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Texas Pension Fund Dumps Companies With Porn Ties From Its Portfolio
By Ed Thomas
March 28, 2006
(AgapePress) - The Teacher Retirement System of Texas Board of Trustees has decided to make morality part of its definition of responsible investing of its members' $99 billion benefit fund. Recently the Board agreed to divest from companies in the retirement group's portfolio that receive ten percent or more of their income from porn-related products and services.
Board member Greg Poole, a high school principal in Texas who suggested the change, says he has been told that it is likely the first retirement fund of its kind to make such a move. He says he understands why.
"When someone steps out and says something as audacious as, 'This is wrong' or 'This is right,' you open up yourself to all sorts of criticism and perhaps abuse by some," Poole contends.
The school administrator, who is a Christian, says he and other board members also understand that they manage a retirement plan for more than a million people, 80 percent of whom are women. They and all the other members, he asserts, have a vested professional interest in the welfare of women, children and youth.
Members of an organization committed to education and the welfare of young people can hardly allow itself, in good conscience, to invest in pornography, Poole explains. "To think that we are in some way, by the use of our money, promoting something that is so degrading to women and children -- it just seems irresponsible," he says.
With more than a million active and retired public school employee members and assets approaching $100 billion, the Teacher Retirement System of Texas is one of the nation's largest such pension funds. Still, Poole believes most of the investors would agree with the Board's decision to remove from its portfolio all companies getting significant revenue from topless bars, porn films, and other sexually-oriented businesses.
The high school administrator and pension fund board member adds that "with a wife, and parents, and brother, and aunts -- and you name it -- that are in education", he feels bold enough to predict a consensus among the investors. "If we were to send a poll and say, 'Are you okay if we utilize your money to invest in pornography or hardcore pornography, yes or no?,'" he asserts, "it would be very probable that [the response] would be a resounding no."
Poole says legal precedent exists for intentionally divesting like this within a portfolio, as long as it does not seriously affect the fund's bottom line. In any event, he asserts, part of responsible management of the fund includes making sure its investments do not exploit women and children.
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