UC Head Seeks to Move Up Study of South Africa Ties

University of California President David P. Gardner, responding to anti-apartheid protests from students and faculty, said Friday that he will ask UC regents to move up a planned discussion of the system’s economic ties to South Africa from June to May.

Protesters had pressed for a meeting before the school year ends in May.

Gardner did not agree to other demands that regents actually approve divestiture in May, nor did he promise to prevent further university investments in U.S. companies doing business in South Africa.

As Gardner met with 13 faculty representatives to discuss the divestiture issue, 42 more people were arrested at anti-apartheid demonstrations at UC Berkeley.

Although he did not meet all the demands of the demonstrators, Gardner did say that when the matter comes up for a formal vote in June, “I will not vote for the status quo,” and said he believes other regents will do the same.

He did not elaborate, but the regents recently voted to ask Nalco Chemical Co.--in which the university holds 1.5 million shares of stock worth about $30 million--to improve relations with its black employees in South Africa or stop doing business there altogether.

New figures released Friday by the university treasurer’s office show that the UC system has $2.4 billion invested in companies doing business in South Africa, or $700 million more than previously believed.

Protesters have argued that the investments help perpetuate apartheid, the official South African system of segregation and discrimination.

In response to Gardner’s refusal to meet all of their demands, 38 faculty members representing all nine UC campuses blocked the entrance to University Hall on Friday and were arrested peacefully. The action was part of a series of acts of civil disobedience in front of the UC system’s Berkeley headquarters.

At the same time and just a few hundred yards away, however, university police and student demonstrators clashed briefly on the steps of Sproul Hall, the UC Berkeley administration building.

The brawl began when police arrested a student who had sat atop some signs and debris being removed from the steps by university sanitation workers. Demonstrators have been camping on the steps since April 10.

Four people were arrested during the melee. They were booked on a variety of charges, including battery of a police officer.

Earlier Friday, university police arrested an unidentified man who allegedly had doused himself with gasoline in Sproul Plaza in an apparent bid to set himself on fire. The man was taken to a local hospital for psychiatric evaluation.

At UCLA, two people were arrested early Friday, and 18 others issued citations when campus police evicted 60 anti-apartheid protesters from Murphy Hall, the administration building there. The demonstrators had occupied the building for three days.

Students who had to leave UCLA’s Murphy Hall in the early hours of Friday have now set up tents across the road in Schoenberg Quadrangle and are staging a sit-down there.

Sleep-In Ends

About 80 students at California State University, Northridge, ended a two-night sleep-in at the administration building lobby after campus President James Cleary agreed to call a special meeting of the CSUN Foundation to discuss the divestiture issue.

At UC Santa Cruz, 150 people camped in front of the library through Friday morning, while 200 people slept outside the library at UC San Diego.

Varying numbers of students were continuing their sit-in at the USC administration building, officials said. Jim Dennis, USC vice president for student affairs, said there had been no incidents and no arrests.