Faculty Called for Debate, Not Divestment

To the editors:

The coverage of this past Tuesday’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) meeting in the April 9 issue of The Crimson might lead your readers to believe that I specifically raised a “divestment question,” and that I did it on my own (News, “Harvard Will Defend Rights”). To be exact, I read a statement co-signed by 28 senior members of the Harvard Faculty at large (the list includes two professors emeriti from FAS as well as a professor in the Divinity School). As reported in your April 4 issue, this statement did not call for divestment but for a large debate regarding the University’s financial gain from its investments in defense contractors as a result of the war on Iraq and the moral concern it raises for the numerous members of the Harvard community who are opposed to this war.

Many questions have to be discussed, and the possibility of divestment is one of them (and others have suggested the idea of redistributing the profits to humanitarian organizations, for example), but we want to prevent an immediate polarization of the debate which would inevitably occur if it crystallizes on this issue.

Yve-Alain H. Bois

April 9, 2003

The writer is Pulitzer professor of modern art and chair of the Department of the History of Art and Architecture.