An Omnibus bill SB 727 (HB 1135) is rightfully called the Heroes Bill. It honors Mark DeCoteau who died in Afghanistan and police officer Steve Arkell who died trying to moderate a domestic dispute. The Senate bill is scheduled for Tuesday, June 16, after which it will return to the House as HB 1135.

A senator from Keene slipped an article into the Transportation bill to require teaching about the Holocaust and Genocide in NH schools. The bill would also set up a commission. The proposed Commission has five or more representatives from Jewish organizations but none from Native Americans, Asian Americans, or African Americans.

In a time of heated debate about police profiling, it might well be appropriate for the Education Committee to discuss the broader topic of anti-racism education in the high school curriculum. Yet the much narrower Holocaust bill is currently bundled such that a vote for some legitimate commemorations on highways will also carry this bill under the radar.

The primary sponsor, state Sen. Jay Kahn, D-Keene, said “Senate Bill 727 would add the subject of genocide prevention to other social-science graduation requirements like history, government, civics and economics.” Do we really want to legislate content this specific in the curriculum?

The Holocaust refers to the German Fascist genocide against Jews, one of many targeted groups in the time of World War II. Even that genocide applied more broadly to gypsies, homosexuals, and Communists as well as the German Resistance. Holocaust privileges just one group.

In the Education Committee, one could make a case to teach about genocide generically in the social studies curriculum, viz. U.S. genocide against native Americans, Israel’s genocide against Palestinians, Turkish genocide against Armenians, Burmese genocide against Rohingya, Sri Lankan state genocide against the Sri Lankan Tamil, or the Rwandan genocide as a civil war involving genocide on both sides. Do the million plus deaths in the U.S. sanctions and invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq qualify as genocide?

Let’s not try to legislate a specific reading of history. Let’s not be misled by an ill-considered Education bill bundled within a Transportation bill. Please vote down the Omnibus bill and bring it back as the commemoration bill that it was intended to be. The Senate Rules Committee should restore democracy by ruling this Omnibus bill out of order.

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