Missing from the report is a resolution that called on CREF to divest from companies whose businesses support egregious human rights abuses. The proponents hoped to give CREF shareholders a chance to share their views on this issue with TIAA-CREF.  But, just as they did in 2011, TIAA-CREF has shown that they do not wish to hear from their clients on urgent social and moral issues.

CREF will be meeting in Charlotte, North Carolina on Tuesday, July 16th. No matter where you are on that day, you can be a part of a National Day of Action and let TIAA-CREF know they can’t silence you!

While TIAA-CREF refuses to allow their shareholders to vote their moral conscience, it cannot silence you. Together, even without the proxy proposal that TIAA-CREF should have shared with all CREF participants, we can forcefully send the message to TIAA-CREF that profiting from home demolitions, segregated roads, and military assaults on Palestinian communities is not “for the greater good.”

In 2011 we had 22 cities participate in a National Day of Action–we would love to match that again this year! Here are two things you can do to help keep the pressure on TIAA-CREF:

1. Be a part of the National Day of Action! Let us know you will be organizing something in your local community!
2. Help boost attendance at the meeting in Charlotte. All TIAA-CREF participants are entitled to attend, or to sign over their proxy to allow someone to attend in their stead. Please let us know if you can be there in Charlotte and/or if you have a proxy to sign over.

Onward!
Alissa
National Coordinator, We Divest Campaign

An Israeli law office calling itself Shurat HaDin, the Israel Law Center, publicly boasted yesterday of its behind-the-scenes success in persuading the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to grant the pension fund giant, TIAA-CREF, permission to withhold a divestment shareholder resolution from shareholder voting.  The proposed resolution would have asked TIAA-CREF to divest from companies engaging in egregious human rights violations, including those significantly supporting the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands.

TIAA-CREF had previously disclosed that the Israel Law Center had threatened to sue TIAA-CREF if the SEC were to decline to grant a “no action” letter and shareholders had approved the resolution.   The Israel Law Center’s rationale was that the divestment resolution called for an unlawful “boycott.”

Neither the U.S. nor New York State “anti-boycott” laws cited by the Israel Law Center have been interpreted or enforced to bar divestment from equities in companies supporting human rights violations or for other socially motivated reasons.  Nor do these laws bar human rights boycotts. The protected status of socially and rights-based boycotts and divestment actions is a fundamental right of political activism under the American constitution. Israel has no constitutionally protected free speech rights, and in fact has outlawed the advocacy of boycotts called to end the Israeli Occupation.

Barbara Harvey, Legal Counsel for the We Divest Campaign said:

Dial: (212) 490-9000, Press 1, when prompted for name of person you are calling say: “Roger Ferguson”

In the past, TIAA-CREF has shut down Ferguson’s phone line in response to mass call-in actions.  Luckily, you can still get your message through by trying other lines!

1.  If the phone number does not go through at all, try calling 212-913-2803 or 866-842-2442.  Press 1, and when prompted for name of person you are calling say: Roger Ferguson

2.  If the extension to Ferguson does not work, then call another high-ranking TIAA-CREF official.  For the Chief Operating Officer, press 1 and say “Ronald Pressman”.  For the Chief Financial Officer, press 1 and say “Gina Wilson”.

3. If all lines are not working, call your local office. Find the number here: https://www.tiaa-cref.org/public/support/contact/regional

Thank you for your perseverance!

P.S. After you have called in, please help spread the word and keep the pressure on TIAA-CREF by posting to Twitter and/or Facebook. The short link for this page is http://bit.ly/10pwoh3. Here are some sample tweets:

I told @TC_Talks, Don’t block the vote on divestment from Israeli Occupation! Will you? http://bit.ly/10pwoh3 #DumpVeolia #BDS

ACT: @TC_Talks about social responsibility but silences vote on divestment from Israel’s occupation http://bit.ly/10pwoh3 #DumpVeolia #BDS

ACT: Tell @TC_Talks it’s time to listen: let shareholders vote on divestment. http://bit.ly/10pwoh3 #DumpVeolia #BDS

Tell @TC_Talks there’s still time to do the right thing: don’t block the divestment vote. http://bit.ly/10pwoh3 #DumpVeolia #BDS

Churches debate divestment, why can’t @TC_Talks shareholders? http://bit.ly/10pwoh3 #DumpVeolia #BDS

Campuses debate divestment, why can’t @TC_Talks shareholders? http://bit.ly/10pwoh3 #DumpVeolia #BDS

Sample Scripts

If not a TIAA-CREF Investor

“Hi, my name is <Marge> and I’m a <health care worker, teacher, student> and a potential TIAA-CREF client.” (everyone is a potential TIAA-CREF client!)

