A Public Forum

Members of the Advisory Committee on Shareholder Responsibility (ACSR) listened quietly Tuesday night while several individuals and members of eight student groups tried to persuade the ACSR to follow their advice in making recommendations to the Corporation on shareholder resolutions.

Without exception, the speakers urged Harvard to take a more moral stand on the social issues which prompt shareholder resolutions at companies in which the University owns stock.

Before Tuesday's open meeting, however, the ACSR met in a closed session to vote on its regular agenda items. The committee failed to establish a majority on a proposal that would require the General Electric Company to make a detailed "human and environmental impact report" on a nuclear weapons production plant it runs in Florida under contract to the Department of Energy. ACSR members voted two for and two against, with three abstentions on the proposal.

Gordon D. Kaufman, Mallinckrodt Jr. Professor of Divinity and an ACSR member, said Thursday that he does not believe the ACSR will reconsider the nuclear issue as a result of the open meeting. "I didn't hear anything new on the subject Tuesday night," he added.

However, Milton Katz, chairman of the ACSR and Stimson Professor of Law, said Thursday he and other ACSR members received "very strong impressions" from those who spoke against nuclear armament, and added that he had not realized student's "intense degree of concern" about the issue before Tuesday's meeting.

Some who ,spoke at the open meeting objected when ACSR members remained passive, asking few questions and challenging none of the speakers' opinions.