OREPA celebrated the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and served notice on the University of Tennessee and the Y-12 Nuclear Weapons Complex in Oak Ridge that, as of January 22, 2021, nuclear weapons are illegal.
We started out in the morning at the University; UT President Randy Boyd announced in December that the university would partner with Texas A&M University to bid on the contract to manage the Y-12 Nuclear Weapons Complex—and make the university a producer of weapons of mass destruction!
So we held a banner at the main entrance to UT, and we posted the Treaty outside the Administration building, Ayers Hall, and also at the Nuclear Engineering Building, where we left flyers.
And then we went to Oak Ridge, to the Y-12 Nuclear Weapons Complex where the US manufactures nuclear weapons components. Two dozen people came out despite the pandemic. We practiced safe distancing and wore masks. And we read a portion of the Treaty before we hung our banner and 122 Yellow Xs, one for each nation that voted to approve the Treaty.
