Students and community members march around the EMU carrying posters, flags and banners in support of Palestine. The rally, organized by Students for Justice in Palestine, focused on the recent Israeli attacks on the city of Rafah. (Colleen Bogdan/Emerald)
University of Oregon retiree Molly Sirois and former affiliated faculty member Mary King are calling for the immediate divestment of the Oregon Public Employee Retirement Fund from holdings that they believe are complicit in the deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinians.
“The Oregon Public Employees Retirement Fund are [sic] directly linked to companies, to entities [and] to industries that are causing harm to people and to places, and so I know these, I know people that are harmed by my investments, my very retirement earnings,” Sirois said.
Sirois first came across the OPERF holdings in 2022, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The Oregon Public Employees Retirement System oversees the Oregon state retirement and disability plans for public workers. State and local governments, public schools and community colleges all across Oregon participate in PERS, assisting 95% of public employees including UO’s.
OPERF is the pension fund that PERS members receive their retirement pensions from. OPERF is managed by the Oregon State Treasury by policies set by the Oregon Investment Council.
In 2023, OPERF Public Equity Holdings showed that the Oregon Treasury maintains investments in Elbit System LTD, a weapons manufacturing company that both Sirois and King say has caused the killings of Palestinians in Gaza during the Israel-Hamas war. According to Gaza’s health ministry, at least 32,000 Palestinians have been killed in the conflict since Oct. 7.
“In the last two months, Israel’s bombardment of Gaza has killed nearly 15,000 civilians, including more than 6,000 children, using munitions and other weapons of war made by Elbit [Systems],” King said in a public comment to the OIC in January.
In 2023, the Treasury occupied 341 shares in Elbit Systems. Elbit Systems is a defense contractor company based in Haifa, Israel, that manufactures defense and homeland security systems for the Israeli military.
The numerous holdings in the OPERF supporting the Israeli occupation, including Elbit Systems, have affected the lives of multiple family members and friends of Sirois, according to Sirois.
“My retirement earnings are invested in [Elbit Systems] and I know, I have witnessed, and I hear what Palestinians who are living under occupation are subjected to, and now I think the world knows,” Sirois said.
Oregon State Treasury Public Information Director Eric Engelson said in an email statement that OPERF “has no holdings in Elbit Systems. All of our decisions regarding investments are guided by our fiduciary duty to pension beneficiaries, outlined in Oregon Revised Statute 293.721 and 293.726.”
King said that she believes the Treasury’s investments in Elbit Systems makes Oregonians and King herself complicit in the crime of collective punishment under the 1949 Geneva Conventions and their 1977 Additional Protocols.
The Treasury also held 28,586 shares in General Dynamic in 2023, an arms industry company that manufactures the bunker bombs dropped on Gaza, Sirois said. It also held 53,197 shares in Lockheed Martin Corp., a manufacturer that produces the AGM-114 Hellfire missiles for Israel’s airborne defense.
“What is happening in Gaza now, which is understood as, even if it’s denied by the American government and the Israeli government, is a genocide, and that is being funded by the U.S. and by my retirement earnings,” Sirois said.
Furthermore, Sirois is calling for the divestment of the 5,539 shares held in Sturm Ruger + Co INC, an American firearm company that was the producer of the .22 Sturm Ruger rifle and .22 Sturm Ruger pistol used in the 1998 Thurston High School shooting, killing two students and injuring 22 others.
Among the injured was UO’s executive coordinator for the Office of the President, Betina Lynn. Rebecca Lynn, who worked for the Accessible Education Center of Undergraduate Education and Student Success Division of Academic Affairs, is the mother of Betina Lynn and a former colleague of Sirois’. Sirois calls for the divestment of Sturm Ruger because she has personal ties to members who have been affected by a Sturm Ruger weapon.
On Jan. 24, PERS retiree Sirois made a public comment to the OIC and on Nov. 28, 2023, King also made a public comment. Both PERS members asked for the divestments of OPERF holdings and both said that they’ve seen no change since then.
“I have not seen that change,” King said. “I have seen the impact of a longer running campaign on fossil fuels on the Treasurer’s office, and there is now starting to be some consideration of divesting in that [fossil fuels] one.”
Divest Oregon, a statewide coalition of individuals and organizations including unions with PERS members, has called on the Oregon Treasury to shift away from holdings of risky fossil fuels to environmentally-safe investments.
“The Oregon Investment Council values comments submitted by pension beneficiaries and appreciates their participation at meetings. We recognize the complexity of the issues involved in these matters,” Engelson said in an email statement. “We will continue to engage with the necessary legal and governing bodies on these important matters.”
As a last effort to get her retirement earnings out of OPERF, Sirois sued the Treasury, the OIC, PERS and Governor Tina Kotek.
“I contacted PERS and tried to get my money out. I tried to get out of PERS because it was so egregious to me that my retirement earnings were funding harm, and I couldn’t get out,” Sirois said. “I can’t get out. I’m in it ‘till I die.”
Sirois also called on the University of Oregon to put “pressure” on the state to assist with the call for divestment.
“I believe that universities can put pressure on both the Legislature and the Treasury,” Sirois said. “I think the university can put pressure on the entities that can make those changes.”
King believes that Oregon public universities are a good place for activists to call for the divestment.
“The university is a good place for education and people getting together, so universities are good places to organize,” King said.
King believes that the Treasury underfunded OPERF, therefore the Treasury invested in the weaponry holdings to acquire funds.
“I think there’s pressure on them to get the highest financial return they can and that’s because the state has made a choice to not put as much money as it should into the retirement systems,” King said. “So therefore, there’s pressure on the state to get a lot of money from the investments that they do have in order to meet their obligations to retirees.”
“We will not be complicit, and we will not be silent. Divest now,” King said in the statement.
