THE MOST PUBLICIZED CORPORATE dispute in America sparked campus debate last week, as the Coors controversy came to Cambridge. Outside Harvard University's Science Center on February 24, 200 student protesters picketed William Coors, Chairman of the Adolph Coors brewing company, chanting "Contras drink Coors," and "Racist, sexist, anti-gay. Coors beer, no way." Inside, 400 students listened attentively as the affable executive defended his family's brewery's policies.

Over the past twenty years, various advocacy groups have targetted the Denver-based brewery for policies that they perceive as anti-environment, anti-union and anti-civil rights. Resorting to economic warfare, they have called for a nationwide boycott of Coors products.

Until 1977, Coors spokesmen rarely discussed the brewery's politics and policies in public. The offense gained momentum in 1977 when the AFL-CIO joined the boycott at the request of one of its local affiliates which was battling with Coors. Since then, William Coors and other company spokespeople have more actively discussed their company and have aggressively denied most of the boycotters' allegations. Wednesday was no exception, as Coors spent most of his hour-and-a-half speech denying charges of racism, sexism, union-busting and employee harassment. Arguing that the boycotters make him out to be an ogre, Coors said in an interview after the speech, "I think it's important sometimes that people see me and judge for themselves whether I'm all that monstrous."

The boycotters eagerly point to a combination of the Coors family's political views and brewery employment practices as the reasons behind their boycott. Most boycott literature portrays William Coors and his brother, Company Vice Chairman Joseph Coors as somewhere to the right of Attila the Hun.

Typical of the calls for a boycott are resolutions such as the National Organization for Women's (NOW), which claims, "The Coors family has made significant contributions to organizations which oppose the rights of women, Third World, lesbian and gay people, as well as anti-union organizations," and that there are "clear relationships between the beer we buy, Coors family profits and large donations to these ultra-conservative groups."

The boycott for some has become more than simply an effort to get a consumer products company to change certain practices. It has become a crusade against a family-owned brewery. The boycotters are not interested in small tactical victories; the fight is to the death.

Although the crusade is not over, certain of the battles are. Considering the company's policies apart from the family's politics, it seems that many of the boycotters' gripes have been resolved. But because Coors has yet to appease the union, the boycott continues and the anti-Coors forces manage to get a great deal of mileage out of criticizing the family's private donations.

A great deal of the Coors family money is donated through the Adolph Coors Foundation, which gave out $3,752,000 in 1985. Most of the foundation's money goes to education and community service programs, and only 20 per cent funds 'public affairs' organizations, such as Accuracy in Media and the right-wing National Forum Foundation. In 1985, $100,000 went to the conservative Heritage Foundation--a think-tank that funds research calling for a substantial decrease in federal student financial aid and an increase in funding for the Strategic Defense Initiative (Star Wars). Joseph Coors is a founder and trustee of the Heritage Foundation.

Although the Coors family funds many conservative causes, William Coors claims that he is "very strongly moderate," and cites his support for the Equal Rights Amendment and opposition to the Contras fighting in Nicaragua. Joseph was not available to comment on his political stands.

The family maintains that it has a right to take whatever political positions it pleases and vehemently denies almost all of the allegations pertaining to their company's practices.

"When the AFL-CIO takes you on, they can do your reputation a tremendous amount of damage," William Coors said in an interview. Whether or not his reputation deserved the damage is where Coors and the boycotters disagree.

AFL-CIO Coors boycott director, Dave Sickler, argues, "If our allegations are untrue, why haven't they sued us for libel?" Meanwhile, William Coors has offered $10,000 to anyone who can substantiate any of the charges against the company.

Allegation and counter-allegation, charge and counter-charge: none of the participants see the Coors controversy in shades of gray; for them the facts are simply black or white.

The two sides even disagree on specific facts, matters which would seem to be necessarily true or false. For example, Sickler, who worked for Coors during the 60s and 70s, says that employees were subjected to polygraph tests before being hired and while employed. In sworn affidavits before the House subcommittee on Labor-Management Relations, Sickler and three other former Coors employees stated that they were asked personal questions during their preemployment lie detector sessions, including questions such as "What is your sex preference?," "Are you a Communist?," and "Have you ever smoked marijuana?"

William Coors maintains that the lie detector tests only occurred before an employee was hired and that they never asked any questions about sexual or political practices. And, he suggests that the whole point is currently moot because Coors no longer asks any potential employees to take polygraph tests. Instead, all prospective Coors employees are asked to take a urinalysis test.