Tootsie Roll - Keeping Current - Tootsie Roll Industries pressured to remove Native American image from packaging - Brief Article

Chicago Reporter, The, April, 2002 by Ellyn Ong, Sarah Karp, Audra Martin

An investment company is pressuring Chicago-based Tootsie Roll Industries to take a picture of a young boy wearing a headdress and holding a bow and arrow off the wrapper of its famous Tootsie Pop, reports the Feb. 18 Crain's Chicago Business. Shareholders of Bethesda, Md.-based Calvert Asset Management, which has a small investment in Tootsie Roll, have a policy that calls for respecting the rights of indigenous people.

Nikki Daruwala, a Calvert research analyst, said the leaders of several Native American groups told her company that the image was offensive. Tootsie Roll has successfully fought Calvert's efforts to get shareholders to vote on dropping the image. Tootsie Roll declined to comment.