Corporation Begins Discussion of South Africa Resolutions

Responding to the recent campus outcry against Harvard's investment policy towards firms operating in South Africa, the Corporation yesterday began evaluating a series of recommendations that Harvard use more than just financial considerations when deciding to buy stock.

But the governing body postponed extensive discussion until the recommendations final drafts arrive, Corporation members said yesterday.

Members of the Advisory Committee on Shareholder Responsibility (ACSR), which drafted the recommendations, said their action was a response to Corporation statements that Harvard makes initial investment decisions primarily for economic reasons.

Hugh Calkins '45, chairman of the Corporation subcommittee that determines the University's votes on shareholder resolutions, said last week that Harvard need not investigate whether a company conforms to ethical guidelines until after buying stock in that company.

Calkins later said his statement represented no change of Harvard's investment policy, adopted in 1978 in response to student protests.

The ACSR, which advises Harvard on ethical issues concerning its portfolio, recommended nearly unanimously that Harvard use the Sullivan Principles, a set of equal-opportunity and fair-labor practices for U.S. firms operating in South Africa as the minimum standards for buying or holding stock in a company.

The Corporation decided to postpone extensive discussion of the resolution until its next meeting in two weeks, subcommittee member George Putnam' 49 said yesterday, adding that committee members want to see the ACSR's final drafts of their resolutions. The subcommittee will also meet with ACSR Chairman Walter J. Salmon to discuss the implications of the resolutions.

The ACSR will finish drafting its statement to the Corporation this Thursday, Nancy E. Kossan, the committee's secretary, said yesterday.

Kossan added that the Corporation voted on 16 shareholder resolutions yesterday, and in three cases rejected the ACSR's recommendations.

The Corporation voted to abstain on a resolution that would prohibit Texaco from making sales to the South African military and police. The ACSR had recommended voting in favor of the resolution.

Kossan said the Corporation made its decision based on precedent, adding that the Corporation did not feel it had a right to interfere in the actual running of a business.

Student ACSR member Jonathan G. Cedarbaum '83 said yesterday he was surprised by the Corporation's decision to abstain, adding that Harvard's support of direct sales to South Africa is "very extreme."

Harvard owned about $8 million worth of stock in Texaco as of June 1982.