Anti-Apartheid Protests Spread Across Nation

Anti-apartheid protesters from dozens of college campuses across the nation Wednesday boycotted classes, marched, rallied or spoke in support of a “day of action” opposing American support of the racist policies of South Africa.

More than 300 people were arrested, including 25 who had camped outside the office of UC Davis Chancellor James H. Meyer.

At UC San Diego, about 2,000 students shouted chants of “Freedom” and “Divest” in a peaceful demonstration. They joined UC students from throughout the state in urging the Board of Regents to withdraw the $1.7 billion it has invested in companies operating in South Africa.

The day’s biggest crowd turned out at Berkeley, where 7,000 demonstrators jammed a gymnasium for an apartheid discussion with half of the university’s regents and University of California President David P. Gardner.

The forum had been one of several items demanded by demonstrators who have camped on the steps of Sproul Hall, the administration building, since April 10. About 4,000 people rallied there before the forum Wednesday.

Despite the unusual sight of 14 of the university’s 28 regents attending an informal forum, protesters made it clear that talk alone is not enough.

“Our goal is not a hearing,” demonstration organizer Andrea Pritchitt informed university officials at the forum, while the crowd cheered. “Our goal is total divestiture now.”

Largest Rally Since Vietnam

At UC San Diego, the two-hour rally was said by university officials to be the largest since the Vietnam era. It ended peacefully as about 800 of the 2,000 protesting students marched to the Cluster Undergraduate Humanities Library and shouted slogans for about 15 minutes.

Organizers of the rally then asked students to spend the night in front of the library. A march was scheduled for noon today to present a petition and a list of student demands to UC San Diego Chancellor Richard Atkinson.

Atkinson was in Washington on Wednesday.

Rally organizer Val Hardie, a senior political science major, said she was surprised by the large number of students and faculty members who joined in the demonstration at the La Jolla campus.

“We were just scrounging around Monday to see if we could get people to sleep overnight. Seeing this support now, seeing the energy that it’s created, is exciting,” she said.

Mathew Meyer, another senior, said the rally showed that “the time for talking and asking opinions (on apartheid) has passed.”

“The information about why it is morally wrong for the regents to make a profit off of apartheid has been available for a long time,” he said. “Only when there’s some kind of demonstration does there seem to be any kind of real interest in it.”

Faculty Lends Support

Thomas Dublin, a professor of history, told the gathering he hoped the faculty would organize action of its own next week to protest the UC system’s investments in companies that do business with South Africa.

Faculty members, he said, need to “lend support to student sentiment.”

Campus police chief John Anderson said that he worked at UC Berkeley during the turbulent 1960s and that Wednesday’s rally gave him a feeling of deja vu. But he emphasized that the rally ran smoothly and without problem.

Indeed, of the nationwide string of demonstrations held, the largest were in California. In addition to Berkeley and UC San Diego, there were 2,500 people at UC Santa Cruz, 2,000 at UC Davis and 800 at Stanford University.

Other protests occurred at USC, San Jose State University, Humboldt State University, San Francisco State and the University of San Francisco.

Bart Stratton, spokesman for the UC Santa Cruz Student Divestment and AntiApartheid Coalition, said that at least some students at 22 colleges across the country reported they had boycotted classes. Marches and rallies were reported at 51 other schools, he said, and students at 60 more endorsed the anti-apartheid movement.

Organizers Happy

Despite the large number of schools reporting some action--a figure that could not be confirmed--the number of students participating at most schools was apparently small. Organizers were happy nonetheless.

“The nationwide strike looks like it is going really well,” said Brenda Folstad, a spokeswoman for the coalition that organized the national action. “Some are really getting radical--taking over buildings and things.”

Students occupied campus buildings at Harvard, Boston College and Colgate University in Hamilton, N.Y., Stanford, Princeton and Rutgers. At UCLA, between 50 and 75 students planned to spend the night in Murphy Hall, the administration building, and at California State University at Northridge 25 students said they would “sleep-in” at the administration building.

On the steps of Berkeley’s Sproul Hall, the administration building renamed Biko Hall by protesters in honor of slain South African apartheid foe Steven Biko, speakers urged rejection of University Chancellor Ira M. Heyman’s call for “selective divestment” from companies that discriminate against black employees.

Want Full Divestment

“We’re not going to accept anything-- anything-- except full divestment,” Mia Laurence, a student, told the cheering crowd.

Heyman, in an interview during the forum, conceded that “if the demonstrators had not asked for this forum, it would not have occurred.”

He said the forum was having an effect on him. “I’ve got to rethink this, I really do,” he said, referring to the divestiture demand. “This has been a very educational experience.”

University officials have said that about $1.7 billion of its $5.5 billion in investments are in firms that operate in South Africa. Regents in the past have balked at withdrawing the money, most of which is from pension funds for system employees, because they said they are obligated to earn the highest return they can.

At Berkeley, however, many beneficiaries of the investments, such as clerks and faculty members, have joined the call for divestiture. “Surely there is more at stake here than a profitable return on investments or fiduciary responsibility,” faculty members said in one petition given Gardner.

At Stanford, students marched to the university president’s office, where 400 of them squeezed inside for a sit-in. President Donald Kennedy was out of town until this morning, so students decided to stay overnight.

“We don’t want our education financed by the blood of the South African people,” demonstration organizer Steve Phillips, president of the Black Students Union, told protesters. He blasted the university for “an investment policy that reeks of moral depravity.”

At USC, about 400 students, led by men dressed in Navy blazers and ties and women in pearl necklaces and high-heeled shoes, chanted, carried placards and cheered speakers who denounced racism and called for an end to apartheid.

USC to Examine Policy

A university spokesman said USC has $19 million--11.1% of the university’s total endowment pool--invested in firms with ties in that country. University President James H. Zumberg has appointed a commission to examine investment policies.

As the anti-apartheid movement spread to campuses across the country, about 50 Harvard students invaded university offices and staged a sit-in. Boston College students planned to camp in their school’s library until midnight.

In Madison, Wis., about 1,000 University of Wisconsin-Madison students marched to the state capitol where some of them settled into Gov. Anthony Earl’s conference room and forced him to postpone a scheduled meeting.

More than 300 protesters were arrested Wednesday at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., raising above 900 the number of arrests made there since its students started anti-apartheid rallies last Thursday.

In the only such incident at Berkeley, one man was arrested for blocking a driveway while picketing at the campus.

At Columbia University, about 400 students rallied before preparing to end their four-week blockade of a campus building, which was recently declared illegal by a New York judge. But student spokesman John Klavens promised some “escalations” of their protest on Friday.