Hope you’ve all seen the decision by the First Circuit Court of Appeals upholding the Federal District Court in the case involving the Genocide curriculum guide.

JALSA had joined a brief with members of the Armenian community to support the earlier decision and the right of the school department to determine what ought to be in the Curriculum Guide. JALSA had encouraged passage of the original legislation which directed that students study genocide in school, with the selection of possible courses of study from several historical events including the Armenian Genocide, the Cambodian Killing Fields, the European Holocaust, the Irish Hunger Famine, the Middle Passage of the Slave Trade, etc. JALSA believed the Curriculum Guide set out possible directions for the course of study, but did not prevent teachers or students from bringing additional materials to the classroom. The notion that elimination of material (provided by Turkish challengers to the understanding that the massacre of Armenians by the Turks during WWI was genocide) by the Commissioner of the Department of Education in the Department’s suggested list of resources was not a prohibited limit on freedom of speech. (more on this case coming)