Word: acsr
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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These are not easy questions, because the ACSR itself is extremely divided on many of the issues. But after initially firing with the former strategy, the ACSR seems to have chosen the latter. The strong recommendation that emerged from the committee on Friday that Harvard divest from companies not abiding by the Sullivan Principles is a case in point. A year ago, the committee would never even have considered such a resolution...
Finally the Corporation has for a year effectively ignored the ACSR's recommendation to divest from the Carnation company which for three years running has failed to meet the basic requirements of the Sullivan Principles a set of fair labor and equal opportunity guidelines for U.S. firms in South Africa. The Sullivan guidelines are far from perfect, they have been widely attacked as a figleaf to cover up the sins of corporate involvement in the country. But they are the closest thing there is to reasonable standards of behavior for U.S. firms, and Carnation has not shown the least indication...
UNDERSTANDING the Corporation's intransigence on following through meaningfully on its 1978 policy helps to explain the recent break to the left of the heretofore acquiescent ACSR. For most of its 10 year history the ACSR has deliberated how to tell the Corporation to vote on specific shareholder resolutions, which come to Harvard in the number of 30 to 50 a year. But in the last year or so, the ACSR has begun to consider ways of expanding its mandate--advising the Corporation on ethical issues in investing...
...fundamental problem has been how to approach the Corporation with recommendations. Should the ACSR try to give "realistic" advice to the Corporation--advice within the realm of what the seven fellows might conceivably consider? Or should it talk to the Corporation with its heart--tell it exactly where it stands on issues, knowing full well that Calkins et. al. will laugh in its face...
What's more, the committee narrowly defeated a recommendation that Harvard divest totally, the first full divestiture motion ever to reach the ACSR's table. In other words, the committee is finally working itself around to the conclusion that the Corporation can't be reasoned with on this topic. Even so-called moderate positions on the subject hold no water with the governing board, which has so sharply limited the realistic terms of debate that anything beyond discussing innocuous shareholder resolutions is on the radical fringe...