The Massachusetts Attorney General's Office last week dropped its investigation into charges that the University acted fraudulently in the Board of Overseers elections during the past two years.
In a letter to four alumni who had alleged that the University improperly handled the election, Assistant Attorney General Richard Allen wrote that the state "has closed its review of the 1986 and 1987 elections."
"This step was taken after a thorough examination of the materials in our possession," Allen wrote in the letter dated November 2.
While Allen did not elaborate, the decision to close the investigation is largely seen as an indication that the Attorney General found no wrongdoing on the part of the University. Allen was unavailable for comment yesterday.
The investigation had been the last vestige of the extraordinary controversy spawned in 1986 during the first campaign by pro-divestment activists for the Board. The overseers are a 30-member alumni-elected body which reviews and advises the seven-man Harvard Corporation.
Administrators welcomed the decision to end the inquiry. "The fact they are not going to proceed on this is not surprising because we had felt there were no illegalities or improprieties," Vice President and General Counsel Daniel Steiner '54 said yesterday. "The result is fine."
Three of the complainants contacted this week said they were satisfied with the investigation.
The Attorney General's investigation began in May 1986 after four members of Alumni Against Apartheid (AAA), which sponsored a three-person petition slate for the Board, alleged that the University unfairly biased the election in favor of its own 10-person official slate of candidates. It was the first time in close to two decades that non-official candidates had run for one of the five spots that open up on the 30-member body annually.
The election originally generated controversy when then President of the Board Joan T. Bok '51 sent a letter to Harvard's 200,000 alumni warning them against electing "single-issue" candidates to the Board. When it was later revealed that the letter had come at the request of President Bok, the four alumni filed a complaint charging Derek Bok with "constructive fraud" in hiding hisinvolvement in the letter.
Their complaint also included charges thatHarvard was not fairly counting the ballots. Inthe 1986 election the University counted thealumni ballots on its own for a month and thenhired its accountant, Coopers and Lybrand, to dothe tally.
The activists said the vote counting is one ofseveral issues in the election that remainunresolved. They do not consider Coopers andLybrand to be a "neutral" vote-counter.
AAA this spring amended its complaint toinclude new charges stemming from what they saidwas University mishandling of the 1987 overseerselection, the second time the group sponsored aslate of candidates. These second group of chargeswere filed before the election, a strategy whichactivists said was designed to preventelectioneering by the University. They said thatstrategy worked.
"I'm glad we filed the complaint," said AAAmember Chester W. Hartman '57, who organized the1987 election. "The fact that [the AttorneyGeneral] had it for a year and a half had itseffect on Harvard--they were suitably embarassed."
"The fact they kept the investigation openduring the 1987 election gave us protection," saidNancy Page '83, one of the complainants.
Two members of the prodivestment slate, PeterH. Wood '64 and Consuela M. Washington, wereelected to the Board in last year's contest.Another pro-divestment candidate, Gay W. Seidman'78, was elected in the 1986 election.
The Cambridge-based AAA is currently finalizingits slate of candidates for this year's election.Five candidates will be chosen from the 16-nameshort list which is being considered
