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Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Yet more divestment demands (Turkey)?

We posted earlier today about a gun divestment demand (although it appears that the Regents already did that along with tobacco, by now possibly to their regret given the snowball effect for other divestments).  And we posted in December about an upcoming demand at UCLA for divestment from Turkey.  See http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2014/12/me-too-divestment.html. According to the Daily Bruin, "the undergraduate student government voted 12-0-0 Tuesday to pass a resolution that calls for the University of California to divest from investments made in the Republic of Turkey." See http://dailybruin.com/2015/01/21/usac-passes-resolution-for-uc-to-divest-from-the-republic-of-turkey/. 12-0-0!  So apparently there was not a doubt that it is a Good Thing to use the pension fund for political statements at a time when a) the pension is underfunded, b) there is a UC Regents dispute with the state over the state's responsibility to fund the pension, c) employer and employee contributions are being raised at UC to cover the pension liability, and d) students are wondering if in some way their tuition will go up to help pay for that liability. Interesting!

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