Overseers Avoid Conflict

The Board of Overseers this month seemed to have an original answer for the thorny question about whether the 30-member body, elected by University alumni, should endorse a policy on Harvard investments in South Africa related businesses: form a committee. But even after the vote for a committee was fresh on people's minds, one board member decided to use the bimonthly meeting to call again for an Overseers position on divestment.

Gay W. Seidman '78, one of three overseers elected from a divestment slate, introduced the motion from the floor, couching it in language that acknowledged the newly formed committee, which she had opposed earlier in the meeting.

The proposal advocated a vote "in response to the worsening situation in South Africa, and in order to clarify the current position of this Board for the Corporation, the joint committee, and for the Harvard community as a whole," it reads in part.

This move, like all other motions of its kind, failed to receive the approval of the Board, falling to the powerful combination of a majority of the Board and the entire Corporation--which controls the University's investment policies. The motion lost because an overwhelming majority abstained.

That a motion for a vote could be so controversial indicates how much the possibility of disagreement between the two governing bodies is disturbing to most Overseers' members. In interviews with overseers, those who oppose a vote say they think a disagreement could jeopardize the working relationship built up between the two organizations.

The controversy over the roles of the two boards has existed throughout Harvard's history, and is unique to Harvard--the only educational institution with two distinct governing bodies. The Board of Overseers--which consists of 30 alumni elected for five-year terms, the president and the University treasurer--was the University's first governing body, later joined by the President and Fellows, more commonly known as the Corporation, in 1650, the first incorporated organization in North America. In the 1657 Appendix to the Charter, the Corporation was given the power to make major decisions which would affect the University, but the Overseers had to approve those decisions.

In the mid-19th century the boards battled over the appointment of the Plummer Professor of Christian Morals. Though the state legislature sided with the Overseers, the Corporation would not concede any of its power, and won out. Since that time, according to a 1978 report by the University's Committee on the Structure and Function of the Overseers, the Board has had "a formal 'consent' or 'allowance' role in certain fairly infrequent, major policy determinations."

In recent years this advice and consent role has meant that the Overseers primarily ratify Corporation decisions. In that time, the Board has exerted its influence over Harvard through its nearly 60 visiting committees which write reports on all aspects of University life.

Activists have made the argument in the past few months that the disagreement over a Board vote goes back to the original Charter and the legal role of the Board. Robert Weissman '88-89, director of the Ralph Nader-sponsored Harvard Watch, wrote a report to the Overseers in March arguing that the Board should resurrect its rights and vote on divestment.

But even those who oppose a vote on divestment do not disagree that the Board has the right to hold such an opinion. Vice President and General Counsel Daniel Steiner '54 says that the issue raised by the divestment vote, should have little to do with the strictures of the founding charter.

Instead he argues that a vote, which would not be binding on the Corporation, is not the correct means of dialogue between two groups responsible for guiding Harvard. "In my judgement, a vote of yes or no on divestment will neither promote dialogues and an effort to reach and understanding between the two boards, nor reflect the complexities of the investment policy question," he says.

"What is most persuasive on the Corporation and, generally speaking, on the Harvard administration are facts and arguments, not simply yes or no conclusions," says Steiner.

But the three overseers who were elected on a pro-divestment slate--two in the last election--say they have fought for a vote clarifying the Board's position in order to bring added pressure for a change in the University's investment policy.

Harvard-Radcliffe Alumni Against Apartheid started running a slate of pro-divestment candidates for the Board of Overseers three years ago, as activists became discouraged with the power of other groups to influence the Corporation's decisions on investment policy. The group believes that a Board position in favor of divestment would possibly be the most powerful of several endorsements the movement has received, including a student vote favoring divestment two years ago.

Harvard currently pursues a policy of selective divestment, retaining holdings in South African businesses that do not manufacture products it considers necessary to the country's apartheid system. Currently the University has $245 million of its $4.5 billion endowment invested in South Africa-related holdings.

Those who support the Overseers' voting on divestment hold that the Board has the responsibility to take as stand on an issue which has been discussed on this campus for more than a decade. They also argue that the position of many board members is not known, and any discussion of the sentiment of the Board without a record of the positions of the whole will be inconclusive at best.

But many members of the Board have joined the Corporation and the administration in arguing that the two governing bodies should work together, and should not make public statements about the appropriateness of one another's work.

President Bok, a voting member of both bodies, has said several times that if the Corporation were in the position of disagreeing with an action of the Overseers, he would counsel the members of both bodies to sit down and discuss their concerns in an informal way.

Administrators also say that in addition to provoking a possible confrontation between the boards, a vote would be less effective than informal discussion.

The administration has taken pains to inform board members of this view. A vote on a proposal for divestment was scheduled for the February meeting of the Overseers, but Steiner and Secretary of the Governing Boards Robert Shenton visited two-thirds of the board members before the meeting to discuss the implications of that vote, and to present the administration arguments against such a move.

Steiner says after the visits that he and Shenton told the overseers that discussion between the boards "was more appropriate, more productive, and more consistent with Harvard's form of governance" than a formal vote on the divestment question.

The Overseers Executive Committee then made the decision to divert the divestment issue to the Standing Committee on Institutional Policy to decide how the Board should proceed. The Standing Committee recommended in March that the Board not vote on divestment, but instead form a joint committee with the Corporation to discuss the divestment issue.

No specifics about the joint committee have yet been decided, but Bok has says that he thinks it will likely report back to the respective boards sometime next fall. The next step?

"I don't think we have tried to form any opinion, I would not encourage that. When you go into this kind of discussion, I don't think you try to form an opinion first, but should make conclusions as you go along," Bok says in an earlier interview.