On January 30, 2019, members of the California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS) and CODEPINK addressed the CalSTRS investment committee and staff at a board meeting in West Sacramento, California.
We petitioned CalSTRS with over 800 signatures, calling on the pension fund to divest from weapon’s manufacturer General Dynamics. The arms company is partly responsible for the innocent lives lost in Yemen and its arms sales only contribute to the ongoing conflict and humanitarian crisis in the region. We wanted CalSTRS to know that the most concerning point about General Dynamics’ is the August 2018 attack on the Yemeni school bus where forty-four innocent children, returning home from a field trip, were killed and seventy-seven were wounded.
After the meeting, the chair of the investment committee, Harry Keiley, identified four CalSTRS staff members for us to engage with on divestment. This is an important next step in our campaign! As we begin these next steps of engaging with CalSTRS members directly, we want to keep you up to date on all of the latest developments. Sign up for the newsletter to get the latest information and calls-to-action: