"Every Word Heard is Divestment," read a headline in an April 1985 issue of The Crimson.

The next year--after Tutu, a 1978 honorary degree recipient, spoke at the IOP--the divestment movement reached its peak.

That spring, students built a shantytown in front of University Hall which stayed up for several months, through Commencement. Pro-divestment alumni succeeded in electing Gay W. Seidman '78, a former Crimson president and a supporter of divestment, to the Board of Overseers.

And at the University's 350th anniversary celebration later that summer, protestors forced the cancellation of the gala anniversary dinner in what The Crimson called "the protest of the decade."

Academic Ties

But even as Harvard was torn over its financial ties to South Africa, academically the University had little to do with South Africa.

"During the time when South Africa was under the apartheid regime, American universities in general tended to shun the area," said Robert H. Bates, Eaton professor of the science of government and acting chair of the Committee on African Studies.

While some work in South Africa did occur in the 1980s and earlier, it tended to focus on the problems of apartheid and on strategies for the country's future, said Robert I. Rothberg, development associate at the Harvard Institute for International Development (HIID).

"Research continued, but it was certainly anti-apartheid oriented," he said.

Now

As the apartheid system began to unravel in the early 1990s, students activists--and the ACSR--began to shift their attention away from Harvard's investments in South Africa.

In 1993, Harvard's restrictions on investing in South Africa were lifted, and the University began to reinvest in South Africa. "We have more and more deeper economic interests in the economic development of the country and the emerging markets there," said University Marshal Richard M. Hunt.

Jack R. Meyer, president of the Harvard Management Company, which manages the University's $12.8 billion endowment, says that although the University's current South African investment is relatively low, the market is promising. "There is certainly potential [in South Africa]," he said.

And the University's academic ties with South Africa have been strengthened as well.

Although HIID, which coordinates development assistance to Africa and other underdeveloped regions, has no specific programs in South Africa, its administrators are in close contact with government officials in South Africa, Rothberg said. "We're in touch with South Africans all the time," he said.

Even scientific research has increased, said Alfred W. Compton, Fisher professor of natural history and a native of South Africa. "There may be a greater willingness [now] on the side of American scientists to visit South Africa," he said.

Hunt visited South Africa earlier this year. While his visit was "personal" in nature, he visited several Harvard-affiliated and honorary degree recipients in the country.

Hunt said that his visit helped him gain a new appreciation for South Africa's accomplishments.

"The feeling of many Faculty members is that this is a country that has gone through extreme trials and tribulations and has emerged from apartheid in a bloodless way," he said