Groups Says Overseers Election Rules Biased

Members of the activist group Alumni Against Apartheid charged yesterday that the election procedures for Harvard's Board of Overseers are unfairly weighted against their prodivestment slate.

With just over a week left before the divestment candidates formally submit petitions to be placed on the Overseers ballot, the anti-apartheid group says it is concerned that the University's election rules favor official slate of 12 candidates. Alumni Against Apartheid is currently collecting signatures to place six of its own candidates on the ballot for the April election.

The concerns are similar to those leveled in last year's election, the first to see an independent prodivestment slate. That contest was married by charges that Harvard had acted improperly to prevent the election of the pro-divestment candidates. One of the candidates, Gay W. Seidman '78 won and was seated on the Board this year.

Chester W. Hartman '57, a member of Alumni Against Apartheid's executive committee, said yesterday that the University will not guarantee the supervision of a neutral party in the election to Harvard's 30-member governing body.

University officials could not be reached for comment yesterday.

"Harvard is in a somewhat dual position here. They have a clear interest in the outcome of the election but on the other hand they run the election," Hartman said.

In last year's Overseers vote, the University's accounting firm, Coopers and Lybrand, handled vote creating in the election. While the University said that by hiring the firm it had satisfied requests for impartiality, divestment candidates charged that election procedures had been biased against them.

"I wouldn't call [Coopers and Lybrand] a neutral party," said Peter Wood '64, a history professor at Duke University, and one of this year's candidates.

Electioneering

Also at issue is the question of electioneering by the University--whether Harvard can openly campaign for the 12 official candidates on this year's ballot.

Last year's election generated controversy when then President of the Board of Overseers Joan T. Bok '51 sent a letter to Harvard's 200,000 alumni warning them that the board would be greatly changed if "specific issue" candidates were elected. It was later revealed that President Derek C. Bok, no relation, had asked the Overseers' head to sign the letter.

Board Secretary Robert Shenton, the University administrator who supervises Overseers elections, has ignored requests by Alumni Against Apartheid that Harvard not campaign for the official slate before the upcoming vote, Hartman said.

It also remains unclear what procedures the University will follow in presenting the candidate's election statements to alumni when they mail out ballot packets in early April. Harvard continues to reserve the right to edit the text of these short statements.

Alumni Against Apartheid members say that Harvard could use the rules to its advantage by tailoring the statements of the official candidates tobetter their chances for election.

"If Harvard says to the candidates, 'Do youmind if we change this and this to improve you'rechance of winning,' they will obviously say yes,"Hartman said.

"The University is saying the executivecommittee of the Board has final say over thevoter handbook. That is tantamount to censorship,"he said