‘We’re not going to disappear. We’re not going to let this die.’ : School Clinic Foes Target Charitable Foundation

The battle to stop the Los Angeles Unified School District from establishing comprehensive medical clinics on school campuses is far from finished, clinic foes say.

Last week Jordan High School in Watts received a $600,000 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to start a clinic.

District officials were elated that the Jordan clinic was funded and that clinic proposals for San Fernando and Los Angeles high schools have not been rejected.

Applications for clinics at the two schools will be reviewed in July by trustees of the New Jersey-based Johnson Foundation, the nation’s largest funding source for school health clinics.

Yearlong Clash

But opponents warned that the next round in the fight over establishment of campus medical centers may be more bruising than the yearlong clash that preceded the announcement of the Jordan grant.

“We will not accept the existence of a clinic in Watts,” said Father John Moretta, who heads the School Clinic Task Force of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. “We will begin to develop a more formal plan of attack now that we know it’s the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation behind the program.”

In the San Fernando Valley, where a proposed clinic has been the subject of much debate and several mass demonstrations, opponents said they are devising new strategies.

“We’re resolved to fight this thing to the very end,” said Eadie Geib, a spokeswoman for Parents and Students United in the San Fernando Valley. Geib’s group was created earlier this year as an umbrella organization for clinic opponents.

Added Sylmar resident and anti-clinic activist Lupe Ramos: “We’re not going to disappear. We’re not going to let this die.”

The battle lines have been drawn around a pilot program for three campus medical clinics that will provide a wide range of services to students who have parental permission to patronize the facility.

Immunization, Screening

Clinic services will include immunization, physicals, screening for diseases such as high blood pressure and diabetes, treatment of minor illnesses and medical emergencies, and testing for drug and alcohol abuse. The clinic will also provide counseling for drug abuse, suicide prevention and family planning.

The dispensing of birth-control devices will be the most controversial service of the clinic.

The Roman Catholic Church, which prohibits its members from using any artificial means of contraception, has been a leader among clinic opponents. The Archdiocese of Los Angeles will continue in this leadership role and has several new tactics, according to Moretta.

Later this month, the Archdiocese will premiere a 20-minute videotape aimed at church and parent groups. The video, said Moretta, will give a history of the school health clinic movement in the United States. It will offer viewers a plan of action to follow if they want to organize against the campus medical facilities. Additionally, the video will present alternatives to campus clinics. These alternatives include adding church-approved sex education courses to a school’s curriculum.

In addition, Moretta said the Archdiocese will begin a campaign to show parishioners a link between Johnson Foundation funding of school health clinics and the products manufactured by the pharmaceutical firm Johnson & Johnson.

$50 Million a Year

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the nation’s second largest charitable organization, was created through a codicil in the will of the son of one of the company’s founders. The Ford Foundation is the largest philanthropic organization in the United States. Each year, the Johnson Foundation awards about $50 million to U.S. health care and medical programs.

Moretta said the Archdiocese plans to link the Johnson Foundation’s sponsorship of school health clinics with Johnson & Johnson’s manufacturing of birth control devices in its Ortho Pharmaceutical Corp. division. Ortho is one of the nation’s leading manufacturers and marketers of contraceptives.

A spokeswoman for the Johnson Foundation said there is no connection between the products of Johnson & Johnson and foundation sponsorship of clinics. The clinics are not required to use Johnson & Johnson products as a condition of funding.

Moretta hopes linking Johnson Foundation funding with Johnson & Johnson distribution of contraceptives will increase clinic opposition among Catholic Latino parents.

“Hispanic people use many Johnson & Johnson products,” Moretta said. “It will be very interesting to see what the Hispanic parents do when they learn that the people who produce Ortho Pharmaceutical contraceptives are the same people who are paying for a school clinic that dispenses these birth-control devices,” Moretta said.

Boycott to Be Discussed

Moretta stopped short of saying the Archdiocese will promote a boycott of Johnson & Johnson products as a means of stopping the school clinics. But, he said, a boycott “will be discussed. It will not be business as usual.”

San Fernando Valley clinic opponents are not as organized as the Archdiocese, but they are just as adamant about continuing their fight.

Geib, the Valley opponents’ spokeswoman, said that during the next few weeks her group will meet with clinic opponents at Los Angeles High and at Jordan to try to combine forces to fight the clinics. Geib said her group also would like to meet with school board members to discuss suggested alternatives to a school clinic.

Some of their alternatives include making a physical examination mandatory before a student enrolls in high school, and using health classes as a vehicle to teach students what community health care services are available in the area surrounding the school.

Valley clinic opponents made sure the Johnson Foundation knew of their opposition to the district proposal. In March, the opponents mailed a letter to Johnson Foundation trustees that outlined their grievances with the clinic proposal. In April, the group sent Johnson Foundation trustees anti-clinic petitions signed by about 10,000 people.

Leverage Sought

“We went directly to the Johnson Foundation because we thought we would have more influence with them than we would have with our school board representatives,” Geib said.

Julia Graham Lear, co-director of the foundation’s adolescent health care program, said community support--or lack of community support--for a clinic proposal plays “an enormous role” in the decision on whether or not to fund a clinic.

She added, however, that the letter and petitions from Valley clinic opponents did not play a part in the decision to delay the review of the San Fernando clinic application until July.

“It was purely a logistical decision,” Lear said. “We have so many finalists that we didn’t want to rush reading each application. We wanted to take our time.”

Los Angeles school district officials said they believe all three clinics will be funded. Late last week, a district board committee approved the start of construction at all three campuses on the rooms that will house the clinics.