1. will selling stock offer a significant chance of persuading American firms to leave South Africa? There is no indication that sales of stock will put sufficient economic pressure on the management of American companies to induce them to withdraw, since such stock will be purchased by others with no permanent economic consequence to the firm. Nor is there any evidence that the publicity engendered by sales of stock will lead companies to incur the losses by abandoning their South African operations. In fact, no American company has left the country because of the divestment actions taken by various states and municipalities over the past few years.
2. Is divestment a more effective way of inducing companies to withdraw than voting in favor of corporate resolutions to withdraw? There is no evidence to indicate that this is so. Neither divestment nor shareholder resolutions have caused any American company to withdraw, and neither tactic holds much promise of doing so in the future. Shareholder resolutions and dialogue with company executives have at least led to some tangible corporate actions to improve the lives of Black South Africans. Divestment has no had even this effect.
3. Even if divestment could somehow help persuade American companies to leave South Africa, would their withdrawal materially help in overcoming apartheid? In fact, if American companies left South Africa, it is virtually certain that their operations would be taken over either by local interests or by foreign concerns. Since the business would continue operating, it is no clear just how withdrawal would pressure the government into reforming the apartheid system.
4. Would corporate withdrawal, assuming it somehow occurred, contribute more to the defeat of apartheid than efforts by American companies to improve wages, employment opportunities, and social conditions of nonwhite workers? At bottom, this questions raises the difficult issue of how major social change can come about in a country like South Africa. Those who support corporate activity in South Africa argue that economic development will eventually undermine apartheid as the needs of the economy force the Nationalist regime to give more education, economic opportunity, and ultimately power to nonwhites. Proponents of divestiture believe that real change will never occur by evolutionary means, whereas the withdrawal of American companies could produce widespread unemployment and economic widespread unemployment and economic distress that would either force the government to institute reforms or lead to a successful revolution.
Both these theories leave many questions unanswered, and it would be difficult to choose between them or to assert that either will prove to be correct. In response to proponents of divestment, it seems most unlikely that corporate withdrawal would cause an economic collapse, since other companies would presumably take over the operations abandoned by American firms. Even assuming that withdrawal did hurt the economy substantially, the question still remains whether this result would being about the end of apartheid or simply cause more suffering, Black unemployment, and repression. This question seems all but impossible to answer, proponents of divestment argue that Blacks and their leaders favor withdrawal of American companies. In fact some do, but others don't. In the words of the American columnist William Raspberry writing from Capetown. "If the Harvard students find the question easy, Black South Africans are by no means unanimously agreed."
In summary, divestment can have a constructive effect on South Africa only if we can answer all four of the preceding questions affirmatively. In reality, it is far from clear that one can give a positive answer to any of these questions. The likelihood that all four can be answered affirmatively is vanishingly small. Hence, I find no basis for concluding that universities will help defeat apartheid in South Africa by agreeing to divest. As a matter of principle, therefore, I see no reason for departing from the basic norms that define the role of the University in any society. Even apart form the special constraints on universities, I do not believe that we can know enough about the future of a distant country to insist to the point of a public boycott that American Companies will do more for Black South Africans by leaving the country than by remaining and instituting better employment and social conditions. And I find it difficult to support in good conscience a decision that would jeopardize resources given to us for educational purposes to pursue a strategy that neither furthers the academic ends of the institution nor offers a realistic chance of achieving its objectives.
Despite these conclusions, some critics contend that Harvard should divest rather than continue its practice of voting on shareholder resolutions and communicating with corporate managements because the present practice has failed to overcome apartheid or to close the gap in wages and working conditions between Black and white workers. This argument misconceives the current policy. The University did not adopt this policy because it felt that its actions-or any action that universities could take-would have a substantial effect on apartheid Harvard decided on this course of action in the conviction that it should vote shares as conscientiously as possible, even if the effects are only limited, and because of a strong belief in the principle that voting and communicating views are appropriate forms of behavior for a university while efforts to exert pressure thought boycotts and divestment are not.
Others who advocate divestment have suggested that the University's normal policies as a shareholder need not apply because South Africans is such a special case-the only nation that institutionalizes racial discrimination and practices it on a massive scale. Recognizing the enormities of apartheid, Harvard has gone beyond its normal practices by communicating directly with corporate officials to persuade them to alter their employment practices and by creating special scholarship programs for Black South Africans. But it is one thing to make efforts of this kind and quite another to disregard one of the University's basic principles, especially when such action is urged in pursuit of a strategy that no significant chance of affecting the course of events in South Africans.
