Beginning in 1985, student activists at Dartmouth College, a private university in Hanover, New Hampshire, protested against the university's policy of investing in companies that operated in South Africa. The protests were part of a wider anti-apartheid movement in the United States that sought to disinvest from South Africa in protest against the country's policy of apartheid.
In November 1985, an activist group called the Dartmouth Committee for Divestment (DCD) erected a shanty town on the Green in order to draw attention to the poor living conditions experienced by black people in South Africa. While university administrators initially called for the shanties to be removed from the Green, University President David T. McLaughlin stated that the shanties could remain so long as they served "an educational purpose". Over the next several months, the shanties remained while the DCD continued to push for full divestment from companies doing business in South Africa.
On January 21, 1986, a group consisting of several staff members of The Dartmouth Review—a conservative student publication—attacked the shanty town in an effort to destroy and remove the structures from the Green. In response to the attack, anti-apartheid activists performed an occupation of an administration building on campus. As part of an agreement reached with the occupiers, administrators canceled classes later that week and held a teach-in to discuss racial sensitivity topics. Several days later, McLaughlin ordered the shanties removed from the Green, with several anti-apartheid activists arrested during the removal process, with most charged with trespassing. While the university ultimately dropped its charges against these students, they suspended the students who had attacked the shanty town. Later litigation reduced or removed some of these students' sentences.
While anti-apartheid protesting occurred at many universities in the United States around the same time, the Dartmouth activities were notable for their scale, with political activist L.A. Kauffman calling it "[t]he most notorious incident" to occur during the divestment movement of the 1980s. While initially focused on opposition to apartheid, several commentators have noted that the protests highlighted existing issues at the university regarding discrimination. In the later half of 1986, several universities divested their holdings from South African companies and the federal government outlawed new investing in South African companies that were not black-owned.
Background
Anti-apartheid protests at American colleges and universities
According to historian Amanda Joyce Hall, opposition to apartheid in South Africa "was one of the longest continuous youth movements of the twentieth century". Beginning with the introduction of that system in 1948, opposition to it originated with African American anticolonial activism. In the 1960s and 1970s, the focus of these protests shifted to boycotting South African goods and pushing for disinvestment from the country. These included investments from universities in the form of endowments and faculty pension funds in stocks for companies that had operations in South Africa. By the late 1970s, this amounted to several hundred million United States dollars. The disinvestment campaign reached its peak in the mid-1980s, with protests occurring at over 200 colleges and universities across the United States.
The protests took many forms, including picketing and renaming public spaces, but a common tactic employed was the creation of shanty towns to represent the poor living conditions of black people under apartheid. According to sociologist Sarah Soule, the shanty towns as a form of protest evolved from the sit-ins that were employed during the civil rights movement of the 1960s. During the mid-1980s, sit-ins at several universities grew in size and scale to include "sit-outs" and "camp-outs", where a large number of student activists assembled in public areas of their campuses. In 1985, activists at Princeton University built a dedicated building for protesting, and by Spring 1985, the first shanty town was erected at Cornell University. Within a few months, shanty towns had been erected at several other campuses.
Dartmouth College Dartmouth College is an Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, that, in the mid-1980s, had an undergraduate enrollment of about 4,300. In June 1985, the university's board of trustees amended their policy regarding the college's portfolio, stating that they would divest from any company doing business in South Africa by July 1, 1986, unless that company had agreed to abide by the Sullivan principles. Per reporting from the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine, the trustees felt that full divestment from all companies doing business in South Africa was not an advisable route for advocating for social change in the country, but was committed to partial divestment, as had occurred in April 1985, when the trustees sold stocks in two companies, equal to about $2 million (equivalent to $ million in ), that were operating in that country and were not adhering to the college's policies. At the time, roughly a quarter of the college's financial endowment of $434 million ($ billion in ) was invested in companies that had operations in South Africa.