I was appalled to find out that TIAA-CREF is AGAIN trying to censor discussion of human rights violations being committed by the companies in your investment portfolios. Campuses and churches nationwide have taken up this debate–why can’t your shareholders be allowed to vote on if they want  their retirement money invested in companies like Veolia or Caterpillar make their profits from segregated buses for settlements and systematically demolishing Palestinian communities?

I know the SEC has said you do not have to include the resolution, but you can still choose to do the right thing and include it.

I always thought TIAA-CREF provided financial services with a commitment to the greater good. Human rights violations and violations of international law don’t sound like the greater good to me. And muzzling debate does not sound like the move of a company that cares about free discourse and shareholder democracy.

I stand with your clients who want a chance to vote their moral concerns and I condemn your attempts to censor them!

If a TIAA-CREF investor:

“Hi, my name is <Ronald> and I’m a TIAA-CREF Participant”

I was appalled to find out that TIAA-CREF is AGAIN trying to censor discussion of human rights violations being committed by the companies in your investment portfolio. Campuses and churches nationwide have taken up this debate–as a TIAA-CREF client, I want the opportunity to vote if I want  my retirement money invested in companies like Veolia or Caterpillar  which make their profits from segregated buses for settlements and systematically demolishing Palestinian communities.

I know the SEC has said you do not have to include the resolution, but you can still choose to do the right thing and include it.

I have the right to speak my mind about how you spend my money, and I urge you to include the divestment resolution on this summer’s proxy.

Monday, May 13, 4:00-5:30pm
730 3rd Ave (between 45th and 46th St), New York

Facebook event

STUDENTS! The We Divest national campaign is having a national day of action. We are calling on students from across NYC to demand TIAA-CREF divest from the Israeli occupation. Make sure they get the message: TIAA-CREF can’t ignore its future clients!

SHAREHOLDERS & MULTI-GENERATIONAL ALLIES! The We Divest campaign is calling on you to support student demands. The present stands with the future!

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. We Divest wants TIAA-CREF to divest from all companies benefitting from the occupation.

One of these corporations is Veolia, 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!

We hope you can join us!

In solidarity,
Students from Columbia, NYU, Brooklyn College, CUNY Schools, Hunter, and Rutgters

Press Contact: info@wedivest.org

Yesterday, lawyers for the We Divest Coalition filed two letters (see here and here) with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in response to retirement fund giant TIAA-CREFF’s continued refusal to allow a shareholder vote on a proposal to divest from companies that support egregious human rights violations, including those supporting Israel’s occupation and colonization of Palestinians. The proposal calls for a shareholder vote in the proxy package that the company plans to mail to participants on June 10, 2013.

On April 22, 2013, CREF asked the SEC for a statement saying that the regulatory agency wouldn’t take legal action against it for refusing to allow a vote. The request followed several filings by both CREF and the concerned shareholders since the proposal was originally submitted.

“CREF’s arguments have no merit,” said Barbara Harvey, a member of the National Lawyers’ Guild International Committee, and an attorney submitting the response to the SEC on the We Divest Coalition’s behalf. “In essence, CREF is claiming that the Israeli occupation is not an important policy issue for shareholders to discuss, that it is too complex for them to understand, and that CREF need not handle this question because it has already divested from Darfur.”

“CREF is hiding behind the empty threats of the Israeli legal organization Shurat HaDin, which has a history of attempting to bully American universities into treating campus divestment initiatives as anti-Semitic and illegal,” said Daniel Strum, a member of the We Divest Coalition. “We will not be intimated by Shurat HadDin’s threats, and neither should the trustees of CREF.”

“This resolution is in the tradition of the U.S. civil rights movement and shareholder resolutions against South African apartheid,” added James Marc Leas, a member of the National Lawyers’ Guild International Committee, another attorney submitting the response to the SEC on the We Divest Coalition’s behalf. “Resolutions addressing such significant social policy issues have long been approved for a vote under SEC rules, and the First Amendment’s free speech clause protects such resolutions from claims that they are unlawful.”

