{"id":162023,"date":"2026-02-03T15:33:06","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T15:33:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/162023\/"},"modified":"2026-02-03T15:33:06","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T15:33:06","slug":"berkeley-educators-press-california-teachers-pension-fund-to-divest-from-weaponry-ice-communities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/162023\/","title":{"rendered":"Berkeley educators press California teachers\u2019 pension fund to divest from weaponry, ICE | Communities"},"content":{"rendered":"<p dir=\"ltr\">A group of Berkeley educators and retirees traveled to Sacramento on Jan. 29 to advocate for the California State Teachers\u2019 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.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The educators \u2014 members of the group CalSTRS Divest \u2014 claim the investments violate their environmental, social and governmental, or ESG, policies.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cTeachers do not want to retire on the ill-gotten gains secured through investment in companies that invest in genocide,\u201d said CalSTRS Divest member and Willard Middle School teacher, Andrea Prichett.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">A September 2025 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ohchr.org\/sites\/default\/files\/documents\/hrbodies\/hrcouncil\/sessions-regular\/session60\/advance-version\/a-hrc-60-crp-3.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">United Nations legal analysis<\/a> found that Israel committed genocide against Palestinians during its war on Gaza.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">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.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">According to the CalSTRS website, approximately 10% of a California educator\u2019s paycheck is invested into CalSTRS\u2019 pension fund. According to Prichett, teachers depend on the fund for retirement.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">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.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cOur efforts (are) focused on managing risk and return to secure the financial future of California\u2019s current and retired prekindergarten through 12th grade and community college educators,\u201d said Thomas Lawrence, CalSTRS media relations manager, in an email. \u201cAttempts to restrict our investment options \u2013 whether banning sustainable investment considerations or forcing us to divest from a specific company or sector \u2013 increase risk to the Teachers\u2019 Retirement Fund.\u201d<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">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.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u00a0<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">In September 2025, the Berkeley Unified School District, or BUSD, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailycal.org\/news\/city\/local-schools\/berkeley-school-district-calls-for-pension-fund-to-divest-from-weaponry-war-crimes\/article_54e19c2b-ccb6-4e3b-b864-c515415dbbc1.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">passed<\/a> its initial resolution advocating for CalSTRS to divest from companies manufacturing military technology contributing to the genocide in Gaza.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">According to BUSD school board Vice President Jen Corn, BUSD was the first school district in California to call for divestment.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cWe 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,\u201d said the anonymous CalSTRS Divest member in a text message. \u201cThey need our help, and they have asked us to stop pumping our money into the system that kills them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">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.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cThis 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,\u201d said a retired elementary school teacher during public comment at CalSTRS\u2019 Jan. 29 board meeting. \u201cYou\u2019re invested in several companies that fit this description.\u201d<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The Jan. 29 meeting did not include board members\u2019 responses to public comments, nor did it include a formal vote on divestment.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Investment strategies were discussed in a closed session among the board members.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cWe are going to continue and expand our campaign,\u201d Prichett said. \u201cThey\u2019re putting profit over people\u2019s lives.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A group of Berkeley educators and retirees traveled to Sacramento on Jan. 29 to advocate for the California&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":162024,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[64687,6765,9306,78606,78605,39883,46266,4004,2871,340,78607,20366,143,145,144,71392,575,14764,78317],"class_list":["post-162023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-andrea-prichett","tag-berkeley-unified-school-district","tag-busd","tag-california-state-teachers-retirement-system","tag-calstrs-divest","tag-caterpillar-inc","tag-elbit-systems","tag-gaza","tag-ice","tag-israel","tag-jen-corn","tag-lockheed-martin","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-palantir","tag-u-s-immigration-and-customs-enforcement","tag-united-nations","tag-willard-middle-school"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162023\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}