Harvard Must Not Profit From the Iraqi War

To the editors:

I am not a political analyst by any means, even less of a strategist, but I feel that I should express my utter revulsion at the present situation. The last straw was the excellent article that appeared this past Friday in The Crimson, entitled “Harvard Stands to Profit From War” (News, April 4).

I had thought about the issue during the past few weeks, especially after the March 22 rally in Harvard Yard, where this had been mentioned by several speakers, but The Crimson’s article gave concrete dollar figures to the abstract notion of war profiteering. This is worth quoting: “With nearly half a percent of its endowment invested in 11 of the government’s 15 top defense contractors, the war with Iraq may have already made Harvard as much as $4.5 million.” And what is even more troubling is that these figures are partial, since they concern only “defense” contractors: I encourage The Crimson to inquire about Harvard’s investment in the oil and construction companies that will directly gain from the war, notably through the lucrative contracts they will get for the reconstruction of Iraq.

Like many of my colleagues, I find the idea that Harvard should be made richer by the present war morally repugnant. As a member of the Harvard community—and thus as someone who benefits, no matter how indirectly, from the University’s financial success—I feel stained, soiled. This war, which has not been approved by the United Nations, is protested by a vast portion of the world population. Among the opponents to the war I count many dear friends and colleagues in many countries: they share my sorrow but happily for them not my shame. How is Harvard going to reconcile its mission—that of an institution of higher education, with many ramifications world wide—with its new status of war profiteer?

What is to be done? I know that a call for divestment would elicit passionate responses, especially from those opposed to the very idea, and I am far from being even remotely equipped to argue the case in economic terms—I do not have the foggiest idea of how the stock market operates. Friends who know about these things tell me that a divestment would be very hard to implement: where does one draw the line? What about index funds and their multifarious investments? What about economic giants like G.E.? And since I am invoking the authority of the U.N., so irresponsibly flouted by the Bush Administration, why be inconsistent and not ask for a divestment from all the companies, American and otherwise, that are known to have violated the U.N.-sanctioned embargo against Iraq throughout the nineties?

Doing nothing because one can’t do everything is not an ethical line of conduct, as far as I am concerned. No humanitarian aid organization would have ever been created upon such a defeatist logic. One has to start somewhere, if only to shake up the terrible apathy that settles in, the paralyzing depression. At the very least, a debate on this issue has to be launched.

Yve-Alain H. Bois

April 7, 2003

The writer is Pulitzer professor of modern art and Chair of the Department of the History of Art and Architecture.