BALTIMORE -- Johns Hopkins' trustees voted Monday not to divest some $70 million in firms doing business with South Africa, prompting 35 students to launch a protest inside the university's administration building.
The students, members of the Coalition for a Free South Africa, gathered in the lobby of Garland Hall about 5 p.m., with sleeping gear, anti-apartheid signs and a list of demands for Hopkins' officials.
Patrick Bond, a coalition spokesman, demanded the minutes of the trustees meeting and a binding university referendum on divestment.
'We think the students and faculty would vote overwhelmingly for divestment,' he said.
The trustees, in what one observer called 'intense debate,' voted unanimously against divestment, but agreed to widen criteria in which Hopkins would rid itself of stock in companies doing business in South Africa.
The trustees vote followed a month of daily protest by coalition members, who built shanties, passed out leaflets and held vigils to publicize what they called the university's 'outrageous moral stance.'
Trustees chairman George Radcliffe said divestment would cost the school money and possibly corporate donations.
'The Board of Trustees has decided to reaffirm and strengthen the policy initiated last year of selective divestment of the stock of corporations whose South African presence directly supports the maintenance of the apartheid policies of the government,' he said in a prepared statement.
'It is the judgement of the prevailing majority of the Board of Trustees that the total and immediate divestment of the stocks of all American corporations that operate in South Africa would not represent a responsible, prudent course of action,' the statement said.
