Join the Community

AT 2:15 A.M. YESTERDAY, 200 students converged on the Yard. Quickly and efficiently, the group brought in and raised a wood and tarpaulin shantytown to call attention to the terrible living conditions of Blacks in South Africa.

At the center of that shantytown--dubbed the "Open University" by protesters--the students placed a 20-foot high "Ivory Tower" to symbolize Harvard's chosen role in that troubled country. In the spirit of their closedminded and paternalistic attitude toward those--both here at Harvard and in South Africa--who raise their voices against racist policies that University investments bolster, the seven white businessmen of the Harvard Corporation have built themselves a comfortable, windowless world. Perhaps as they see the shantytown on their bi-weekly visits to the campus, the members of the Corporation will recognize their complicity in the injustice in South Africa.

We are not confident that they will. As symbolized by the "Ivory Tower," Harvard decision-makers have been historically isolated from the greater University community, particularly students. The divestment activists have painted an accurate picture of the distance between the Corporation and the community of students, teachers, workers, and local residents who live here.

The shanty-builders demanded that the University divest of its stocks in corporations that do business in South Africa; that President Bok and the Corporation address an open forum on divestiture; that the Corporation publish the minutes of its meetings and its foreign investments; that the Committee on Rights and Responsibilities be abolished; that the administration of the $1 million fund designed to help Black South Africans be restructured to foster participation by all elements of the community; that the University respond to the demands of minority students on campus, by, for example, constructing a Third World Students Center.

The University should accede to all of these demands. All of us who work and study here should join the protesters in the shadow of the tower to support divestment and to attempt to close the gap between the Corporation and the community.

The time when Harvard could quietly bolster racism and disenfranchisment with its endowment while paying lip-service to ideals of justice and compassion has passed, and we must tell that to President Bok. We must tell him with our voices raised from beneath the tower which overlooks the drawn shades of his office.