No Mouse In Texas Schoolhouse

The Texas State Board of Education voted 8-4 Friday to sell $43 million in Walt Disney Co. stock following complaints about sex and violence in films by a Disney subsidiary.

Two of the 15 board members abstained and one was absent.

The vote means the divestiture of the Disney stock from the $17.65 billion Permanent School Fund.

The action comes after the American Family Association of Texas, which is involved in a Disney boycott, sent board members a videotape of Disney-owned Miramax film excerpts, including scenes from Pulp Fiction and Chasing Amy.

Board Chairman Jack Christie, a Houston Republican, had said he hoped a vote to divest "sends a message to Miramax...that the public in general has had enough of exposing children to the violence and explicitness in these movies."

"How many more school shootings do you want before we have to do something to reverse that trend?" Christie said.

Divestiture supporters say such films could make Disney stock less attractive to investors, hurting it as an investment.

A Disney spokesman has said the company gives value to its shareholders and notes films are rated for mature audiences.

Board members David Bradley of Beaumont and Richard Neill of Fort Worth, both Republicans, said they support divestiture based on recent Disney financial losses.

But divestiture opponents cite a report that since buying Disney shares two years ago, the total return recognized by the school fund's internal portfolio is 108 percent.

"The record is quite clear that Disney is a very, very fine productive stock for the public school fund," said board member Will Davis of Austin, a Democrat who tried to stop the issue in a board committee Thursday.

"They've done some rather foolish things with some of their subsidiary investments," Davis said. But he added, "it is a slippery slope. Somebody's going to have something they don't like about some of these big multi-faceted corporations."

The school trust fund has other investments that also could raise objections, divestiture opponents say.

Investments in the companies cited total $846.7 million, according to the Texas Education Agency.

"It's a very dangerous precedent to pick and choose on morality," said Richard Levy, a board member of the Texas Freedom Network, which monitors activities of the religious right.

Last year, a fund manager sold a $3.5 million investment in MCA parent Seagram Co. after a state lawmaker denounced "filth" on MCA records. Earlier, tobacco stocks were sold.

Davis, who heads the board's Permanent School Fund committee, said this would be the first time the board votes on such a divestiture.

Asked whether other stocks should be dumped, Christie said, "Good question."

"We're standing on the edge of that slippery slope... How long we can stand there, I don't know," Chritie said.

Written by Peggy Fikac