Citizen's Coalition:

Herb Allison has asked me to respond to your May 9 letter concerning TIAA-CREF's policies on socially responsible investing. As you may know, John Wilcox, TIAA-CREF's Head of Corporate Governance, recently responded to announcements concerning the changes that are occurring at the Social Choice for Social Change (SCSC) campaign.
The attached link provides TIAA-CREF's Policy on Social Responsibility, which spells out how we engage with companies and, if necessary, file shareholder resolutions at http://www.tiaa-cref.org/pubs/html/governance_policy/social_responsibility.html. We are proud of our record of addressing social issues for nearly three decades, and we are pleased to offer our participants a socially responsible investing option that is one of the most popular funds of its kind, with $7 billion in net assets and over 200,000 participants. Morningstar has recently named our Social Choice Equity fund as one of three standout funds for socially conscious investors. In addition, the fund was also spotlighted by Morningstar in their recent column on building an “all-around” SRI portfolio (5/31/05). Bloomberg Wealth Manager named the fund one of 28 “solid citizens,” - one of 19 large cap funds on the list.
As a large institutional investor, we receive many requests for divestiture of funds from one CREF account or another. It is imperative that the CREF accounts be managed in line with their stated indexes and benchmarks. In addition, as a provider of pensions to over 2.8 million participants, we cannot use participant assets to debate the activities of one company over another. The Social Choice Account is managed in strict adherence to the Broad Market Social Index (BMSI), the most far-reaching socially screened index today. The list of securities in the
BMSI, which defines the universe of securities in which the CREF Social Choice may invest in, are developed and selected by Kinder, Lydenberg, Domini & Co., (KLD), a recognized leader in social investing issues.


On behalf of Mr. Allison, I'd like to thank you for sharing your thoughtful views relating to TIAA-CREF's position on socially responsible investing.

Sincerely,
Dan Lindner CFP®, CEBS
A Registered Representative of TIAA-CREF Individual & Institutional Services, LLC

Cc: Herb Allison