What is the Point?

IT MAY NOT BURY the issue but President Bok's October I letter on divestment will certainly go far to define the parameters of debate on this heated topic. In responding to fresh proposals in favor of divestment, Bok offers an eloquent analysis of this morally vexing problem while upholding the University's six-year refusal to sell stock in companies doing business in South Africa. He demonstrates, somewhat convincingly, how a policy of divestment is both inconsistent with the university's role in society and a dubious method of promoting social change in racist South Africa.

But though he succeeds in discrediting divestment as a mode of conduct for a university and as a means to encourage reform, Bok fails to clarify the motivations behind current University efforts. In delineating "the nature of the University itself and the ways in which it should or should not respond to evil in the outside world," Bok merely rules out divestment. What remains frustratingly unclear is whether Harvard, in dealings with companies doing business in South Africa, thinks it can push for improvement or is just making symbolic gestures expressing opposition to apartheid. It is this question of intent that Bok leaves unanswered.

The letter centers upon the distinction between appropriate and inappropriate methods of influencing the behavior of corporations and, ultimately, the Nationalist government itself. Fully aware of the evils of apartheid, the University has undertaken a number of steps regarding its investments: voting on shareholder resolutions for corporate withdrawal, urging firms to abide by the Sullivan Principles (progressive rules of conduct for American firms operating in South Africa), and engaging "in intensive dialogue with corporations to persuade them to improve the quality of life outside the workplace." All of these, according to Bok, are appropriate actions by the University, fully consistent with "the function entrusted to it as a shareholder."

BY DIVESTING, HOWEVER, the University would exceed its socially designated role and misuse its endowment all for a strategy that not only offers little chance of success but also the possibility of harmful retaliation. Bok opposes divestment because, he argues, by selling its stock in companies because they do business in South Africa, Harvard would be using for political ends resources given for educational means. Bok refuses the notion of the university as a political action committee.

Once Harvard uses its $2.6 billion endowment to modify corporate behavior, Bok fears, it leaves itself open to similar pressure from organizations that support, research here at the University. Companies could make grants conditional on Harvard's stance on a particular issue. Before long, this would erode the long cherished academic freedom and pollute an environment of free thought and experimentation so necessary for a university.

Bok therefore succeeds in pinpointing some of the dangers inherent in a policy of divestment. The University should stick to voting on shareholder resolutions and discussing the issues with corporate executives, he says.

But why? Because shareholder resolutions are the best way to institute change--or merely to go on record as opposing apartheid? Here Bok gives no clear answer, although he does list the measures Harvard has taken against apartheid: "Shareholder resolutions and dialogue with company executives have at least led to some tangible corporate actions to improve the lives of Black South Africans." This would imply that the University is interested in affecting change. If that be the case, then any future discussion of University policy should focus on the effects of these tactics and explore means of persuasion other than economic blackmail.

BUT IN OTHER SPOTS, policy veers toward merely paying lip service to opposing apartheid. Shareholder resolutions and discussions with executives are not to be viewed as means to an end but ways of publicizing Harvard's opinion on the issue. Bok writes: "The University did not adopt this policy because it felt that its actions--or any actions that universities could take--would have a substantial effect on apartheid. Harvard decided on this course of action in the conviction that it should vote shares as conscientiously as possible, even if the effects are only limited." In other words, Harvard must resign itself to token gestures because of its impotence on the issue of apartheid.

Unpleasant as this sounds, the University may have no other choice. Still, Bok fails to make clear that Harvard has no other option. He states at the onset that the issue of divestment does not "simply reflect a difference of opinion over tactics" but a "dispute over the nature of the University." Divestment may indeed be unacceptable. But the question remains as to whether there will be any tactics at all--or will Harvard simply limit itself to periodic expressions of opposition to apartheid?