“CREF should listen to the voices of its clients,” said Steve Tamari, one of over 200 shareholders who filed the proposal on February 8, 2013. “We have a right to have a say in how our money is spent, and we want CREF to live up to its motto of ‘Financial Services for the Greater Good.’”

We Divest is a national, coalition-led initiative by Adalah-NY, the American Friends ServiceCommittee, Grassroots International, Jewish Voice for Peace, the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, and the US Palestinian Community Network.

When: Tuesday, April 23, 2013, at 12:00 PM EST
Where: Jed D. Satow Room, Lerner Hall, Columbia University
(between 114th and 115th st.)

NEW YORK: As divestment campaigns sweep campuses on the West Coast, Barnard College and Columbia University faculty add their voices to the national campaign calling on pension fund giant TIAA-CREF to divest from corporations profiting from Israel’s nearly 46-year-old illegal occupation of Palestine. While the Obama administration continues to provide support for Israeli human rights abuses and violation of international law, faculty at his Alma Mater of Columbia will gather to present a petition to the CEO of TIAA-CREF, Roger Ferguson, calling on the well-known retirement fund to divest from companies that profit from human rights violations in Palestine. Professor Katherine Franke, Isidor and Seville Sulzbacher Professor of Law and director of the Center for Gender and Sexuality Law at Columbia Law School, will speak on behalf of over 100 Barnard and Columbia professors who have signed the petition. “As faculty and officers of Columbia University we look to TIAA-CREF to invest our retirement account funds wisely and ethically,” said Professor Katherine Franke.  “We cannot tolerate the idea that one day we may live on retirement income that finds its source in the profitability of the illegal occupation.”

Columbia student representatives from a wide array of organizations show their support for a divestment campaign (Photo courtesy of Columbia SJP)

TIAA-CREF’s pension fund serves many of Barnard and Columbia’s faculty and staff. Though it prides itself on socially responsible investment, TIAA-CREF is invested in five companies that are actively engaged in supporting human rights abuses: Elbit Systems, a company manufacturing drones used by Israel for extrajudicial executions; Motorola, whose Israeli subsidiary develops motion-detection “virtual fences” for Israel’s illegal West Bank settlements; Hewlett-Packard (HP), which maintains the biometric ID system used by Israel to control and restrict Palestinians’ freedom of movement; Veolia, a company involved in the construction of the light rail system connecting annexed East Jerusalem with illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank; and Northrop Grumman, which supplies the Israeli Army with parts for the Apache AH64D Longbow Helicopter, the radar for F-16 combat jets, and Longbow Hellfire II missiles, all weapons that were used in 2008’s Operation Cast Lead, the Israeli assault on Gaza that killed approximately 1400 Palestinians in the space of three weeks, most of them civilians.

Following in Columbia’s rich tradition of activism against racial segregation and Apartheid in South Africa, a growing number of its students, faculty and staff oppose the corporate policies of these companies, which serve to maintain violent military occupation, institutionalized segregation and other grave human rights violations. Because of this, a substantial number of the Columbia community is joining the national campaign to insist that TIAA-CREF uphold its promise for socially responsible investment.

Press Contact: info@wedivest.org

The We Divest Coalition has responded (download pdf) to a refusal by retirement annuity and investment giant TIAA-CREF to allow its shareholders to vote on the coalition’s proposal for divestment from companies that support egregious human rights violations, including those supporting Israel’s illegal settlements on Palestinian lands and other oppressive conduct associated with nearly 46 continuous years of military rule.

“Fifteen national U.S. churches have demanded the suspension of U.S. military aid to Israel, if congressional investigation determines that Israel is violating the ban against using such aid for aggressive purposes and human rights violations,” said Barbara Harvey, a member of the We Divest Coalition, and one of the attorneys submitting the response to the SEC on the coalition’s behalf. “The abuses associated with the Israeli occupation have been condemned around the world, sometimes as akin to South African apartheid. TIAA-CREF has its head in the sand if it refuses to hold a vote of its shareholders.”

