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Consumer Committee Disputes Corporation's Boycott Policy

A student-faculty committee designed to devise University policy on consumer affairs is currently at odds with administrators and the Corporation over whether the University should consider boycotting corporate products such as Nestle's.

Archie C. Epps III, dean of students and co-ordinator of the committee, said yesterday that the committee has not ruled out a boycott as a possible policy for the University.

Boycott

Epps said the committee's recommendations will be ready in mid-March.

"We've discussed many alternatives, including several kinds of boycott," Epps said, adding that the group is considering University policy on boycotts in general.

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But Hugh Calkins, chairman of the Corporation Committee on Harvard Shareholder Responsibility, recently wrote a letter to Corey B. Stone '79--who advocates the boycotting of Nestle's--stating that the Corporation will definitely not consider a dining hall boycott of Nestle products. Stone said Wednesday.

Calkins said yesterday he had concluded that this was accepted policy after a recent discussion with Joe B. Wyatt, vice president for Administration.

Wyatt said yesterday that he learned of the policy to exclude boycotting as a policy during a discussion with the committee in December.

"I don't remember who said it, but I understood that the University as an institution was no longer being requested to boycott a product," Wyatt said.

Daniel Cohn '79, a member of the committee, said yesterday that Wyatt's assumption that boycotting is not an alternative is "absolutely not a conclusion of the committee."

Dean Rosovsky. Epps, Wyatt and other administrators formed the committee in December.

"The idea evolved out of a discussion in which we were trying to figure out what the issues surrounding boycott are," DeanFox said yesterday.

Two Fold

Fox said that the committee's purpose is two fold: first to decide what the issues around boycott and the University are, and then to suggest University action on the group's conclusions.

Calkins said he thought a boycott should be an individual decision.

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