The most active members of the national campaign for corporate "social responsibility" have been the Project for Corporate Responsibility (PCR) and various coalitions of concerned Protestant denominations. And two years ago, in an effort to assist church groups with research on their respective investments, the National Council of Churches established the Corporate Invormation Center (CIC).

The church groups are responsible for this year's resolutions on southern Africa. Firsthand reports from southern African church leaders and from representatives of black African communities provide a major source of information for the churches' proxy statements.

But it appears that Harvard joined this movement for corporate responsibility with less than wholehearted enthusiasm. Under the guidance of George F. Bennett '33, formerly treasurer and, this year, the University's acting treasurer, it took the Corporation until 1972 to vote a proxy against a management position. Last April, the Corporation endorsed disclosure resolutions filed with Ford and General Motors.

The vote was still not intended "to reflect a judgment on actual performance by a company," the Corporation stated. Harvard only said it would support disclosure requests of "reasonable" scope unless already public information "is reasonably complete when compared to the disclosure requested in the resolution."

Institutional investors have been generally slow to take up the activist groups' lead. Only after three years of debating whether institutions should take a stand at all, can advocates now focus on procedures within institutions and on the issues surrounding each resolution, says Susan Gross, director of PCR research and education.

Three years ago the Corporation failed to support the first major proxy fight of the emerging shareholders' movement. The Fellows refused to endorse the recommendation of PCR's Campaign G.M. (--even though a resolution supporting the campaign had been passed overwhelmingly by the Faculty.)

In January 1971, the Austin Committee reported to former President Pusey on "University Relations with Corporate Enterprise."

Since the University's central function is the "pursuit of truth," the committee reasoned, Harvard could "best serve society" by "maintaining a neutral stance as a university on all political and social questions." Only when no room for argument exists among people who accept our basic socio-economic-political system," should the University risk a political stance.

But Harvard's reluctance to enter any anti-management fray may have stemmed from more than the quest for "academic" neutrality. The Austin Committee also reported on potential conflicts of interest which the treasurer could face.

Their observations were "not remotely intended to reflect on the integrity, the professional skill and the dedication of the present Treasurer," the report said. But Bennett's affiliation with Harvard's investment management firm and his position as director on corporations in which Harvard owns stock led the committee to "recommend" a thorough examination of these issues."

Harvard finally modeled its own ACSR on similar committees founded as early as 1971 at several other colleges. Since other institutions found the committees "useful and productive," Harvard created the ACSR to obtain the community's views on shareholder issues, says Stephen B. Farber '63, special assistant to President Bok. Farber is Bok's liason to the ACSR and the Corporation Committee on Shareholder Responsibility.

The creation of the ACSR reflected the Administration's belief that more pressure can be exerted by "responsible" shareholders than by institutions selling all their stock at once in a particular company.

Holding on to stock may also increase shareholders' general influence with the business community. "If you work inside institutions, you can never work fast enough. But if you work outside, you're accused of not being 'accountable,'" says Ruth Jarmul, a CIC associate.

But Harvard still faces the problem of not having any commonly accepted definition of "corporate social responsibility" to work with. The Austin Report argued against "joining forces with other large, tax-exempt organizations in policing the conduct of business corporations." Yet, it noted that "it is a truism in the financial world that [except for rare cases] abstention in a proxy contest is a vote for management.

It also appeared impossible to translate the quest for neutrality into practical terms. Moral neutrality is an impossible stance, the report suggested: "If the University would not consider buying stock in gambling houses, even where legal and however attractive financially--as presumably it would not--it cannot close its eyes to...moral factors."