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Robert J.S. Ross 508 793 7243
Department of Sociology fax: 508 793 8816
Clark University
950 Main Street
Worcester, MA 01610
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---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 08 Sep 1996 19:24:08 -0500 (EST)
From: gamson@umbsky.cc.umb.edu
To: rross@vax.clarku.edu
From: MX%"feingold@sph.umich.edu" 22-AUG-1996 11:14:53.17
To: MX%"wilkap@math.lsa.umich.edu",MX%"slCCS@hamp.hampshire.edu",MX%"bms1@cicero.spc.uchicago.edu",MX%"gamson@umbsky.cc.umb.edu"
Subj: TIAA-CREF tobacco divestment
Return-Path: <feingold@sph.umich.edu>
Date: Thu, 22 Aug 1996 11:14:07 -0400 (EDT)
From: Eugene Feingold <feingold@sph.umich.edu>
To: wilkap@math.lsa.umich.edu, Sura Levine <slCCS@hamp.hampshire.edu>,
bms1@cicero.spc.uchicago.edu, Zelda Gamson <gamson@umbsky.cc.umb.edu>
Subject: TIAA-CREF tobacco divestment
Here is a chain letter that you can forward to your friends and
acquaintances on your campus and other campuses. Obviously, it can be
revised to suit your taste.
I'm writing to you and to other colleagues who are participants in
TIAA-CREF to let you know that this October you will have an
opportunity to vote for getting CREF out of the lethal tobacco business.
Did you know that CREF has nearly $2 Billion in tobacco industry
investments? They are increasingly risky financially, and ethically
outrageous seeking profit from the addiction to tobacco of the
students we teach, and of millions of other men and women, huge
numbers of whom die prematurely as a direct result of their addiction.
I'm supporting a CREF shareholder resolution to be voted on by proxy
forms which TIAA CREF will mail out in October. The resolution calls on
the CREF board of directors: 1 ) to announce that CREF will make no
additional tobacco related investments, and 2) to begin an orderly
divestment of all tobacco investments.
The supporting statement (which will accompany the resolution in the
October mailing) is at the end of this message. We expect the
resolution and statement to appear in the final pages of the CREF
booklet listing candidates for the CREF board. We're told it will be
mailed to you in the first two weeks of October the CREF annual
meeting will be in New York City, November 11.
Please forward this message via e-mail to faculty and staff on
your campus, to your friends on other campuses, and to your campus
newspaper. Get the resolution discussed in meetings and endorsed by
campus organizations. Any other efforts to alert friends and colleagues
to this important vote will be much appreciated. Together we can help
defeat the Tobacco Lobby, by ending the collegiate camouflage CREF
now provides for the tobacco industry's cancer breeding products.
Supporting statement (to be included in Oct.'96 proxy mailing):
The Maryland Retirement and Pension System announced that its
decision to shed tobacco investments was for "business," not "social
reasons." According to the Wall Street Journal (4/24/96), Richard Dixon,
state treasurer and vice chairman of Maryland Retirement's board, says
tobacco companies have been good at fighting legal battles over the
years, but 'sooner or later, they are going to lose.' " Fourteen states
are
now suing the tobacco industry for the hundreds of millions of dollars
they have spent caring for smokers' diseases through Medicaid and
other government programs.
The New York State Teachers Retirement System has also, by
unanimous board vote, for financial reasons, begun divestment of
tobacco stocks, selling the first 25%.
CREF's management has argued that cigarette investments increase the
safety of the funds. Yet even Liggett & Myers stated (March 13, '96)
that tobacco lives under the threat of financial catastrophe under the
impact of product liability lawsuits." Financial prudence and ethical
concerns alike call for replacing tobacco with more promising
investments. As of late August, tobacco industry stocks are dropping
precipitously. This may be a short-term problem, but is likely to recur.
On April 23 the American Medical Association urged all investors
"interested in the health and welfare of our children" to "divest
tobacco," which AMA's spokesman called "an economically ruinous
and enslaving product."
In response to a CREF shareholder question, "Are there any social
responsibility policy restrictions whatsoever on the selection of CREF
investments?" CREF's policy was stated: "Apart from Social Choice,
CREF does not define or suggest social restrictions in any of its
accounts." We believe few educators desire a "Let the public interest be
damned" investment policy. The existence of CREF's Social Choice Fund
(not wholly an equity fund, and thus more vulnerable to inflation) does
not absolve us of responsibility to consider the impact on society of
CREF's more massive investment decisions.
According to its Dec. 31 '95 annual report CREF is the largest
institutional investor in Philip Morris (holding $936,294,900 in Philip
Morris stock and another $34,579,304 in Philip Morris commercial
paper), and invests in eighteen other tobacco industry corporations. A
Philip Morris director sits on the CREF board.
Thus we are providing well over 1.3 Billion Dollars of respectable
collegiate camouflage for cancer, contributing to the spread of what the
American Cancer Society calls "a pediatric epidemic." Educators are
being put in a position of seeking to profit from children's addiction to
a
product likely to shorten their lives.
Supporting this resolution asking CREF to replace tobacco investments is
the prudent and ethical choice.
__________________________________________________________________________
Eugene Feingold University of Michigan School of Public Health
352 Hilldale Drive, Ann Arbor MI 48105 (313) 662-8788 Fax (313)662-2713
__________________________________________________________________________