Word: acsr
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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This spring the ACSR spent the bulk of its time debating the issue of Harvard's investments in companies with ties to South Africa. The Committee's deliberations and the Corporation's response to the outcome of those deliberations vividly illustrated the doubly frustrating character of the ACSR's activities...
...debate over South African investments this spring. One company in the Harvard portfolio, Carnation, received a failing rating for the third year in a row on the Sullivan Principles, a set of fair employment guidelines for American companies operating in South Africa. In looking into the Carnation matter, the ACSR decided to check up on the Sullivan ratings of all the companies in the portfolio. This review revealed that Harvard held shares in two companies which had not even signed the Sullivan Principles, let alone received unsatisfactory ratings...
...four student members, including myself, were outraged. We believed that the reasoning of the Corporation's 1978 policy statement precluded investments in such companies. The more moderate alumni and faculty members were dismayed as well at the apparent toothlessness of the Corporation's policy. And even the ACSR's conservative chairman. Business School professor Walter J. Salmon, thought something was amiss. In one of its rare moments of near unanimity, the ACSR decided to raise the issue with the Corporation...
...ACSR meets twice a year with a subcommittee of the Corporation called the Corporation Committee on Shareholder Responsibility (CCSR). On April 4, the entire ACSR joined the four-man CCSR for breakfast at the Faculty Club, expecting an hour and a half of ethical dialogue. What took place was closer to a briefing on Corporation policy. The discussion, as always, was extremely civil. The ACSR, through Professor Salmon, expressed its dissatisfaction with the Corporation's current policy. Hugh Calkins '45, the chairman of the CCSR, reiterated the Corporation's stance, and indicated that the Corporation wanted to avoid using ethical...
After the meeting with the CCSR, the ACSR's examination of the South African issue only became more urgent and far-reaching. The ACSR met every week between late February and the first week of May. At nearly every meeting the Committee would first dispose of the five to 10 shareholder resolutions to be voted on by the Corporation and then resume its ongoing discussion of investments in companies operating in South Africa...