Student Issue, 1988—Protest of UT Investment in Companies Doing Business in South Africa

In November 1988 students assembled at various campus locations, among them the Volunteer Statue, to urge UT to divest itself of holdings in companies doing business in South Africa. Treasurer David Martin explained that UT followed the legislature’s guideline that companies held should not have more than 1 percent of their holdings in South Africa and that UT required that companies in which it invested be signatories of the 1977 Sullivan principles of corporate behavior. The Anti-Apartheid Coalition also called upon the board of trustees to cancel memberships at Cherokee Country Club for coaches and administrators because Cherokee had no African American members (although the club’s membership requirements did not prohibit African American members).