I feel, therefore, that divestiture is in fact the only way to deal with this particular question. I thought I would say no more, but then I read the President's remarks, and I wanted to make a few brief references to those remarks, because I think that even though they are well-intentioned, that there are some tremendously important points with which I disagree very respectfully.

We are told that universities are designed to achieve particular purposes, that their special mission is the discovery and transmission of knowledge. We are therefore presented with concept of knowledge as if it were a living, organic being that is capable of making decisions for itself, and which tells the investigator what is important. It is almost as if Molecule A tells Researcher B that "I am more important, possibly, than Photosynthesis C." It seems to me that it is almost the same that if a student received a grade of "E" at this University, in fact it is in and of itself more important than the evils which transpired at Watergate.

I say No. I say that people who make these decisions, and who in fact decide what is more important, is a social scientist or political scientist who decide that the events of Watergate are much more important than the giving up of an "E" to a student.

Hence and therefore, the special purpose of a university is designed to do one particular thing. It seems to me it is designed to transmit values, and those values are given or transmitted to the organized body of knowledge.

But these decisions are in fact made by men. It seems that particularly because men process consciousness, which permits them to plan their activity mentally, and self-consciousness, which enables them to exercise self-control and to make moral judgements, that they are the ones who, in fact, must make these judgements. And even knowledge in and of itself is a special function, given all the respect to the President and the Deans, we do not need to be here, we could disband; because all we need to do if we want to know what the NAACP is saying, is put a TV monitor on, put a radio receiver on, and then we have knowledge and that is the special function of a university.

I suggest it's not. Decisions must be made by people, and in this light it becomes very important that the central business of this University when it's essentially tied in to a system of apartheid, cannot be simply pushed aside by saying that is not the central function, even though I recognize the importance of capital and the use of money. I mean, quite clearly, it becomes ridiculous if I suggest that money is unimportant, and I wouldn't be here. But the questions that we must make choices, and it seems to me we are making the wrong choice, and, as such, I disagree vehemently with those positions.

Secondly, I think it's very important--in Life we must make cetain decisions. I suspect that if the President, presumably, lived in 1857, he well might be a member of the slaveholding class, and of course, he would say to me, "Sir, yes, we must keep the system going because it is the case that Helper made, that most of the slaveholders were in agreement with slavery, that it was the best thing going, that even though all the economic arguments suggested that it was not the best thing going."

And I suspect that if I were living in 1857 I would be a slave, and I would argue, I would say "Mr. President, I think this system is bad, even though it contributes money to a certain institution in New England." And then I would say, "well, we may even come to blows."

But we live not in 1857, but in 1979, when we must make decisions, when we cannot take positions that in fact the university exists above society, that indeed the university is not implicated in society. It's not a case where the university studies knowledge, the John F. Kennedy School did not exist before the politicians and policy-making decisions. The body of knowledge comes first, and then organized forms are then set up to transmit that knowledge. And I am saying that if today, in any given coumtry, a group of black people abrogated the rights of the majority of white people, and if we accepted money from that government, we would be incorrect. We should not accept it not because we believe that we need capital, but because we believe our central mission is not simply the transmission of knowledge; our central function is to accept bits, if you'll accept the computer language, accept information, make judgements, and then opt within well-defined values which we hold and cherish to behose those values which distinguish us from other kinds of perhaps totalitarian societies, etc., etc., etc.

I say today that we wonder, President Carter's in trouble, why Iran? Why Saudi Arabia? Why are all these countries doing all these things to us? When we look around we see, for example, that other powers are on other sides of the issues. And then, for example, we say, "well, we are well meaning, we are kind, but somehow we always find ourselves on the wrong side of issues." And the position on April 9th, on the first stock issue, says, we cannot say, we cannot know, we cannot tell--Yes, we can tell! We know that the system is unjust, and we learn from the example of the American Revolution, will fall. And we say, when it falls, the argument has been made that it is a moral decision. These are not moral decisions.

We know very well that economics is not the relationship between commodoties. Economics is the relationships among men, because men make decisions. Does oil decide how much it will cost? No, it doesn't, neither does a tractor decide how much it will cost. Men decide how much of my oil will buy one of your tractors. And it is agreed that if you raise the price of your tractors, I will increase the price of my oil.

Men make decisions. And if, as we believe, that history is on the side of the struggling peoples of South Africa, and if we believe that justice shall triumph always over inhumanity and barbarity, it behooves us to make these decisions will have been made, we will be on the side of those people who are for justice.

It would be a correct economic decision because, as we see in what happened in Iran, lots of money has been lost. Why? Because men made certain decisions, and I'm suggestion that I'm afraid we must sell short-term advantages for long-term goals.

When the peoples of South Africa will have won their rights of justice and freedom, they will have to make certain economic decisions. It seems to me that if we stand on the side of justice, we'll be doing two things: We'll be reviving the spirit for which the country and the University stand, and we will be aligning ourselves with those forces that speak to the better impulses of man.

The Dean is reputed to have said that students remain at Harvard for four years and that Faculty members--tenured Faculty members, that is--remain for a lifetime, and the University is here for eternity. And our dear chaplain once said, and I will probably paraphrase it, that first God created heaven and earth, then he created Harvard. And I suspect he was right.