Pro-divestment protests
Construction of a shanty town on the Green
On November 12, 1985, the college held a forum to debate the policy of divestment. This came several days before the trustees were planning to gather at the college to discuss their divestment policies over the weekend of November 14 and 15. On November 15, a group known as the Dartmouth Committee for Divestment (DCD) began to construct a mock shanty town on the Green. The town consisted of two structures made of scrap wood and sheet metal. The protests at Dartmouth were part of a wider trend of shanty towns being constructed on college campuses across the United States, with similar incidents occurring at Cornell University and Princeton University. The same day that the shanties were erected, a pro-divestment rally was held on the Green that was attended by about 120 people. Over the weekend, trustees met with several members of the DCD to discuss divestment.
Further activities through 1985 On November 17, Edward Shanahan, Dartmouth's dean, announced that the shanty town would be destroyed by the university if the structures were not removed from the Green. Shanahan made the announcement while David T. McLaughlin, Dartmouth's president, was away from the college. However, the following day, the DCD began construction on a third shanty and held a rally on the Green that attracted over 300 people. Around that same time, a petition in support of the shanty town received the signatures of 45 faculty members. By the end of the week, McLaughlin had returned and announced that the shanties could remain standing on the Green "as long as they are serving an educational purpose". Following the announcement, educational events around the shanties included a faculty-led teach-in and a speech given by Mpho Tutu—the daughter of South African Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu—that was attended by about 300 people. Additionally, there were plans for forums on divestment scheduled for January 31 and February 1.
On November 26, at McLaughlin's invitation, about 20 members of the DCD held a meeting with him, and on December 4, another meeting was held that included McLaughlin, members of the DCD, and several trustees. According to Dartmouth Alumni Magazine, the latter meeting "appeared to go well". On December 9, the trustees announced that they had further amended their policies so that companies they had investments in would have to demonstrate that they were actively implementing the Sullivan principles by the end of 1986 or face divestment. In a statement made following the announcement, McLaughlin said,
Continued protesting in 1986 By the beginning of 1986, there were four shanties located on the Green. In early January, the shanty town was relocated to another section of the Green in order to make room for an ice sculpture that would be part of the college's 76th annual Winter Carnival, which was slated to begin on February 6. This relocation was agreed to by the DCD after discussions with the carnival organizers.
On January 9, a group of 26 pro-divestment protestors held a sit-in at the president's office. McLaughlin, who was having a meeting with a reporter from The New York Times, immediately left his office while the protestors stayed for 234 minutes, which they said represented the number in United States dollars that was allocated to black people by the government of Pretoria per capita per year. Shanahan was critical of the protestors, who he insinuated may face disciplinary action, and said that the disruption jeopardized the forums that were planned for January and February. On the same day, several faculty members published an open letter that was critical of McLaughlin's leadership. Four days later, eighty faculty members voted unanimously to urge the trustees to divest of South African holdings and to speed up the process of review.
By mid-January, the college still held about $63 million ($ million in ) in investments in companies that were doing business in South Africa. While the faculty had voted unanimously for complete divestment, the administration remained opposed. Additionally, The Dartmouth Review, a conservative student newspaper, expressed their opposition to the pro-divestment movement. The Dartmouth Review had been established at the university in the early 1980s and had attracted considerable controversy, with Margot Hornblower of The Washington Post saying that the newspaper was "a focal point for complaints of insensitivity" and fellow Post journalist Sidney Blumenthal saying it was "the most prominent and controversial of the more than 50 conservative student newspapers across the country". Concerning the positions of the newspaper staff and DCD activists, Matthew L. Wald of The New York Times said, "The Review and the divestment group seem to be fighting over the college's identity, from opposite directions."
On January 20, during the first national celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, students and faculty members held a candlelight march at the shanty town. McLaughlin was away from the college at the time, as he was visiting alumni clubs in Florida.
Attack on the shanty town On January 21, shortly before 3 a.m. EST, 12 individuals drove a flatbed truck onto the Green. The people, wielding sledgehammers, began destroying the shanties, severely damaging three of the four. Two protestors were sleeping in one of the shanties during the attack, and while they were uninjured, they said that they were verbally threatened by the attackers. The attackers were eventually stopped by college security guards. The two protestors called the police, who took the 12 attackers to the campus's police headquarters. The police did not file any criminal charges against the 12, with Police Captain William Moore stating that further disciplinary action against the vandals would be handled by college officials. A spokesperson for the college stated that they were investigating the matter.