The Future Divests! Take Part in the Student Day of Action.

Are you a student?

The We Divest national campaign is having a national day of action next week, February 26th.  We need YOUR help to send a message to TIAA-CREF!

It is easy to take part in the Day of Action!   Simply take a picture with one of our premade signs, send the picture to submissions@jewishvoiceforpeace.org. And that’s it! If you want to go a step further, you can organize a photo booth on your campus to collect many photos. You’ll be sending TIAA-CREF a powerful message. Read on for all the details. Questions? Email: stefanie@jewishvoiceforpeace.org.

What’s this action about?

TIAA-CREF is one of the largest retirement plan providers in the nation, and has more than $2 billion invested in corporations that profit from the Israeli occupation of Palestine.  One of these corporations is Veolia Environnement, which operates segregated bus lines for Israeli settlers on Palestinian land.  We are sending a clear message that TIAA-CREF must divest from Veolia!

Retirement Plan?  But I’m a student.

You may not have a TIAA-CREF plan now, but it’s likely that you will some day.  If you are planning to have a career in academia, the medical field, or a non-profit organization, you will probably plan for your retirement with TIAA-CREF.  That makes you a future client, with the power to influence TIAA-CREF’s investment practices.

Why should TIAA-CREF care about its future investors?

During the South African Apartheid regime, students across the UK led a boycott against Barclays bank for their participation in Apartheid.  The boycott ultimately succeeded, and Barclays withdrew its business from South Africa.  Barclays later cited the student boycott as a major factor in their withdrawal, because they viewed students as their future clientele and were concerned about their long-term viability.

50 years later, we can send the same kind of message to TIAA-CREF!

OK!  I’m the future!  So how do I send TIAA-CREF a message?

We are collecting photos from students all across the country.  In the “Photo Shoot for Justice” you can take pictures with the following signs:

 

Use the blank space to write what career you want to embark on (“Future” professor, “Future” lab technician, “Future” human rights advocate, etc).

You can also create your own signs, conveying the message that you are the future of TIAA-CREF!  We are accepting photos now!  Feel free to start anytime in the next week.

Please email all photos to submissions@jewishvoiceforpeace.org, and we’ll put them on the tumblr!

Don’t just take photos of yourselves.  Set up a photo booth on campus, and encourage other students to join in.   The more photos we have, the better!

We will post the photos on a tumblr, and also create a collage out of them to send to TIAA-CREF.  Hold off on sharing photos and using #futurevotesnow until February 26th.  In the mean time, have a happy photo shoot!