Apartheid Spurs Campus Protests

APARTHEID SPURS CAMPUS PROTESTS

Antiapartheid Rallies

In 1985 the Reagan administration defended its refusal to apply economic sanctions to South Africa as a means of ending that country's official policy of apartheid. Demonstrations on campuses all across the United States on 4 April 1985 marked the seventeenth anniversary of the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. with protests against racism in general and South Africa's apartheid system in particular. Amy Carter, daughter of former president Jimmy Carter and a Brown University student, was one of the more-prominent personalities arrested in a four-thousand-person demonstration led by Washington, D.C., mayor Marion Barry at that city's South African embassy.

Divestiture Demands

Also coinciding with the 4 April King anniversary, several hundred students at Columbia University in New York City began a blockade of a campus building to demand that the university divest itself of $32.5 million in stock of companies doing business in South Africa. Although the demonstrators padlocked the front door and camped out around it, another entrance to the building remained open and classes continued without interruption. On 25 April, when Columbia had given no concessions on the divestment issue, the students called off the protest, claiming it was time to "move on to new tactics." Simultaneously, another sit-in protest began at the University of California, Berkeley, drawing more than four thousand students and residents to denounce that university's holdings in companies doing business with South Africa. However, the regents refused to advance their June meeting, at which plans had been made to discuss possible action regarding the school's $1.8 billion investment in firms operating in South Africa. Despite this lack of success, other prodivestment sit-ins began at Rutgers and Cornell Universities. On 24 April 1985 thousands of students around the country took part in what organizers named National Antiapartheid Protest Day and A Day of National Solidarity. The activities, including rallies, marches, teachins, and acts of civil disobedience, were concerned with U.S. policies on nuclear disarmament and Central America as well as investments in South Africa.

"STEREO DIVESTITURE"

On his first week on the job as education secretary in 1985, William Bennett was asked by CBS news about the possible effects of the Reagan administration's proposed student-aid reductions. In outlining how the well-to-do might cope, Bennett warned, For some it may require divestiture of certain sorts—stereo divestiture. Tightening the belt can have the function of focusing the mind."

That year 77 percent of Americans surveyed in a Harris poll felt that too many well-off families had received loans, and 62 percent felt that student loans had to be included in budget cuts. College presidents, however, were livid. The University of the Pacific canceled Bennett as its proposed graduation speaker, and dozens of other universities expressed outrage. Students, however, did not appear to be intimidated by their government; indeed, they showered Bennett with cards and letters written in reply from spring break in Florida. Typical was the card postmarked Fort Lauderdale: "Dear Mr. Secretary Bennett: Wish you were here. Sun is great. Send money, preferably not one of those things that takes six months from your department. Stereo broke; would appreciate your sending bureaucrat down with a Walkman."

Source:

William J. Bennett, "The Great University Debates," in The De-Valuing of America (New York: Summit Books, 1992).

Some Universities Divest

Some universities did agree to divest themselves of holdings connected with South Africa. In 1985 Stanford University trustees voted to sell the university's $5 million stock investment in Motorola if the company resumed sales of electronic gear to the South African military or police. Harvard University that same year announced it had sold its stock holdings in Baker International Corporation after the company refused to provide evidence that it followed "reasonably ethical standards" in its South African operations. Although Harvard had taken an official stand against the apartheid system, this sale was the first time that the university had divested itself of part of its stock portfolio to back up its position.