Investment Policy Maintained

A report released yesterday by the Corporation Committee on Shareholder Responsibility (CCSR) said that Harvard plans to maintain its current policy of investing in companies doing business in South African as long as those companies adhere to the Sullivan Principles.

The CCSR, which establishes and implements portfolio guidelines and votes proxies for the Harvard Management Company, wrote in the report that Harvard supports "practices such as those outlined in the Sullivan Principles, designed to provide equitable treatment for black and white workers...and strong support for the black community of which the company is a part."

Last year, the CCSR voted not to require companies to divest from South Africa if they adhered to the Sullivan principles and did not provide "strategic supplies" such as oil and weapons to the South African government, said Professor Lance Liebman. who is currently serving as chairman of the Advisory Committee on Shareholder Responsibility (ACSR).

The ACSR is a 12 member committee made up of University faculty, students, and alumni that advises the CCSR on how to vote its shares of corporate stock.

Leibman said that this year, the ACSR will focus on how the University should respond to "new developments" in South Africa--including press restrictions and military crackdowns--as well as Reverend Sullivan's repudiation of the principles that bear his name.

In June of last year, Sullivan said that the policy of "constructive engagement" in South Africa, which his principles seemed to endorse, had failed. He has since called for a complete economic boycott of South Africa.

Alumni active in the divestment movement criticized Harvard's policy of continued investment in companies doing business in South Africa. "It's particularly shameful for Harvard to invest in [Sullivan's] name for so many years, and then when he has the courage to change his views, [for Harvard] to say that he is wrong," said Dorothee E. Benz '87, executive director of Alumni Against Apartheid.

"Harvard supports the racist lie of apartheid while they write 'Veritas' all over every podium and every chair. That's a disgrace," Benz said.

"We support a policy of selective divestment," said Roderick M. MacDougall, the chairman of the CCSR and Harvard's treasurer MacDougall said that Harvard should support "companies that are doing more good than harm [in South Africa] by their presence there."

As of December 31, 1987, Harvard held almost $200 million of stock in companies with physical plant operations in South Africa. Harvard currently owns shares in 58 of the 76 American and Canadian companies that have physical plant operations in South Africa, MacDougall said.