OLYMPIA — A bill in Congress that would require schools to teach students about Olympia. The Holocaust and genocide will not be legislated and will not move forward in the debate over the Gaza war.
Although there was no mention of Gaza in the bill's text, the ongoing war has crept into the bill's consideration in Congress.
“I think there's every effort to make parallels between the Holocaust and what's happening in Gaza right now,” said Sen. John Brown (R-Chinese).
In 2019, lawmakers passed Senate Bill 5612, which strongly encourages, but does not require, Holocaust education in schools. A year after the bill went into effect, the Office of Public Instruction Oversight recommended that Congress make the course mandatory.
In response to the Oct. 7 Hamas attack in Israel and the rise in anti-Semitic acts, Brown introduced Senate Bill 5851, which would require middle and high schools to teach about the Holocaust and other genocides starting in the 2027-28 school year. I was forced to.
During the Holocaust, Nazi Germany murdered six million European Jews, most of them in extermination camps, forced labor camps, and mass shootings. The Nazis also targeted others for murder, including LGBTQ+ people, Poles, people with disabilities, and Roma and Slavs. A December poll by The Economist and YouGov found that 20% of 18- to 19-year-olds in the United States believe the Holocaust was a hoax.
When Brown introduced the bill, staff at the Holocaust Humanitarian Center in Seattle had only recently begun expanding the curriculum they had created for schools to include other genocides. staff felt they were not sufficiently prepared to move forward.
“Once he [Braun] Dee Simon, CEO of the Holocaust Humanity Center, said: “Of course, we took a second look and really worked with him.”
Members of various communities, including those supporting the Palestinian community, expressed concern about the perceived lack of inclusivity in the development of the curriculum.
Simon said people may have misunderstood the center's intentions as it began working on developing curriculum to teach about other genocides. The staff didn't want it to seem like they wanted to talk about someone else. Instead, they wanted to provide a way for these stories to reach schools and students through their experience working with OSPI.
“It was a little shocking to us that there was so much opposition to this bill, because the intent was really to hear and incorporate other genocide voices,” Simon said. Ta.
So far, the center has had speakers on the Rwandan and Cambodian genocides, and is working to include indigenous voices. After the hearing, we were able to connect with the Bosnian community and work together to share their stories.
“We weren't trying to take away anyone's history,” Simon said. “We just tried to provide a mechanism for them to be heard.”
House Bill 2037, a companion bill sponsored by Rep. Travis Couture, R-Allyn, ultimately advanced in the House and passed unanimously. However, it sparked significant debate on the floor.
“For me, one of the best ways to curb hatred and anti-Semitism is education,” Couture said in an interview.
Debate on the floor of the House of Commons showed that mismatch An amendment by Rep. Emily Alvarado (D-Seattle) would have created more organizations to develop curriculum.
Alvarado's amendment requires organizations that include and collaborate with survivors of genocide, people made refugees by genocide, or other directly affected people to create the curriculum used by OSPI. requested to be added.
“This amendment is about inclusivity and accountability in teaching about the Holocaust and genocide,” Alvarado said in a Feb. 9 floor speech.
Couture said he was surprised by the amendment. And I didn't know that until right before it was introduced to the floor.
Concerns arose over the phrase “became a refugee due to…” in the proposed amendment.
“People were concerned that this was actually cutting off Jews in the Holocaust,” Couture said, noting that Europe's Jews were forced from their homeland and then systematically destroyed by the Nazi regime. , adding that the genocide did not make them refugees.
“That's when you see everything pause and both parties go to caucus to discuss what this amendment is,” Couture said.
Through a spokesperson, Alvarado declined to be interviewed about the revised text or his reaction to it.
The version of the bill the House was scheduled to vote on Feb. 9 I would like to see OSPI continue to work with the Holocaust Humanity Center to develop curriculum on Holocaust and genocide education.
“Yes, we like inclusivity and having multiple voices at the table, but we need experts [Holocaust Center for Humanity] There are people at the table who know how to teach about the Holocaust,” Couture said.
Mr. Alvarado's amendment would also require schools to review materials provided by the Holocaust Humanitarian Center to eliminate bias, and require public universities to help develop curriculum and train teachers.
But some lawmakers, like Mr. Brown and Mr. Couture, said they believed the amendment opened the door for discussion about current events in Gaza.
After the bill passed the House with Alvarado's amendments, it was sent to the Senate Early Learning and K-12 Education Committee, where it did not receive a public hearing.
The committee chair, Sen. Lisa Wellman, D-Mercer Island, determined that additional hearings were not necessary because the committee had already heard public testimony.
She then introduced an amendment to replace the House-passed version with a Senate version similar to the bill introduced by Brown. Wellman's new edition removes the Holocaust definition, collaboration with public universities, bias screening, and OSPI's report to Congress, and adds a definition of genocide.
A public records request was requested to see how committee members voted, but it was found that the bill did not receive enough votes.
Wellman. Sen. Sam Hunt, D-Olympia; Sen. Jamie Pedersen, D-Seattle, was the only lawmaker to vote to pass the bill as an amendment.
Sen. Twina Nobles, D-Farcrest; Sen. Claire Wilson, D-Auburn; Sen. Brad Hawkins, R-Wenatchee, East District; Sen. Perry Dozier, R-Waitsburg; Sen. Jim McCune (R-Graham) voted no.
Sen. Mark Mallett, an Issaquah Democrat, did not vote.
Mr. Wellman said he did not want the bill to add to the Gaza conflict. That is not the province or area of expertise of legislators.
“We're not going to go there because that's not what this bill is about,” Wellman said. “That's my very clear feeling about how to handle this whole thing, and that's one of the reasons the bill didn't pass.”
But Oliver Miska, a social studies teacher and director of Washington Ethnic Studies Now, said students are asking about what's going on between Israel and the Palestinians, but not how to talk about it. He said he didn't know what to do.
“If states fail to model open dialogue, How can we expect teachers and students to do that in the classroom when there are complex issues?'' Miska said. “I have to deal with the consequences of states refusing to provide the resources to prepare their teachers.”
Ultimately, the tragedy of the bill's failure is that it will make it harder to get other stories to more schools, Simon said.
