The report says anti-apartheid organizing at Mount Holyoke was focused on divestment in the past year. The college's Commission on Social Responsibility (CSR) issued a public report; the CSR, composed of faculty and students, had been established to create an "educated campus" and transmit "informed opinion" to the Trustee-and Proxy Committee. In the spring of 1979, the CSR recommended to the trustees that the college vote its stock in favor of various resolutions to limit corporate evil, which the trustees ignored. Students wanted to speak directly to the trustees, and they asked that the spring trustee meeting include a community forum on South Africa and the...
The report says anti-apartheid organizing at Mount Holyoke was focused on divestment in the past year. The college's Commission on Social Responsibility (CSR) issued a public report; the CSR, composed of faculty and students, had been established to create an "educated campus" and transmit "informed opinion" to the Trustee-and Proxy Committee. In the spring of 1979, the CSR recommended to the trustees that the college vote its stock in favor of various resolutions to limit corporate evil, which the trustees ignored. Students wanted to speak directly to the trustees, and they asked that the spring trustee meeting include a community forum on South Africa and the college's investment policy. Student organizations from the Young Republican Club to the Organization of Pan African Unity demanded a forum. The trustees rejected the idea, but the students organized a forum to take place during the trustees' sherry hour. Meanwhile the "Action: Southern Africa" group ran slide shows in the dorms and collected signatures on petitions favoring divestment; also, speakers and films were brought to campus. The forum, held in March, was the best political education on the campus in years; 450 out of 1,900 students came; 16 campus organizations briefly addressed the forum, and 15-20 trustees were shamed into attending. Thirteen student groups (though not the Republicans this time) called for partial or total divestment. The trustees informally chided the students for not going through "the proper channels" and formally ignored the forum. The CSR convinced itself to represent students as in favor of stockholder resolutions again, though the CSR did raise some divestment questions in their meeting with the trustees. Much of the student energy was spent on the forum. Exams approached, and students let the issue drop for the time. However, Action: Southern Africa remains in place, has a budget for the coming year, and is already planning for this fall. [Note: the author was an instructor of Political Science at the college in 1979-81.]
