Twenty-four years ago this week, the College was immersed in controversy surrounding its stock investments in South African corporations. In a faculty meeting, President John Ward argued that withdrawing from South Africa would have a destabilizing effect on the South African economy. "The Trustees are not willing to risk the former while it can maintain hope for peaceful change," Ward told The Student.

Professor of Biology Thomas Yost strongly opposed Ward's position. "I have never spent a 15 minutes worse than the past 15," he said to The Student. "Before you begin to bury yourself in rhetoric, one could have made the same arguments for supporting corporate involvement in Nazi Germany."

Ward, however, cut discussion short when he abruptly walked out on the crowd. According to The Student, this action provoked the South African Support Committee to call an emergency meeting and protestors converged in front of Frost Library. "Evil can be done by decent people, but [also by] people who are absent-minded, lacking in historical perspectives and unaware of the consequences of their actions," said Professor of Sociology Jan Dizard.

According to The Student, protestors then entered Converse and marched past the locked president's office chanting "Sell Stocks Now." Students sang the chorus of "We Shall Overcome" with the words "Amherst Will Divest" and "No More Trustee Bullshit."

"You know, everyone says that the Sixties are gone, and they are," said one student. "And this is the Seventies and we're here, and we're doing something about it and it's beautiful."