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Michael Cianchette is a Navy reservist who served in Afghanistan. He is in-house counsel to a number of businesses in southern Maine and was a chief counsel to former Gov. Paul LePage.
The Maine Education Association might want to watch “The Good Place.”
Spoilers ahead for those who haven’t seen it, but it is a television show that explores life-after-death. Part of the plot deals with the moral complexities of modernity.
Thanks to some gumshoe reporting by the Bangor Daily News, we learned the Maine Education Association — the statewide teachers’ union — adopted a resolution at their annual Representative Assembly last weekend.
Specifically, it called for the Maine government pension fund to “develop a cost-effective and financially sound investment portfolio that does not contribute to any corporation, state-owned entity, or financial product identified as being complicit in the violation of the human rights guaranteed to Palestinian civilians under international law.”
Let’s break that down.
The first charge is to develop something “cost-effective” and “financially sound.” What does that mean? Does it mean that investment changes should only be pursued as long as they do not have any negative effects on the ability to fund future teacher retirements? If so, that’s a pretty meager statement of solidarity.
Then, this new investment strategy with no negative financial ramifications must not “contribute” to any entity “identified as being complicit” in violating Palestinians’ human rights.
What does that mean? Start with “complicit.” Does that mean any entity that does any business in Israel must be banned? After all, economic activity generates Israeli tax revenue, which funds the Israeli government, which directs the course of the war in Gaza, which — presumably in the MEA’s view — violates Palestinians’ human rights.
So goodbye to the five largest holdings in the Maine Public Employee Retirement System. Pension dollars are invested in Microsoft, Apple, Nvidia, Amazon, and Alphabet (Google’s parent corporation), all companies doing business in Israel.
But wait, there’s more!
What “human rights” are we talking about? The Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted after World War II?
If so, then MainePERS would also need to scrub any investment that helps Hamas lest they be “complicit.” Article 21 of the Universal Declaration says that periodic free elections are a human right. Hamas won the 2006 election in Gaza and hasn’t held an election since. Even North Korea and Russia go through the motions of feigning free elections.
Since Hamas is violating Palestinians’ human rights, we need to look at their supporters who are “complicit.” That includes the government of Qatar. Qatar has investments in Avangrid, Central Maine Power’s parent company. So MainePERS would need to divest from any CMP-related investments.
And, since anyone who pays money to CMP ultimately adds some measure of value to the Qatari investment fund, which helps fund Hamas, which violates Palestinian human rights, then every business in southern Maine is “complicit” and ineligible for investment.
Make sense?
One of the plot points in “The Good Place” is that it becomes mathematically impossible for anyone to wind up in the titular afterlife locale because there are so many negative nth-order effects that arise from every choice we make in the world today.
The MEA’s decision to wade into the debate about the ongoing war in Gaza has its own higher-order effects. Americans generally, and parents specifically, are split about who should be responsible for curriculum, with nearly-equal percentages each saying teachers, parents, or school boards.
However, 60 percent of teachers say they themselves — not parents, not school boards — should be responsible for what is taught in classrooms. This dissonance creates concerns that are amplified when the teachers’ union starts taking positions on contentious political issues.
Americans are more and more dissatisfied with the state of public education. The MEA should focus more on preparing great teachers and less on political debates or investment strategy. People can then feel more confident that our classrooms are, in fact, a good place.
