Deja Vu

Protests against the University's South African investments policy revived from winter dormancy last week after the Corporation Committee on Shareholder Resolutions (CCSR) recently abstained on two resolutions supported by the Advisory Committee on Shareholder Responsibility (ACSR).

While the Corporation finished lunch inside, more than 150 protesters rallied outside 17 Quincy St. last Monday, chanting slogans reminiscent of last spring's protests. But this year the protest involved an added twist. The students charged that the University's South Africa policy is another facet of the racist and indifferent treatment Third World students receive at Harvard.

The protesters criticized especially the CCSR's two abstentions on what Mary F. Nolan, assistant professor of History and a speaker at the rally, called "two very moderate proposals." The resolutions included recommendations that IBM cease business transactions with the South African government and that Caterpillar Tractor not sell its products to the South African military.

In a letter by CCSR chairman Hugh Calkins '45, the Corporation last week explained the reasons for the votes. Stating that a halt on sales to the South African government would also prohibit sales to hospitals and schools, the letter argues that these resolutions would amount to "a boycott that should be a matter for foreign policy and should be applied uniformly to all commercial relationships."

The letter also observed that the ACSR had rejected the same resolution on Caterpillar Tractor last year, and until the CCSR had further information on their changed position, the CCSR would register a no comment.

But Nolan and student protesters pointed to several reasons for a change in position. "The situation in South Africa is deteriorating," Nolan said, adding that the new labor law in that country is deceiving because poor, unskilled black laborers are ineligible for benefits. "There's reason for a change in policy because the situation is bad enough to demand new concern," Nolan added.

Lisa E. Davis '80, a representative of Black Students Association, last week called Calkin's letter "a token gesture," adding it reflects the University's negligence toward all people who "are not white, upper middle class, heterosexual men."

But ACSR member Jorge I. Dominguez, professor of Government, praised the Corporation's efforts to air publicly its reasonings on the resolutions.

Meanwhile, Calkins reiterated that the letter is not a response to student protest, but is a written articulation of the CCSR's previous oral explanations.

Students and faculty opposed to the abstentions responded to Calkins' statement with a call to increase the protest pressure. Nolan, who will leave Harvard next fall, told the rally, "Keep the pressure on, keep the struggle going."