MARINA DEL REY, CA -- Governor Gray Davis's recent proposal to require all California college students to volunteer as a condition for graduating is anti-American, said the executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute (ARI).

"America was founded on the selfish rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," said Berliner. "The morality of sacrifice, duty, and service to others has no place anywhere in America."

Berliner added that the morality of servitude is appropriate to Nazi Germany and Russia, not America.

"Volunteerism is not the way to leading a moral, successful life," said Berliner. "Instead of turning young people into mindless, duty-bound serfs, schools should be helping children to develop into independent, competent, confident individuals."

Since the Presidents' Summit on Volunteerism in 1997, ARI has been the only moral opponent of servitude. In September 1998, ARI initiated its Anti-Servitude Internship Program. The internship is designed for students who object to the forced sacrifice of their time, interests, and values for others. These students can fulfill their volunteerism graduation requirements by fighting against volunteerism.
 
The Ayn Rand Institute, an educational organization established in 1985, seeks to advance novelist-philosopher Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism and its principal tenets: reason, rational egoism, and laissez-faire capitalism.