Take It Seriously

IT TOOK MORE than a decade of petitions, marches, hunger strikes and impassioned debate, but the Advisory Committee on Shareholder Responsibility (ACSR) last week finally voted for unilateral University divestiture from companies that do business in South Africa.

We applaud the ACSR decision and call on President Bok and the Corporation to drop their less and less convincing defense of American corporate investment in South Africa as a valid route to abolishing apartheid.

The ACSR report states the situation clearly. "Less than I percent of the Black workforce of South Africa is employed by American companies Even if Harvard could get all the companies in which it is invested in South Africa to implement the Sullivan (or similar) principles--something that we have never succeeded in doing--we would still 'amchorate' the lives of less than one percent of the Black population."

The impact of American investment on the lives of the victims of apartheid is minimal compared to the benefits to the ruling whites and the society they intend to prop up at any cost.

While American companies at their best can only help a few thousand non-white workers, divestiture would severely disrupt a nation of millions.

American firms constitute only 17 percent of all foreign investment in South Africa, but they are dominant suppliers of strategic goods like computers, petroleum, heavy tracks and mining and energy technology, according to U.S. Department of Commerce statistics. South Africa can obtain crucial goods like these from other sources only with extreme difficulty and much greater expense. Many essential products--particularly sophisticated computer equipment--cannot be produced locally.

Bok's other main argument against divestiture--put forth in lengthy open letters in 1978 and last year--is that universities should not be in the practice of taking active positions on political issues.

Yet, Harvard has already taken an active position on South Africa by refusing since 1978 to buy debt securities in banks that make loans to the South African government. Corporate support of apartheid, as described above, is just as real--if less direct--than bank loans.

Finally, Bok's contention that divestment from South Africa-related companies would open the University to calls for divestiture of holdings in other countries where oppression is prevalent cannot be accepted.

South Africa is a unique case of injustice. "It is the only government in the world which constitutionally requires the separation of races as the cornerstone of its policies," the ACSR report says. Accepting that South Africa is unique, a vote for divestiture sets no precedent for action elsewhere.

It is, of course, unlikely that Bok will suddenly drop his philosophical objection and embrace the new ACSR line. But, he must take the report more seriously than he has taken student protesters. The ACSR, traditionally a lightning rod to deflect student discontent, has now passed the buck to Bok.

If Bok does not properly respond, and the Corporation refuses to divest, they will only prove what many already suspect: that Harvard considers money more important than freedom.