Committee on Community Relations Gives Support to GM Stock Fight

A resolution urging Harvard to vote with insurgent stockholders in the General Motors proxy fight gained the support of the student-Faculty Committee on Students and Community Relations Friday and will now go to the floor of the Faculty early in May.

The resolution-originally sponsored by Martin L. Kilson, professor of Government-asked the University to vote its 287,000 shares of GM stock in favor of the two Campaign GM resolutions appearing on the GM proxy statement.

The two resolutions would:

expand the GM board of directors from 24 to 27 members to include three "representatives of the public." If it passes, Campaign GM will nominate Betty Furness, President Johnson's special assistant in consumer affairs: Rev. Channing Phillips, a Washington civil rights leader; and Rene Dubes, a University of Chicago environmentalist:

create a shareholders' committee to investigate GM's social and economic policies and their impact on the country.

In addition, the committee recommended a review of all Harvard investment policy and a clarification of the University's criteria for buying stocks.

Other groups-notably the Overseers' Committee on Governance-are already studying general investment policy. The Committee on Community Relations resolution. however, implies that the Faculty will also try to set up guidelines for controversial investments.

Harvard's $1.1 billion endowment has been sporadically criticized in the last five years for holdings in South African companies, defense-related industries, and southern utility companies.