Word: acsr
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Committee on Shareholder Responsibility, chaired by Stanley S. Surrey, Smith Professor of Law; and the Corporation's Sub-committee on Shareholder Responsibility, which makes the final policy decisions and consists of four substantial businessmen--last year proved their tenacity to precedents in University policy. President Bok set up the ACSR and the sub-committee less than two years ago, so they didn't have too many precedents to choose from...
Harvard has followed the same line ever since. Last year the ACSR put off a query by Richard Wilson, professor of Physics, on the safety of nuclear reactions built by General Electric and Westinghouse, in which Harvard held a total of $26 million worth of stock. Wilson said Harvard should publicize the problem of the plants' safety even though no shareholder group was doing so, as part of the University's function, "to educate and inform people." The ACSR didn't dispute him, but in its first year it considered only matters where shareholders were sponsoring resolutions...
...obvious solutions sometimes have obvious things wrong with them. For one thing, the ACSR showed its skepticism of study committees last year, opposing activist demands that several companies set them up because they'd dilute management's responsibility. Besides, a study committee was not only part of what ACORN was asking for--not necessarily the ideal way to maintain the Harvard self-image of impartiality--but might itself constitute a precedent besides. If ACORN could ask Harvard to set up a study committee, then so could Concerned Citizens United down in Kansas and Robert Head in Louisiana and anybody else...
Some of the student members of the ACSR, and some professors interested in environmental issues, would probably have been willing to establish a study committee anyway. But Surrey, probably with the support of a majority of the ACSR, worked out a compromise, which he introduced towards the end of a relatively stormy meeting, reportedly sparking some discontent among ACORN sympathizers who felt they'd been outmaneuvered. Harvard wouldn't send a study group to Arkansas, the ACSR decided--instead, interested Harvard professors would read AP&L's 1000-page environmental impact statement and other reports on the plant and comment...
...ACSR is by no means rushing into things, and has asked seven Harvard science experts to look at AP&L's impact statement. When the professors report back, the ACSR will make its final decision--probably within the next six weeks--and probably will side, at last, with ACORN...