“Harvard University, by providing capital for the Union of South Africa, is implicated in the continued misery of Africans,” Cudjoe said. He proposed that the purpose of a university was not just to pursue knowledge but to “transmit values.”

The Corporation defended its investment policy by outlining ethical standards already in place for evaluating investments in South Africa at the Faculty meeting. A. Michael Spence, an ACSR member, specified that corporations that withheld products and services from the government, the military or the police that implemented apartheid and adopted employment practices that benefited nonwhites in South Africa met Harvard’s standards for investment.

According to Spence, divestment “will not be effective in influencing the behavior of companies” and “diminishes our ability to support responsible efforts...to make the companies change their policies.”

In a full Faculty meeting in May, more than half of the professors who spoke questioned the morality of investments in South Africa.

Wallace T. MacCaffrey, professor of history, said the University’s current standards of investing in companies were “small but measurable actions, aiding black South Africans.”

Other professors called on Harvard to use its public and international stature to take a moral position against apartheid through divestment.

Tahi L. Mottl, assistant professor of Afro-American Studies, urged Bok to make “an unambiguous public statement” on South Africa.

Karl W. Deutsch, Stanfield professor of international peace, said the University should divest because it is considered “a flagship in the U.S. and the rest of the world.”

Some professors, such as Mansfield, supported University policy, doubting the effectiveness of the short-term symbolic effect of divestment.

“I was very much against divestment. I thought it was an invasion of the University’s primary duty, to ask questions, and not take positions. This is part of the politicization of the University, which began in the late ’60s,” Mansfield recalls.

The debate over Harvard’s investment even reached members of Congress. Rep.-elect William R. Ratchford, D-Conn., told The Crimson that Harvard’s divestment from South Africa-related stock could influence national and international governments against apartheid.

In late spring, the Faculty circulated a letter that endorsed a gradual, five-step policy to force corporations to pull out of South Africa. The letter, signed by over 100 professors, urged Harvard to stop investing in corporations operating in South Africa, and to support or initiate shareholder resolutions calling for corporate withdrawal. According to this letter, if these efforts fail, Harvard should adopt a policy of selective divestment.

MONEY AND MORALS

Bok was reluctant to yield to student and Faculty pressure. He wrote two letters addressing divestment from South Africa in which he explained his support for University policy.

In an open letter in March, Bok wrote that the purpose of a university is not “to reform society in specific ways,” but to transmit knowledge and protect its financial stability. In his second letter in April, Bok doubted the effectiveness of divestment in promoting the end of apartheid, and supported the Corporation’s position that the best way for Harvard to influence corporate behavior was “to vote as a shareholder.”