A Long and Winding Road

The divestiture movement at Harvard has matured since its birth in the turmoil of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Inherited by Black activists from Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) in 1972, and then passed on to a broader based coalition in the late 1970s, the movement has undergone considerable change in its tactics and goals. The divestiture activists of 1983 who use both moral and financial persuasion bear little resemblance to those that 11 years ago seized University buildings and demanded divestiture by force.

Harvard first came under fire for its holdings informs doing business in South Africa when the SDS, in the late 1960s, charged that the University was involving itself in the seedier side of capitalism. But the SDS argued that the Harvard-South Africa connection was insignificant compared to other links. Harvard had to institutionalized racism and oppression, including the U.S. military. After the SDS stormed University Hall in 1969, there was no mention of South Africa or Harvard's investment policies--in the list of demands it released to the administration.

Divestiture did not become an issue in its own right until 1972 when 30 Black students, members of the Harvard based Pan African Liberation Committee occupied the administrative offices in Massachusetts Hall in an attempt to force Harvard to sell $21 million worth of stock in the Gulf Oil Company. The students argued that Gulf, which was conducting operations in the then-Portuguese colony of Angola directly supported the colonization of Africans by paying taxes to the white regime there. The demonstrators vacated the building a week later after the University threatened to file criminal charges. While President Bok refused to bow to the students demands, he did offer them one concession the creation of the Advisory Committee on Shareholder Responsibility (ACSR) a body composed of students, faculty, and alumni which would give the Corporation non binding recommendations on ethical issues it faces in managing Harvard's endowment.

The next four years saw the issue of divestiture relegated to the back burner of campus activism. For example, 1976 the year in which the United Nations called for complete corporate withdrawal from South Africa came and went with no student protest.

Interest in the Harvard South Africa relationship picked up a year later, when a small number of seniors asked alumni returning for their class reunions to withhold donations to Harvard, in protest of its investments in companies with links to the apartheid regime.

But it was not until 1978 that a wide-ranging student movement began to promote the cause of divestiture. At the center was the Southern Africa Solidarity Committee (SASC), founded in November of that year. SASC managed to organize a tenuous coalition of disparate minority and political groups into the United Front, and led them through a series of mass rallies and demonstrations that culminated just before reading period SASC called on the ACSR to recommend to the Corporation that it sell stocks in banks making loans to the South African government, support shareholder resolutions calling for complete corporate withdrawal, and issue a clear, public statement on its investment policies.

In March the ACSR released a report saying that it would only make recommendations to Harvard on a case by case basis, although it urged a ban on investments in offending banks. This left students dissatisfied. A month later, the Corporation reacted to the ACSR's report with a report of its own.

In its response the Corporation agreed to review investments on a case-by-case basis, but refused to accept the ACSR's suggestion that it divest from banks lending money directly to the apartheid regime.

That evening about 3500 people, over one-half of the undergraduate population, took to the streets in a torch and candle light procession that wound its way through campus and Harvard Square. A few hundred students spent the night in front of University Hall, and prevented a number of deans from entering the building the next morning. The protesters later dispersed without incident and the University eventually reversed its bank ban decision.

The protest quieted down until 1982, when the University attempted to retreat on the 1978 commitment. The University asked the ACSR to approve an end to the ban on investment in banks lending money to South Africa SASC reactivated itself, and packed an open meeting of the ACSR with 300 students. One after another, students--including representatives from the Conservative Club rose to urge the ACSR not to change its stand. The ACSR stuck to its original position and urged the Corporation to maintain the ban The Corporation did.

Emboldened by their success, student activists asked for another open meeting of the ACSR this spring, at which they asked it to recommend to the Corporation to sell the stock of any companies in its portfolio with ties to South Africa. Their pleas apparently had some impact on the advisory body. For the first time ever, the ACSR voted on a resolution recommending complete divestiture, and narrowly defeated it by a vote of 6 to 5, with one abstention. The abstaining member then changed his vote, bringing it to an even 6 to 6 split. The resolution did not pass, though, because it lacked a majority.

On May 7, students--one for every 10 that demonstrated in 1978--rallied in support of those on the committee who had voted in favor of the resolution. To many activists, it seemed that it was only a matter of time before the ACSR passed a divestiture resolution.

So it was not surprising that the divestiture activists of 1983 concentrated their energies on swaying the University itself. But unlike their predecessors, they sought to bring their efforts into the mainstream by enlisting parts of the "establishment" in the struggle, and moderating tactics. At the same time, the 1983 divestiture movement found itself led by students and organizations previously uninvolved in the issue.

Without warning, and without informing other groups of their plans, seven students announced on April 18 that they were beginning a water and vitamins-only hunger strike to force the University to divest.

President Bok responded immediately by declaring that he made up his mind and student pressure would not change it: there would be no divestiture. Several of the strikers quit, while others vowed to hold out.

Just as the whole venture seemed on the verge of collapse, eight members of a Black students organization the fundamentalist Christian Seymour Society announced that they were beginning a one week symbolic fast (by eating only fruit), and invited the original fasters to join them. They stressed that the purpose of their protest was not to strong arm the University, but to redirect attention from the hunger strike itself to the moral issues involved in divestiture.

During the week the group was deluged with endorsements from sources as disparate as the United Nations Special Committee against Apartheid and the Cambridge City Council. State Senators, several Harvard professors--one of whom joined the fast--and students at other colleges also expressed their support for the fasters.

As the number of protesters doubled to over 30, the fast captured the attention of the national wire services, local television and radio stations, and even a liberal South African daily.

But the protest ended where it began. As the students expected. Harvard did not budge, although President Bok and other administration officials held several meetings with a number of the strikers. An ecumenical service held in the Memorial Church, attended by over 150 students, marked the end of the project.

Even as the fast was in progress, another group of undergraduates began a more direct approach. The students created an alternative fund to the Senior Class Gift, called the "Endowment for Divestiture," that locks senior donations into an escrow account. The funds will be turned over to Harvard if and when it divests from firms doing business in South Africa, or when the United Nations "clears" the South African government by lifting its 1976 call for corporate withdrawal from that country. If neither occurs within 20 years, the money will be given to charitable organizations in the Harvard community.

The Endowment for Divestiture was the brain-child of SASC, which suggested the idea to a group of about 40 seniors, many of whom had been active in campus political organizations the semester before. The newly formed Undergraduate Council supported the plan, and voted to act as administrator of the fund.

Urging seniors to contribute to Harvard and make a statement for divestiture, recruiters for the fund--two in each House--managed to collect over $7000 from 360 of the 1500 seniors in just a few weeks. The regular Class Gift, meanwhile, netted $23,000 from 900 students. Although the total given to the two funds combined matched last year's contributions to the regular Class Gift, the percentage of donors fell by 20 percent.

Organizers predicted that the effect of the boycott would be proportionately greater than the money raised by the fund, because the effort threatens future alumni contributions. The seniors vowed to continue giving to the fund after they graduated, and have already chosen juniors to replace them next year. They have also contacted several supporters in each of the classes returning to Harvard for their reunions this year who will make an appeal to their fellow classmates for contributions to the Endowment for Divestiture.

As of yet, it is still too early to tell whether this particular form of protest will be any more effective than previous efforts to force the University to divest. But the Endowment for Divestiture clearly represents a whole new phase in the long-evolving divestiture protest movement.