The We Divest Coalition filed an opposition letter to TIAA-CREF’s refusal to submit the proposal for a shareholder vote in the proxy package that the company plans to mail to participants on June 10, 2013. The Coalition was responding to TIAA-CREF’s March 22, 2013 request to the Securities and Exchange Commission for a statement that the enforcement agency will take no adverse legal action against it for refusing to allow the requested vote.

The proposal, filed by about 200 CREF shareholders on February 8, 2013, cited segregation and discrimination against Palestinians on their own land, and the increasing support in this country for nonviolent boycotts, divestment, and sanctions demonstrating public condemnation of the hardships and suffering caused by unending military rule and continuing Israeli land confiscations. TIAA-CREF has responded that the Israeli occupation presents no social policy issue significant enough to take it out of the realm of its “ordinary business” of investing.

The Coalition’s response documents a long list of examples where the Israeli occupation and corporate complicity with it have been the subject of intense debate in churches, campuses, and communities across the country, as well as in the media. And that list keeps on growing. As soon as the response was filed with the SEC, the We Divest Coalition learned of a new student vote tomorrow, Wednesday, at the UC Berkeley campus.

“Everyone seems to be talking and voting about divestment,” added Sydney Levy on behalf of the Coalition. “Why shouldn’t CREF clients be allowed to do the same?”

We Divest is a national, coalition-led initiative by Adalah-NY, the American Friends ServiceCommittee, Grassroots International, Jewish Voice for Peace, the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, and the US Palestinian Community Network.

Press Contact: info@wedivest.org

Pension fund giant TIAA-CREF is seeking permission from the Security and Exchange Commission to allow it to deny shareholders the opportunity to vote on what would be the largest Israel/Palestine referendum to date in the United States. The resolution, filed by 200 CREF shareholders, urges TIAA-CREF to divest from companies that substantially contribute to or enable egregious violations of human rights, including companies whose business supports Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian territory.

It was recently disclosed that CREF is being threatened with a lawsuit by Shurat HaDin (Israel Law Center) if CREF should submit the shareholder proposal for a democratic vote. Shurat HaDin claims that the resolution violates U.S. and New York state anti-boycott laws even though these laws have no application to human rights-inspired boycotts or to divestment resolutions. These peaceful forms of political pressure, central to the U.S. civil rights movement, have long been understood to be protected by the First Amendment’s free speech provision.

Shurat HaDin is using a practice known as “lawfare.” This is a tactic of intimidation, using threats of legal action to coerce students, and now also TIAA-CREF, to refrain from using democratic processes to resolve issues. Shurat HaDin seeks to bar discussion of the serious human rights abuses associated with Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands. It is deeply disappointing to see TIAA-CREF embrace that same perspective.

Steve Tamari, a Palestinian-American educator and member of the St. Louis Palestine Solidarity Committee, on behalf of hundreds of CREF filers who signed onto the resolution said:
“TIAA-CREF has not only ignored our moral concerns, but now refuses to let us vote or have any voice on the issue. We are hundreds of investors who are deeply troubled that we are forced to support segregation and other abhorrent human rights violations in order to maintain our retirement accounts.”

We Divest Campaign National Coordinator Rabbi Alissa Wise said:
“As in earlier campaigns to end human rights abuses by Sudan, South Africa, and the southern U.S., shareholders should be able to vote on whether their company should be profiting from Israel’s subjugation of Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. Commitment to such shareholder participation is assumed in a company, such as CREF, that is proud of its corporate transparency and democratic governance.”

We Divest National Coordinating Committee member, Riham Barghouti of Adalah-NY said:
“This resolution is one example of dozens of such discussions taking place in conferences, corporate meetings, and on campuses around the country. The Methodists and Presbyterians have voted on resolutions similar to the one CREF shareholders filed. Student governments are taking up this question on campuses across the country. What is it that TIAA-CREF is so afraid of?”

We Divest is a national, coalition-led initiative by Adalah-NY, the American Friends ServiceCommittee, Grassroots International, Jewish Voice for Peace, the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, and the US Palestinian Community Network.

Contact: We Divest Campaign, info@wedivest.org

ST LOUIS – TIAA-CREF has asked the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to protect it from liability for refusing to allow its participants to vote on a shareholder proposal. The proposal, submitted by over 200 clients, asks trustees to end investments in companies that profit from serious human rights violations, including those profiting from Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands.

