Word: acsr
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...course the frustration that plagues many of the ACSR's members is partly an unavoidable result of the Committee's normal business--moral debate. Put four students, four professors and four alumni together, ask them to discuss any controversial topic and you're bound to get a considerable number of inconclusive and wearying exchanges. But the major cause of the frustration felt by many members of the ACSR lies elsewhere...
...rests at 17'Quincy Street, headquarters of the Harvard Corporation. What makes serving on the ACSR not merely frustrating but nearly futile is the Corporation's shriveled moral sensibility. The Corporation treats issues of social responsibility not as pressing concerns to be vigorously pursued but as inconveniences to be disposed of with minimal effort. Thus whatever issue the ACSR considers, it knows beforehand that only a very narrow range of possible conclusions has any hope of gaining the Corporation's attention. The rest are almost certain to be rejected out of hand...
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...