Rich schools in a dilemma over South Africa

Press, 10 January 1986, Page 17

Rich schools in a dilemma over South Africa

NZPA-Reuter New York

When a private school on Manhattan’s fashionable East Side earned an enviable sum from a business deal, it faced a decision confronting many investors — whether to put its riches into businesses in South Africa.

The Town School opted to invest its new wealth only in firms complying with the Sullivan Principles, an ethics code under which companies pledge to promote equal work opportunities and salaries for blacks in South Africa. Ths issue of divestment, which has already held up the endowments of America’s colleges to close scrutiny, has now reached the elite private elementary and secondary schools where children of the rich and famous are educated. Recently, officials of 15 of New York’s most prestigious private academies met to hear assorted investment analysts, businessmen and activists make cases for full or partial divestment from South Africa in protest against apartheid. The conference was planned by Franklin Roosevelt in, a grandson of the late President and an economics professor on sabbatical from Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York. The site was Manhattan Csotry School, which Mr

Roosevelt, the school’s treasurer, says has followed a policy of full divestment since it set up its first endowment several years ago. Mr Roosevelt said the divestment issue had struck earlier and with more force at the college level because specific pressure groups, both among students and college staff, helped keep it alive. At private schools, he said, “maybe it has been the course of least resistance to just not think about it.” While it is not known exactly how much New York’s 60 private academies have in investments, some of the institutions, where tuition may run as high as SUS9OOO ($17,000) a year, do have impressive portfolios. Manhattan’s Brearley School, with an endowment of nearly SUS 9 million ($l7 million), recently sold its stock in two companies that were not in compliance with the Sullivan Principles, according to the headmistress, Evelyn Halpert Ms Halpert said the school was watching the situation in South Africa to decide whether full divestment might be warranted. Some of the pressure for a close check on school endowments has come from parents and some from the students themselves. The director of New York’s Ethical Culture Schools, Howard Radist, says his students recently presented a A peti-

tion stating their concern over the issue.

Mr Radist says the schools’ portfolio follows the Sullivan Principles and that its investment committee, “has been asked to look into full divestment.” Herman Jervis, who attended the conference for the Ethical Culture Schools, sees little use for the Sullivan Principles which, he said, “have been overtaken by developments and now have no significance.” Mr Jervis, a former chairman of the schools’ board, added, “The impression I got from the people who attended was that sentiment is leaning toward getting rid of South African investments.” Like Mr Jervis, Jacquelyn Williams, director of the nursery and kindergarten sections of the Town School, said she would make a postconference report to her school’s trustees. Although she may not be asked her own opinion, Ms Williams said, “Personally, my recommendation would be full divestment. It sounded as if the people who were there were very much committed to as much divestment as possible.” Mr Roosevelt said the conference was designed “to bring the issue home to people in a much more concrete way than reading the morning newspaper.