Word: acsr
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...issues that come up before the ACSR, the question of how to handle Harvard's stock in companies having business in South Africa has particularly led the ACSR to make sweeping policy recommendations. The Committee made its first statement on the subject in 1978. This was a relatively specific recommendation that Harvard check that the companies it invests in abide by the Sullivan Principles, which set forth suggested minimum wage and labor standards for U.S. companies operating in South Africa. President Bok issued a policy statement that year agreeing with the ACSR recommendation, and stating that the University would divest...
...debate over the Sullivan Principles raged again this year when members of the ACSR learned that the Corporation had invested in companies without checking if they had signed the Sullivan Principles. Concern over the University's commitment to its previously expressed policy was compounded soon thereafter by a public statement by Hugh Calkins '45, chairman of the Corporation Committee on Shareholder Responsibility. Calkins said that it simply was not financially feasible for the Corporation to investigate a company's practices until after Harvard had already invested in the company...
Confronted with this statement, members of the ACSR attempted to formulate new resolutions that would somehow ensure that the University did not end up purchasing stock in companies that do not meet minimum standards of conduct in their South African operations. Committee members unanimously supported a recommendation advising the Corporation to prescreen all companies. The ACSR also recommended that the University use the Sullivan Principles as the bare minimum requirement for investing in a company, and that it sell its stock in any company that fails to meet these minimum standards. This term's actions culminated with the unprecedented...
...response to this recent spate of ACSR votes, Calkins announced late last month that the Corporation would begin investigating the possibilities of prescreening companies. Earlier in the spring, however, Bok reaffirmed his 1978 South African statement that Harvard does not consider divestiture an effective way of expressing disapproval of the apartheid regime...
...ACSR members had varying reaction to Calkins's statement. Alumni member George M. Dallas '56 says he is pleased with the Corporation's willingness to consider changing its current policy, adding that the ACSR should now wait to hear what the Corporation decides before resuming a discussion of the South Africa question. But Jonathan Cedarbaum '83, this year's undergraduate member, says that Calkins's statement merely shows how wide the gap is "between the Corporation's rhetoric and both its actual concern and practice" for the plight of Black South Africans. His term on the ACSR revealed...