Harvard University - Advisory Committee on Shareholder Responsibility

Since 1972, Harvard has maintained a pair of committees that together play a central role in the University’s consideration of matters of shareholder responsibility. The Advisory Committee on Shareholder Responsibility (ACSR) comprises twelve members: four members of the faculty, four students, and four alumni. Each year, through a series of meetings, the ACSR carefully considers a range of shareholder resolutions raising issues of corporate social responsibility, in regard to publicly traded companies in which Harvard owns shares. It formulates its recommendations in light of what is now a wide and deep body of precedent, in areas that range from human rights to environmental practices, from equal employment opportunity to corporate political contributions and beyond.

The ACSR presents its recommendations, along with its reasoning, to the Corporation Committee on Shareholder Responsibility (CCSR). In light of the ACSR’s analysis of issues and consideration of precedent, the CCSR exercises the Harvard Corporation’s fiduciary duty to determine how Harvard votes on social responsibility proxies each year. The CCSR issues an extensive annual report that summarizes the ACSR’s recommendations and rationale and sets forth the CCSR’s decisions on how to vote.