Protest Time Again

At Stanford University, 294 protesters are arrested during a demonstration outside the student union building; in Santa Cruz, 401 University of California students are charged with trespassing; administration buildings at the University of Oregon and Portland State University are occupied by protesters; a silent demonstration is held by a group of 100 at Wesleyan University. It is all eerily reminiscent of the Viet Nam War days, but the protests involve a new generation and a different issue: college ownership of stock in U.S. corporations that operate in --or have dealings with--South Africa.

There are more than 300 such firms with subsidiaries in South Africa that annually do a total of $1.7 billion worth of business. Students charge that universities, by owning stock in these corporations, are indirectly supporting a racist government; they demand that the stock be sold. Proclaims one Berkeley activist: "We're calling for complete divestiture and nothing short of it."

Some colleges have already taken action. The University of Massachusetts has sold $700,000 of such securities. The Oregon state board of higher education, which administers 13 colleges, has voted to divest itself of stock valued at $6 million. Tufts University has sold $200,000 of stock in Citicorp, a holding company that through its First National City Bank has made loans to South Africa. The University of Wisconsin has been advised by the state attorney general to sell $9 million worth of holdings in companies with South African subsidiaries, as well as stock in any firms with Saudi Arabian and Soviet connections. The reason: state law forbids any state agency to invest in companies that discriminate.

Most colleges are leery of hastily unloading their holdings. In response to student pressure, many have instead established policy committees that compare the affirmative-action policies of each company with a set of guidelines established by the Rev. Leon Sullivan, a black civil rights activist and General Motors board member. After such studies, Smith College, for one, kept most of its disputed stock but sold 42,000 shares of Firestone because, says the college, the company failed to give an adequate account of its South African policies. In another approach, the University of Minnesota is pressuring companies directly by introducing resolutions on South Africa at stockholders' meetings.

Private colleges, dependent on their endowment for survival, are finding it particularly difficult to weigh the issue against the financial benefits of their stock holdings. Stanford, for example, estimates that brokerage fees alone for the sale of its $125 million worth of stock in 59 of the companies in question would amount to well over $ 1 million. In addition, firms with assets in South Afric'a have contributed $19.6 million to the university, and Stanford fears alienating them. The student response: "Stanford is subjecting itself to corporate blackmail."

Yet even some trustees who have voted to divest admit that sale of the stock might be an empty gesture. Says Smith Trustee Dorothy Marshall: "It makes you feel good, but you don't do much good by divesting your stock if somebody else buys it up." Other trustees insist that it is far more effective to remain stockholders and influence American companies to provide the best possible jobs and wages for their South African black employees. Says Geoffrey Hazard, law professor and chairman of Yale's investor responsibility committee: "The problem is complicated by the fact that virtually every blue-chip corporation has some direct or indirect link with South Africa. Nobody wants to admit how helpless big business is in a situation like this."

Logical as that argument may be, however, student activists are not buying it. University officials fear that as long as South Africa remains in the headlines they will have to prepare for a spring of discontent.

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