The Votes Are In!
2024 Readers' Choice is back, bigger and better than ever!
View Winners → 
‘Campaign to Unload’ urges California Regents to examine endowments
Arcadia Weekly Jun 02, 2014
by
share with
Students and faculty at the University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB) are understandably shocked by the hate-filled rampage of a UCSB student Friday night, in which six UCSB students were killed and 13 wounded just off campus. America mourns with the families and we embrace the responsibility to work together to stop this madness. “Not one more,” as Richard Martinez, father of 20-year-old Christopher, one of the students who was killed, heartbreakingly challenged us. We are up to the challenge.
To that end, we call on the University of California Board of Regents to examine whether the system’s $88 billion endowment is contributing to more senseless destruction by being invested in companies that profit from gun violence, obstruct commonsense gun legislation, and fund the NRA. University endowments led the way in divesting from apartheid South Africa and should do so again in divesting from the gun industry.
There have been 72 shootings on school campuses since the Sandy Hook massacre. We cannot afford to invest in gun companies. We are paying too high a cultural price to financially benefit from stock prices that climb even as our young people fall. The University of California, where this latest horror occurred, should stand with its community and ensure that it is not funded with the blood money from these killings. The UCSB community is grieving, but there is a way to stop the madness: divest.
Congress-the “craven, irresponsible politicians,” Richard Martinez labeled them-has failed its constituents, 85% of whom support a bill to make every potential gun purchaser go through a background check. So we must use our wallets to take a stand.
Divestment is a new front in the war to end the epidemic of gun violence. Its focus is on the corporate elements that are profiting from readily available and barely regulated firearms that are responsible for more than 30,000 American deaths every year, including the 20 first-graders and six educators massacred with a military-style assault weapon at Sandy Hook Elementary.
“Our communities, and especially our young people, are bearing the brunt of gun violence while corporate executives reap the financial rewards. Lately, gun deaths-homicides, suicides, and accidents-make up the second-highest cause of death among young people aged 15-24. If this trend continues, gun violence will become the No. 1 cause of death for millennials next year. We have to stop the madness; these students are our future.”
“In the wake of last week’s tragedy, we must call on the University of California Board of Regents to divest from the gun industry,” the Campaign to Unload says.
Meanwhile, the gun industry–led by Remington Arms Company; Sturm, Ruger & Co.; and Smith & Wesson–has profited even as more Americans are killed by the products it manufactures and aggressively markets. The value of these companies has grown significantly just as the rate of mass shootings has increased.
Luckily, some institutions have already begun divesting. Occidental College started the movement in February by becoming the first higher-education institution to pledge to avoid any investments in companies that manufacture military-style assault weapons and high-capacity magazines for the general public.
Universities should lead on this issue to ensure that they do not further the epidemic of gun violence by financially supporting the companies that profit from the devastation of young peoples’ lives. Schools are supposed to be sacred places for learning, but our campuses have become battlegrounds.
Help us cut off the supply and make our campuses safe again. Sign this petition to stand with the UCSB community and call for divestment from the gun industry. This change depends on you.
Want to support our work? MoveOn Civic Action is entirely funded by our 8 million members-no corporate contributions, no big checks from CEOs. And our tiny staff ensures that small contributions go a long way.
http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/university-of-california-1?source=mo&id=96547-20688398-4MRTY7x
More from Arcadia Weekly