Those who seek a more effective way of purring pressure on the Afrikaner government need not look far. Last year, for example, bills were introduced in Congress, and passed the House of Representatives to mandate fair labor Practices, limit bank loans, impsose export controls, and forbid all new American investment in South Africans. Whatever one may think of these bills, those who favor divestment must concede that such legislation would be a vastly more effective means of achieving their objective. Nevertheless I have not observed substantial numbers of persons on this campus working actively for the passage of these measures.
Other, critics take a very different tack and argue that we should divest, whether or not it will have any practical effect, because it is simply immoral to hold stock in any firm that does business in South Africans. This argument would have more force if Harvard owned stock in companies doing all or most of their business in South Africans. But that is not the case. The companies form which we are asked to divest typically do less than one percent of their business in South Africans. We do not invest in these concerns because of their South Africans operations: It would be more nearly correct to say that we invest despite those operations.
The point, therefore, must be that Harvard should stock on principle if it is tainted however slightly by the stain of doing business in South Africa. This is a troublesome argument. It suggest that morality lies in trying to avoid all contact with the wrongs of the world and that it is better to sell one's stock and simply turn away form the injustices of South Africa than continue working as a sharcholder to persuade companies to improve the wages and conditions of their Black employees.
We should also recognize that far more than divestment would be needed to sever all our links to South Africa. If it is wrong to hold stock in an American company doing a tiny share of its business in South Africa, one would suppose that it is also immoral to hold shares in the many companies that buy goods from South Africa or sell goods to it, since they too benefit, from the Sough African economy and presumably help to sustain it. One would also suppose that Harvard should not accept gifts of money derived in some demonstrable part form South African operations, since they would also be tainted. Accepting tuitions from South African students would likewise seom suspect; even tuitions form American student paid in part by dividends from companies doing business in Sough Africa could be questioned. In short, the ramifications of such a rigorous policy are far-reaching indeed.
Before we insist on such a drastic moral standard, we should ask ourselves not only whether it is practical but whether we are willing to apply it to our own lives. How many of us have examined the purchases we make to see whether they come from companies that do business in or with Sough Africa? How many students have inquired whether their tuitions are paid in part from the dividends of companies with a South Africa subsidiary? For that matter, how many of us have stopped buying goods or using funds that can be traced to Guatemala, EI Salvador, Iran, Uganda, or other countries where thousands of innocent people have been killed with no justification? The truth is that virtually on one follows such a policy or regards it as a feasible standard to follow.
Finally, some have argued that Harvard should divest because divestment is a particularly dramatic, affirmative way of expressing the University's opposition to apartheid as a system at war with our ideals of freedom and justice. Such people often stress the pervasive influence of Harvard on the society and argue that the effects of our divestment on world opinion could be substantial. My experience leads me to doubt this view. Harvard may command great respect for what it has accomplished in pursuit of its central mission of research and education; it does not have much influence, even with its own alumni, when it makes institutional statements on political questions such as corporate involvement in South Africa. Like it or not, the public knows that the University cannot claim any's special wisdom in expressing itself collectively on issues of this kind.
It is also important to note that Harvard has already stated its clear and complete opposition to apartheid on various occasions. In what respect, then, is divestment a more effective, more forceful expression of disapproval? Because it will contribute in some significant way to ending apartheid? We have seen that this is most unlikely. Because the stock of American companies in South Africa is peculiarly tainted? That rationale is also unrealistic. The argument that divestment will be a peculiarly effective gesture must presumably rest on the belief that divestment will cost Harvard money and thus represent a sacrifice which will revel the depth of our convictions.
This too is a highly questionable argument. Presumably, Harvard could also demonstrate its convictions by giving funds to the African National Congress or some other opposition group. Such a grant would certainly be a dramatic gesture and might well do more than divestment to further the struggle against the Nationalist regime. And yet, despite our revulsion toward apatheid, the fact remains that Harvard's resources were entrusted to us for academic purposes and not as a means of demonstrating our opposition to apartheid or to other manifest injustices and evils around the world. This is one reason why we have supported the expenditure of University funds to educate nonwhites from South Africa at Harvard but have opposed a policy of divestment.
In making these arguments, I am acutely aware of the contrary views expressed by those who strongly favor divestment. I respect their convictions, I hope that they will respect mine. It is never a pleasant task to disagree with others who care deeply about injustice. In the case of South Africa, the injustice is so monstrous that the heart aches for some opportunity to resist effectively. Nevertheless, such feelings cannot bring me to support a course of action that would force this University to deviate from its proper role, jeopardize its independence, and risk its resources in behalf of a dubious strategy that has no realistic prospect of success. As a result, having thought about the issues as carefully as I would, I continue to believe, as I did in 1978, that the arguments for divestment are not convincing and that Harvard should not adopt such a policy