administration on important issues--overwhelmingly approved a resolution last month urging Columbia to divest itself of nearly $23.5 million worth of stock in companies doing business in South Africa. The recommendation is now under consideration by the university's Board of Trustees.

Referenda

In an unusual campus-wide referendum at Brown University, students recently passed a resolution calling for complete divestiture of all of Brown's holdings in corporations that do business in South Africa. A similar referendum will be voted on by the student body at Smith College next Tuesday, following up on the passage of a divestiture resolution.

Several schools have already divested all of their holdings in firms that operate in South Africa Prompted by the passage of a controverial state law on divestiture earlier this year, all of the major universities in Michigan, for example, have sold their stock in such companies.

At the University of Michigan, where students initiated one of the nation's first divestiture efforts seven years ago, officials voted last week to sell about 90 percent of the school's South Africa stock. The University decided against divesting the remaining 10 percent because those stocks represent holdings in firms that operate both in South Africa and in the state of Michigan.