In early 1978 the Afro-American Student Liberation Force and the African Student Association charged that UT held investments of $4.5 million in corporations and companies that benefited from South Africa’s racist government and called upon UT to divest itself of those stocks. The Student Coordinating Council joined the AASLF in requesting that UT first ask the businesses to close their South African branches and then sell all UT-held stocks and bonds of companies and corporations that remained in South Africa. The AASLF initiated a petition drive to collect signatures on a resolution supporting divestment of UT stocks. On August 2, 1978, the group appealed to the investment committee of the UT Board of Trustees to divest itself of stock in companies doing business in South Africa. The proposal was defeated, 5-0. Students continued to desire that the trustees at least study the matter. A candlelight procession was held on October 19, the night before the AASLF planned to present the request to the board of trustees that a committee be formed to study the issue. On October 20 the AASLF appeared at the board of trustees’ meeting to ask that the stock issue be studied, following futile attempts to meet to discuss the issue with UT President Boling. Governor Blanton, presiding at the meeting, gave students five minutes to speak, noting that the issue was not on the board agenda. He and members of the AASLF exchanged words. Members of the organization disrupted the meeting with chants of “UT out of South Africa.” Blanton ordered the room cleared—about twenty students were ejected and four were arrested. (Sharon Ann Riley, Rossi Wayne Turner and Orzy Theus were charged with disorderly conduct; Nathaniel James Washington [Lisimba Tafirenyka] was charged with disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, and assault and battery.)
On Monday, October 24, a group of 45 students gathered in front of Andy Holt Tower planning to confront UT President Ed Boling about the arrests. They went to Boling’s office, but he was out of town. UT General Counsel Beauchamp Brogan entered the office and engaged in a heated discussion with the students and later said he had no plans to schedule the issue again on the board of trustees’ agenda. (The Commission for Blacks subsequently called for Brogan to apologize for his intemperate remarks.) The AASLF rejected a telephoned offer by Dean of Student Activities Philip Scheurer for AASLF President Orzy Theus and four other students to meet with him, Chancellor Reese, and President Boling in a meeting closed to the press and other students. On November 9 the Black Faculty and Staff Association and an unofficially organized group of Jewish students joined the AASLF in pressing for divestiture. The Student Government Association called for formation of a committee to reestablish communication between the administration and the AASLF.
A new student group, Committee Against University Support of Apartheid, was organized about three weeks after the arrests and held a rally the night before the trial of the arrested students was originally scheduled to begin. Three of the students were eventually placed on a pretrial diversionary program negotiated by UT and the attorney general in February 1979. Tafirenyika declined the agreement. In fall 1979 a Student Disciplinary Board placed Sharon Ann Riley on indefinite probation.