What Do Snoop Dogg and CalSTRS Have in Common?
The latest environmental, social, and governance-based divestment campaign has arisen not from college students, but rather the West Coast rapper Snoop Dogg.
Dogg has launched the Unload Your 401k campaign urging Americans to drop firearm investments from their retirement portfolios. Fellow musicians Aloe Blacc—of “I Need Dollar” fame—and Jhené Aiko have signed on to support the cause, along with several professional athletes.
“It’s time to go to your financial adviser and demand that there are no gun investments in your 401(k).” —Ron Conway“Directly I’ve lost a few friends, but I think how this touches me is having children of my own,” said NBA player Matt Barnes, a forward with the Los Angeles Clippers, in a video posted online this week. The short film has been watched more than 43,000 times since Monday.
Mutual fund companies had invested a total of $1.97 billion into three public US firearm companies—Smith & Wesson, Sturm, Ruger & Co., and Olin Corporation—as of February 2014, according to the campaign’s website. It features a tool for users to input their 401(k) plan provider and find out which individual funds were most likely allocating to firearm corporations.
“It’s time to go to your financial adviser and demand that there are no gun investments in your 401(k),” said Silicon Valley angel investor Ron Conway in the video.
The campaign’s website cautioned readers that “just like any other stock, there is no way to know whether gun stocks will rise or fall.” But, it continued, “every investor who decides to sell a company’s shares helps put that company’s stock under pressure.”
Long Beach, California raised Dogg is not the first prominent West Coast figure to drop firearm investments in recent years.
Shortly after the 2012 massacre in that left 26 dead in Newtown, Connecticut, the $186 billion California State Teachers’ Retirement System’s (CalSTRS) board voted unanimously to divest its from gun manufacturers. A month later, the New York City teachers’ pension plan followed suit, and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel ordered funds in his jurisdiction to do the same.
CalSTRS CIO Chris Ailman could not be reached for comment on Dogg’s campaign by time of press.
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