The ACSR Vote

WITHOUT QUESTION, the election procedure Dean Whitlock adopted last week for the Advisory Committee on Shareholder Responsibility (ACSR) is a step forward, no matter how tentative. Though authorized personally to select undergraduate representatives with the advice of student-Faculty committees. Whitlock chose a somewhat more democratic plan, granting undergraduates at least an indirect voice in the selection of their own spokesmen.

Whitlock's procedure--House elections followed by the final selections of two representatives in a caucus of House nominees--falls short of the proposal for University-wide elections. While the direct election would have been more in keeping with the representative role of the committee members, the Whitlock plan offers some promise of "government by consent of the governed." Students should now focus on the character of the committee, rather than on election procedures. Having strengthened their position, undergraduate must use it.

The ACSR will immediately face two vital questions: the extent of his influence, and the breadth of its jurisdiction. Houses should elect students committed to obtaining a decision-making role, who will define "shareholder responsibility" as more than voting anti-management proxies. There are issues which undergraduates must force the ACSR to recognize: the influence of well-publicized stock purchase and divestiture; opportunities for profitable investment in underdeveloped areas of Cambridge and Boston; Harvard's ability to foster corporate social responsibility by instigating its own anti-management fights.

PARTICIPATION IN DECIDING these issues will put students in a precarious position--a position of trying to exploit the present structure's potential while pressuring for a far wider conception of the ACSER. Representatives must couple their participation on the committee with a commitment to work for a broader-based and more powerful body. Undergraduates should cooperate in University change, but refuse to legitimize any "advisory committee's" attempt to co-opt opposition to University policies.

The ACSR elections represent as opportunity that is real, though limited. A demonstration of undergraduate concern for University democracy--by conducting the election and by choosing representatives committed to change--can contribute to a more socially responsible investment policy and a more socially aware Harvard community.