BALTIMORE -- Anti-apartheid protesters occupying the administration building at Johns Hopkins University Tuesday set a noon Wednesday deadline on demands for a referendum on whether the school should divest some $70 million in firms operating in South Africa.
'The overwhelming majority of students, faculty and staff want the university out of South Africa,' said Patrick Bond, spokesman for the 35 protesters, member of the Coalition for a Free South Africa.
The protesters said they were considering alternatives if their demand for a campus referendum on divestiture was not met by noon Wednesday. One protester said the group may decide to padlock the doors of the building in a takeover attempt.
Ken Iglehart, a Johns Hopkins spokesman, said university President Steven Muller and George Radcliffe, chairman of the Board of Trustees, had received the demands and were reviewing them. He said it was likely Muller, who was out of town Tuesday, would meet with the students Wednesday.
Iglehart, while acknowledging the student protest, maintained the students had not 'occupied' the building.
'Let's not call it an occupation,' he said. 'Let's call it a peaceful vigil. As far as I know, the functions of the building have not been disrupted.'
The students hung a giant 'Mandela Hall' banner in the center of the lobby and placed posters declaring 'Divest Now' and 'Boycott South Africa' on the walls. Protesters said the building was 'renamed' in honor of Nelson Mandela, an anti-apartheid leader imprisoned in South Africa.
The students also are asking for transcripts of a 4 hour meeting Monday at which the Johns Hopkins' Board of Trustees voted unanimously against divestiture on grounds it would 'not represent a responsible, prudent course of action.'
The group occupied the building about 5 p.m. Monday, the day trustees of Smith College in Northampton, Mass., voted to 'divest totally' its $39 million in stocks of companies doing business in South Africa.
'The board voted to complete the process of divestment by Oct. 31, 1988,' Smith President Mary Maples Dunn said from the steps of the building occupied six days last spring by students protesting South African investments by the 115-year-old women's college.
