Bok's Broadside

Harvard vs. divestiture

"The divestiture movement is developing into the Viet Nam issue of the late 1970s," says exiled black South African Dennis Brutus, professor of English at Northwestern, and a leader of the campaign to get universities to ditch stock of companies doing business in South Africa. The universities of Massachusetts and Wisconsin, among others, have responded to student demands that such stock be sold to protest South Africa's apartheid policies, while debate over the issue has caused demonstrations at Princeton, Stanford and Columbia. But in an open letter to students last week, Harvard President Derek Bok presented his university's objections to divestiture.

For Harvard to divest ($300 million, or about 30%, of its portfolio involves companies with business connections in South Africa), Bok said there would have to be proof that the action would help overcome apartheid, persuade American firms to leave South Africa, and offer more encouragement to black workers than the alternative policy of pressing companies at stockholder meetings to improve treatment of black workers. "Harvard has declared its opposition to the South African regime," said Bok, "and has pledged itself to vote on shareholder resolutions in the manner best calculated to overcome apartheid." Calling this course "the most ethically responsible," Bok referred to legal problems facing portfolio managers who buy and sell on political rather than financial grounds. Said he: "Total divestment would almost certainly cause the university to divert millions of dollars in pursuit of a strategy that is legally questionable, widely disputed on its merits, and very likely to prove ineffective in achieving its objectives."

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