It was Friday morning here in Melbourne when we got the NYTimes Alert: Nelson Mandela, South African Icon of Peaceful Resistance, Is Dead.

Like many of my generation, my first public protest was against apartheid. I was a student at the University of San Francisco, a small and wonderful Jesuit university not far from the Haight-Ashbury. The whole notion of protesting was a bit “left” of where I stood at the time so I confess that going to protest was not my idea. My dear college friend Jane O. insisted we go. She was from Washington DC and stood further to the left in almost all things. It was a fairly small protest as we did not have the numbers to match protests reported at Cal or Stanford; but it was meaningful. “Divestiture” was on several signs.

Before that night, I hadn’t given any thought to how the University was being managed. Afterwards…I became deeply involved. The student body president at the time was Paul Smith. No idea where he’s landed but I can tell you he worked tirelessly to ensure that the USF portfolio would be divested of South African investments. Universities needed to be ethical institutions not only in its teaching but in its practices. Paul encouraged each of us to stand up to, and where necessary, independently audit the leadership. In the end, the University was the better for it. Today, the students are petitioning the University to divest itself from fossil fuel companies. The arguments now are the same as those we faced before – they are illiquid assets, there is a steep penalty for divestiture, there are no other investment alternatives. But the students are clear in their convictions and the spirit of peaceful protest continues. Mandela lives on.

K