A group of Berkeley educators and retirees traveled to Sacramento on Jan. 29 to advocate for the California State Teachers’ Retirement System, or CalSTRS, to divest from companies and weapons that support U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, and the genocide in Gaza.
The educators — members of the group CalSTRS Divest — claim the investments violate their environmental, social and governmental, or ESG, policies.
“Teachers do not want to retire on the ill-gotten gains secured through investment in companies that invest in genocide,” said CalSTRS Divest member and Willard Middle School teacher, Andrea Prichett.
A September 2025 United Nations legal analysis found that Israel committed genocide against Palestinians during its war on Gaza.
CalSTRS is the largest public pension fund for educators, providing retirement, disability and survivor benefits to more than 1 million public school and university educators and their designated recipients, according to their website.
According to the CalSTRS website, approximately 10% of a California educator’s paycheck is invested into CalSTRS’ pension fund. According to Prichett, teachers depend on the fund for retirement.
As stated in the CalSTRS ESG document, all investment managers are expected to assess the risk of any major environmental, social or governance violation through a series of procedures evaluating the balance of risk and return.
“Our efforts (are) focused on managing risk and return to secure the financial future of California’s current and retired prekindergarten through 12th grade and community college educators,” said Thomas Lawrence, CalSTRS media relations manager, in an email. “Attempts to restrict our investment options – whether banning sustainable investment considerations or forcing us to divest from a specific company or sector – increase risk to the Teachers’ Retirement Fund.”
CalSTRS Divest is a campaign that began over a year and a half ago, led by teachers calling on CalSTRS to divest from investments authorizing and assisting the genocide in Gaza, according to a member of CalSTRS Divest and middle school teacher, who requested anonymity due to fear of retaliation.
In September 2025, the Berkeley Unified School District, or BUSD, passed its initial resolution advocating for CalSTRS to divest from companies manufacturing military technology contributing to the genocide in Gaza.
According to BUSD school board Vice President Jen Corn, BUSD was the first school district in California to call for divestment.
“We are pushing for divestment because Palestinians who are experiencing ethnic cleansing and violent occupation first-hand have called on the world to Boycott, Sanction and Divest from the apartheid state as a form of non-violent, economic pressure to achieve liberation for their people,” said the anonymous CalSTRS Divest member in a text message. “They need our help, and they have asked us to stop pumping our money into the system that kills them.”
CalSTRS Divest is calling on the board to stop investing in Lockheed Martin, Caterpillar Inc. and Elbit Systems, all of which are weapons manufacturers that sell to Israel. They also call for divestment from Palantir, which holds multimillion-dollar contracts with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.
“This seems to fly in the face of your ESG policy which claims that when making investments, CalSTRS considers whether or not a company industry makes a product that is highly detrimental to human health,” said a retired elementary school teacher during public comment at CalSTRS’ Jan. 29 board meeting. “You’re invested in several companies that fit this description.”
The Jan. 29 meeting did not include board members’ responses to public comments, nor did it include a formal vote on divestment.
Investment strategies were discussed in a closed session among the board members.
“We are going to continue and expand our campaign,” Prichett said. “They’re putting profit over people’s lives.”