Word: acsr
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...leave open the chance that Harvard might sell its shares in a firm that "has failed to adhere to reasonable ethical standards" in the apartheid state. For four years this opportunity has gone unrealized, but last week brought the welcome news that the Advisory Committee on Shareholder Responsibility (ACSR) had for the first time in its history recommended selected divestiture from a company violating widely accepted standards of behavior in South Africa...
...million, according to the latest financial report--has neglected to meet the basic requirements of the Sullivan Principles, a set of equal employment and labor practice guidelines for U.S. firms operating in South Africa. And furthermore, the company has failed to respond adequately to repeated queries by the ACSR--which advises the Corporation on investment ethics about why it has not complied with the standards. Given these factors, in the words of one committee member, there is no reason for Harvard to remain holding Carnation stock...
...crisis management that so recommended Derek Bok 11 years ago has helped him defray crises as President. Not that experiences like the 1972 takeover didn't accelerate his practical education in coping with troubled students Shortly after that event, Bok formed the part-student Advisory Committee on Shareholder Responsibility (ACSR); though he said he'd been planning to create the ACSR for some time, it took an event like PALC's takeover to shock him into action...
Once formed, though, Bok's ACSR has proved a convenient tool with which to pacify students upset with Harvard's investment policies. Of course, on occasion, working within the system through the ACSR has worked. This winter's unanimous ACSR vote clearly helped pressure the Corporation to maintain its absolute ban on investments in banks that loan to the South African government. A decade ago, the Corporation couldn't have been pressured into adopting such a policy in the first place. You've got to wonder if it would have been retained this winter without the formal opposition...
...university level, decentralization and rule-by-committee have become institutionalized. In addition to guaranteeing red tape and innumerable Mass Hall staff members, they have assured the existence of organs (like the ACSR) through which students can seek change within the Harvard system. If that system ceases to allow the modicum of student influence it does now, April 1972 may cease to be just a dim memory--and instead become a blueprint for a new generation of activists...