The chancellor of the University of California, San Francisco, which is a big medical center, Dr. Susan Desmond-Hellmann, will sell her personal stock holdings in the tobacco company Altria, the New York Times reports, and "has now ordered her investment adviser to screen for holdings in tobacco, alcohol and firearms."
The reference to firearms is particularly jarring in light of yesterday's Supreme Court decision. Which guns does Dr. Desmond-Hellman feel it is somehow unethical to profit from the manufacture and sale of? The ones the police are using to apprehend violent criminals? The ones the U.S. armed forces are using to hunt terrorists like Osama bin Laden? The ones that were used to fight the American Revolution that established our country or the Civil War that ended slavery?
So long as Dr. Desmond-Hellmann is on an ethical investment kick, why stop at divesting from firearms? Why not fast food, gambling, BP?
