Texts of Yesterday's Statements

Statement released yesterday morning by students who staged a sit-in at 17 Quincy St.

We as members of the Harvard Community, are sitting in the offices of the Harvard Corporation to call for Harvard's divestment from companies that do business in South Africa. We do so in solidarity with the call of Black South African organizations and leaders for divestment, and with other students across the United States participating in a national day of student protest against apartheid.

We intend to stay here until the end of the business day, in order to express our moral indignation at Harvard's refusal to join a growing national movement to end American support for apartheid. In spite of 13 years of university community pressure for divestment, the Harvard Corporation has remained a strong supporter of continued American economic involvement in south Africa, both in its public statements and in its proxy votes.

We are expressing our views through a sit-in because there is no procedure through which members of the Harvard community outside the Corporation can have a say in our university's polices. We will spend the day reading about and discussing the problems of South Africa. We are not going to disrupt business in any way beyond our presence in the building. We do not undertake this action lightly, but rather with the knowledge that 13 years of intransigence and unresponsiveness on the part of the Corporation have left us no other choice. Statement from Corporation Secretary Robert Shenton, the University official responsible for the administrative activities of 17 Quincy Street, read to the protesters by Dean of Students Archie C. Epps III early yesterday afternoon.

president Bok and the Governing Boards as well as I are aware of your concern about apartheid. The University shares your views about the oppressive, inhuman regime in South Africa and has so indicated on many occasions.

However, I must ask you to leave the building Despite your stated intentions not to interfere with the operations of the Office of the Governing Boards, it is not possible to conduct our operations as we ordinarily do. By pushing your way into the building and remaining here during the working day, you are inter feting with the functioning of the University.

Please leave the building now.

Students' statement issued yesterday in response to Robert Shenton:

We thank you for your letter and your stated opposition to the apartheid regime which is brutally oppressing the Black majority in South Africa. We thank you for the solidarity which your letter shows and look forward to your further participation in the swelling national movement against apartheid, which includes massive attests at the South African Fmbassy, building occupations at universities across the nation, and a vigorous effort to get American corporations to stop prepping up the apartheid regime.

Out action today is part of a day of student protest against the complicity of American universities with apartheid. We have brought the question of Harvard's investments to the Office of the Governing Boards because we feel that it could play an instrumental role in ending Harvard's financial enrichment from a system that implicates all of us in terror murder and savagely. The Governing Boards can make the difference by following the ACSR's recommendation to divest, and we urge you to do so.

We have undertaken this action in the sprit of exit disobedience that has infused our democracy beginning from the time of the Boston Tea Party to the Abolitionists movement to the Civil Rights .