Word: acsr
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...responsiveness to opinion in the University community remains dubious at best, tonight's Corporation open hearing on South African investments should at least provide a useful forum for pointing out the gross shortcomings of the recent report on the issue released by the Advisory Committee on Shareholder Responsibility (ACSR). The report, issued after nearly five months of highly secretive deliberations by a committee which ostensibly represents the University community, can only be viewed as a holding action by a group unwilling to establish the guidelines of social and moral responsibility needed to bring an end to Harvard's financial support...
...Corporation has understandably been quick to praise the ineffectual and noncommital ACSR for its "thoughtfulness" and "willingness to compromise" in an investment report that itself called for "caution, restraint and tolerance." But it remains highly doubtful that the Corporation is even considering committing Harvard to a public demonstration of real shareholder responsibility. Indeed, one must question the motives of the Corporation in calling a public hearing which only two of the seven Corporation members even plan to attend. The cavalier, no-show attitude of the individuals who have the final say on investment decisions belies the Corporation's claim that...
...report, the ACSR does little more than present the alternatives the Corporation may choose to adopt in dealing with portfolio companies operating in South Africa. By refusing to urge Harvard to help speed the withdrawal of these companies from South Africa, the committee turns a deaf ear on the will of the majority of Harvard's undergraduates--a will clearly expressed through a variety of petitions, demonstrations, House, freshman and organizational votes. Harvard students are joined in their demands by a host of national and international groups, ranging from the NAACP to the Congressional Black Caucus to the U.N. General...
...ACSR report makes recommendations that for several reasons fall far short of any reasonable, justifiable stand against companies supporting apartheid. First, the report focuses on the support U.S. firms give the apartheid system through the labor practices they employ in South Africa. While racist labor policies certainly constitute a significant aspect of American corporate complicity in apartheid, they divert attention from the bigger issues of U.S. corporate involvement. U.S. corporations employ a total of less than 1 per cent of the South African black labor force, so any improvement in American labor practices will have virtually no effect...
Meanwhile, the ACSR has been meeting inside the building to hammer out a suggested University policy towards South African-related investments, which it will present to the Corporation Monday...