The proposal cites as one example Veolia Environnement, a company profiting from the operation of settler-only buses on segregated roads and a landfill dumping Israeli waste on Palestinian villages’ lands in the West Bank. Said Steve Tamari, a Palestinian-American educator and member of the St. Louis Palestine Solidarity Committee, on behalf of hundreds of CREF filers who signed onto the resolution:

“TIAA-CREF has not only ignored our moral concerns, but now refuses to let us vote or have any voice on the issue. We are hundreds of investors who are deeply troubled that we are forced to support segregation and other abhorrent human rights violations in order to maintain our retirement accounts.”

The Company has made legalistic objections to keep its clients from voting on the issue, taking the position that pervasive segregation, widespread land theft that deprives a farming population of its livelihoods and food, and other major and more violent human rights violations are not sufficiently “significant” social policy issues to justify a shareholder vote. This last assertion comes on the heels of President Barack Obama’s visit to Israel and the occupied Palestinian Territories, where he stated that “continued settlement activity is counterproductive to the cause of peace,” and “the Palestinian people deserve an end to occupation and the daily indignities that come with it” (March 21, 2013).

Condemnation of the Israeli occupation on human rights grounds has swept from Europe — where public pension funds, banks, and other major institutions have divested billions from companies involved in the occupation, including Veolia, which has lost more than $15 billion in contracts following boycott and divestment campaigns — to the U.S. Veolia’s bids for contracts around the country have been heavily contested, shelved, or withdrawn completely in cities including St. Louis, Boston, Los Angeles, and Yolo County, Calif. Three campuses of the University of California recently adopted divestment resolutions. And when the Brooklyn City Council tried to squelch an event last month on divestment and similar campaigns, the Council was strongly and widely condemned — by the mayor of New York, among others — for trying to stifle free speech. TIAA-CREF now aligns itself with that same anti-democratic spirit.

The We Divest Campaign, a coalition effort that began in 2010 urging TIAA-CREF to divest from companies profiting from the Israeli occupation, is calling the Company’s refusal to hear their own clients’ human rights concerns a “double standard,” given TIAA-CREF’s otherwise active promotion of shareholder resolutions directed at companies in which it invests.

We Divest is a national, coalition-led initiative by Adalah-NY, the American Friends Service Committee, Grassroots International, Jewish Voice for Peace, the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, and the US Palestinian Community Network.

TIAA-CREF Shareholders Filed Resolutions Asking Retirement Giant to Divest from Israel’s Occupation

NEW YORK - Fifty New Yorkers gathered in the cold in front of TIAA-CREF national headquarters to show support for a shareholder resolution asking trustees to end investments in companies that contribute to or enable serious human rights violations, including companies whose products support Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands. (Photos from the rally available here.)

CREF shareholders, including a professor of peace and conflict studies, addressed the crowd, emphasizing that it is crucial that the retirement company let shareholders have a conversation about the human rights abuses their investments are supporting. Also present was Omar Barghouti, one of the founders and leaders of the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions National Committee. Barghouti’s evening talk with Judith Butler at Brooklyn College this evening has been the object of much recent controversy among local city officials and in the national media.

Barghouti thanked the protesters for their work, noting that the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement is growing rapidly. As the protesters chanted, “T-CREF, pay attention, no apartheid in our pension,” a delegation of CREF shareholders tried to enter the building to file their individual resolutions. The seven shareholders, four of whom joined the delegation spontaneously, were stopped from entering the building by security, who took their resolutions and promised they would be filed.

The CREF shareholder resolution, however, will be the largest Israel/Palestine divestment referendum to date in the United States, when it will come to a vote this summer.

Just last week a UN report called on companies to suspend operations that aid in the establishment or maintenance of Israeli settlements. This followed another UN report released last fall calling for a boycott of such companies, mentioning by name some currently in TIAA-CREF’s portfolios. In 2012, TIAA-CREF sold over $70 million in Caterpillar Inc. shares following Caterpillar’s downgrading by ethical investment ratings agency MSCI. In a statement, MSCI said that one of the “key factors” in Caterpillar’s downgrading was “on-going controversy associated with use of the company’s equipment in the occupied Palestinian territories.”

This campaign is organized by the We Divest coalition, a common project of Adalah-NY, the American Friends Service Committee, Grassroots International, Jewish Voice for Peace, the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, and the US Palestinian Community Network.

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