Michigan State University and State of Michigan

Michigan State University and State of Michigan

Policy and Programs concerning South Africa, 1977-2004

•In 1978, the MSU Board of Trustees became the first in the nation to totally divest its portfolio of corporations operating in South Africa, culminating several years of student and faculty campaigns. Nationally, this action contributed to the U.S. divestiture and sanctions movement, which supported the U.S. Congress passing the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986, partially under the leadership of Michigan Congressman Howard Wolpe, chair of the Africa Subcommittee and a Ph.D. Africanist political scientist who had taught at MSU and historically under the leadership of Michigan Congressman Charles Diggs (D, Detroit), chair of the House African Subcommittee and founder of the Congressional Black Caucus. The African interests of both of these had followed in the footsteps of former Michigan Governor G. Mennen Williams, first Assistant Secretary of State for Africa for President Kennedy in 1961.

•In 1979, the MSU African Studies Center Core Faculty, the largest and probably the most highly rated such center in the nation, voted unanimously to support the United Nations Cultural Boycott. This was the only such Center in the nation to formally support the boycott of institutions inside South Africa until President Mandela’s signal in 1992.

•The State of Michigan Legislature voted three sanctions acts, more than any other of the 50 states in the nation, after active lobbying by MSU faculty and students. These Acts prohibited depositing state funds in banks making loans in South Africa (1979), prohibited state university and college investments in firms operating in South Africa (1982), and divested the $4 billion state employees pension fund (1988) of any companies operating in South Africa.

•In 1977 the national Association of Concerned Africa Scholars, was founded at MSU. It has been the only organization of U.S. faculty specialists on Africa to regularly pressure the U.S. government to support majority rule and the ending of apartheid in South Africa and democracy in the rest of Africa.

•In 1987, MSU organized a national conference on "U.S. Educational Initiatives for South Africans and Namibians" for funders, university faculty, and government decision-makers. Education specialists were brought from Southern Africa including from the various liberation movements (including ANC and SWAPO). The conferees called nationally for a greater educational effort in the U.S. and for a focus here on educating at the M.A. and Ph.D.-levels.

•In 1988-89, MSU established the MSU Graduate Fellowship Program for South African and Namibian Refugee Scholars, providing four full fellowships for Ph.D. training to three black South Africans and one Namibian. Dozens of South Africans have obtained M.A., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees at MSU in many fields, including in Agriculture, Social Science, Arts and Letters, Education, Medicine, Communications, Human Ecology, and Business.

•From the 1960s through the 1980s, MSU has hosted and provided public platform and debate for representatives of the African National Congress and others, including SWAPO, ZANU, ZAPU, MPLA, FRELIMO, NAMDA, NECC, and COSATU. Past visitors have included Ahmed Kathrada, Chris Hani, Walter Sisulu, Teobogho Mofole, Neo (Mnumzana) Moikangoa, Helen Sussman, Njabulo Ndebele, Mala Singh, and others.

•In 1990-91, honoring the MSU historical support for democracy and majority rule history in South Africa, the ANC (Lindol and Teobogho Mofole) brought the almost 700 South Africans to MSU for the first North American Conference for South African Youth and Students.

•In November 1993, based on an indication from Mr. Mandela, both MSU and the State of Michigan ended their sanctions boycott policies and called for renewed and enlarged MSU activities with South Africa.

•In the 1990s, MSU regularly provides postgraduate tuition remission fellowships to South Africans seek advanced training in cultural and development-relevant fields. Currently, there are approximately 20 South African postgraduate students at MSU, including from the Universities of Fort Hare, North, Northwest, Transkei, Venda, and Western Cape.

•In 1995 and 1997, Mr. Ahmed Kathrada, Parliamentary Advisor to President Mandela and co-prisoner for two decades on Robben Island, visited MSU to deposit copies of his prison papers in the MSU Libraries, to lecture at MSU, and to speak at the Lansing United Nations Day celebrations. Work is proceeding at MSU by Bob Vassen on a history of Mr. Kathrada’s contribution to South Africa based on the papers.

•In the 1990s, more than 50 MSU faculty have expertise concerning South Africa based on research, more than 50 publications, and other work there in a wide variety of fields including agriculture, history, education, urban society and housing, communications, environmental management, labor and industrial relations, transportation systems, microenterprise in development, epidemiology, and public health. Part of the MSU need for academic knowledge about South Africa after the long MSU isolation is being provided by a number of Visiting Faculty and Graduate Candidates from South Africa.

•Since the transition to democracy in South Africa in the mid-1990s, approximately 40 MSU faculty have undertaken collaborative activities with colleagues in South Africa, including five Fulbright-Hays Faculty Fellows - through collaborative research, outreach projects, faculty exchange, graduate education, and study abroad. They are working with a variety of South African universities and agencies, including the Human Sciences Research Council, National Archives, UWC Robben Island-Mayibuye Centre, Centre for Science Development, various provincial and local governments, the Eastern Seaboard Association of Tertiary Institutions, and a number of South African higher education institutions.