UC Nuclear Free Campaign
by David Krieger and Carah Ong*, July 5, 2002

For more than 50 years the University of California has participated in the research, development, design and testing of US nuclear weapons. Under a contract with the US Department of Energy (DoE), the University of California manages and oversees two national nuclear weapons laboratories for the US government. In doing so, the University has provided a figleaf of respectability to the creation, deployment and threatened use of these weapons of mass murder.

The UC Nuclear Free Campaign is aimed at educating UC students about the role of their University in overseeing and managing the nuclear weapons laboratories and at getting the University of California out of the nuclear weapons business. The Campaign takes the position that no great University, having the primary purpose of educating a new generation, should be involved in the development of weapons of mass destruction. A university should be an institution that shines a light on truth and a civilizing influence on each new generation. In this sense, institutions of higher learning should be a force for peace, justice, nonviolence and international goodwill rather than tools of nationalism, militarism and producers of weapons of mass annihilation.

The UC Nuclear Free Campaign was initiated by the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (NAPF), a nonprofit, nonpartisan education and advocacy organization committed to abolishing nuclear weapons and inspiring a new generation of peace leaders. Western States Legal Foundation, Tri-Valley Cares, and the Los Alamos Study Group have joined NAPF in this campaign.

A petition to Governor Gray Davis and the UC Regents can be found at the Campaign's web site, www.ucnuclearfree.org. The petition calls upon the Regents of the University to terminate its contracts with the DoE for the oversight and management of the nation's nuclear weapons laboratories "as a matter of highest priority." The contracts to manage the nuclear weapons laboratories come up for renewal in 2005.

Sir Joseph Rotblat, a distinguished scientist and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, wrote an Open Letter to the University of California Community. As Rotblat states in his letter, "For more than 50 years, the UC system has provided respectability to these laboratories that carry out research, develop and test nuclear weapons -weapons that could destroy civilization and probably the human species." In his letter, Rotblat also asks the students, faculty and staff of the University to "raise your voices and demand that the University get out of the business of making weapons of mass destruction."

The International Network of Engineers and Scientists for Global Responsibility (INES) has also urged the University of California "to sever its relationship with the nuclear weapons laboratories and get out of the business of developing nuclear weapons." In an Open Letter to the UC Community, INES chair Armin Tenner states, "Every justification for academic support of developing nuclear weapons has lost its validity."

The participants in the Campaign recognize the University of California is not the only institution of higher learning that is engaged in military research and development or even in the development of weapons of mass destruction. We encourage individuals and groups to raise similar issues in other universities that have compromised their respectability by being complicit in activities that place the future of humanity in jeopardy.

For additional information on the UC Campaign, visit the Campaign's web site, or contact Michael Coffey at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (youth@napf.org).

*David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. Carah Ong is the Coordinator of Research and Publications at the Foundation.