Word: acsr
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Unfortunately, this is almost the opposite of the truth. In 1982 the Harvard Corporation proposed investment guidelines under which Harvard would encourage banks to loan money to the South African government for "humanitarian" purposes. Only massive community protest, and a unanimous vote of the Advisory Committee on Shareholder Responsibility (ACSR, forced the Corporation to back down...
...real story was well told by Patrick Flaherty, a graduate student member of the ACSR, in a Crimson article March 3, 1982. Harvard's policy of divesting from banks making direct loans to the South African government had been adopted as a limited concession to student demands for total divestment in 1978. In 1980, this policy compelled the Corporation to divest $50 million in Citibank debt securities after Citibank joined a consortium loan to the South African government. Harvard's action became the focus of press attention which embarrassed both Citibank and South Africa...
Shortly thereafter the Corporation, at the urging of Citibank, attempted to alter their policy to permit such loans. Rebuffed by the ACSR in 1981, they tried again in 1982. Their proposal stated that "Harvard will encourage all banks with which it does business to make humanitarian loans...Harvard will encourage foreign banks which have supplied the bulk of South Africa's credit needs in recent years to make humanitarian loans...the contemplated change offers greater hope of spurring expenditures that benefit non-white South Africans than does the current policy." (Harvard Gazette...
...Corporation representative suggested to the ACSR that this proposal was a "minor" change--in fact, it would have reversed the entire thrust of the bank divestment policy. The proposal also specifically denied any cause-and-effect relationship with the Citibank loan experience; however, Corporation member Hugh Calkins told the ACSR that the Citibank loan served a "worthy" purpose. In fact, over half of the Citibank loan money went to finance forcible eviction and relocation of Black and "colored" South Africans...
...brought the issue to a stalemate, which has been all but unbreakable. Since then, divestiture protests have dwindled in both size and intensity. Most important, campus South Africa activists have fallen increasingly into a reactive rather than an active role, usually responding to established events such as ACSR votes...