In a move that has ignited some controversy, the Fairfax County Public School District in Virginia has begun providing an option for students to opt out of a Holocaust education session led by an individual who survived the atrocity.
This decision is ostensibly aimed at accommodating the “different experiences” of the students. However, it has sparked concerns that there is another motive.
The district’s move is also being seen as another way to politicize education and indoctrinate children into progressive viewpoints on the Israel/Palestinian conflict.
Virginia’s largest school district will let students skip a presentation from a Holocaust survivor, saying the diverse district includes students with “different experiences.”
“We understand that all students have different experiences. If you prefer to opt your child out from participating in this presentation, please email your child’s history teacher and they will be provided an alternate assignment. Please email your child’s history teacher with any questions that you may have,” a letter from Cooper Middle School said.
The letter referred to a scheduled presentation from a Holocaust survivor to seventh-graders, according to Adele Scalia, a mother of one of those middle schoolers.
Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) claimed it is advertising an opt-out for the benefit of Jews.
“Each year, Cooper MS invites a Holocaust survivor to speak with students to affirm meaningful learning experiences that increase representation of all identity groups that are essential to student learning. Some Jewish students have previously expressed discomfort while engaging in dialogue around this visit. For that reason, school leadership makes every effort to partner with families of these students, who are 12 and 13 years old, to keep them informed. This opt-out allows the family the opportunity to make the best informed decision on behalf of their student,” it said in a statement to The Daily Wire.
Jennifer Katz, a founding member of United Against Anti-Semitism and a parent of two students in the district, said that hearing accounts of the Holocaust from a survivor would naturally make people feel uncomfortable and that if the subject matter is too “sensitive,” then “it can be handled on an individual basis” and that “to make a blanket opt-out option is misguided and wrong.”
There are several reasons why this move is problematic. For starters, the district appears to be treating the Holocaust differently from other difficult topics. It is not likely that the district, with its fixation on wokeness, would allow an opt-out option for presentations about systemic racism or gender ideology. Indeed, these people would be more apt to try to ensure that parents are not aware of these issues being discussed with children. This further suggests that the decision was motivated more by politics than actual concern for Jewish children.
Moreover, this action comes at a time when a stunning percentage of younger adults are woefully ignorant about the Holocaust. An Economist/YouGov survey conducted in December found that one out of five Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 believe the Holocaust was a myth. Another survey showed that young Americans displayed a “worrying lack of basic Holocaust knowledge.”
A nationwide survey released Wednesday shows a "worrying lack of basic Holocaust knowledge" among adults under 40, including over 1 in 10 respondents who did not recall ever having heard the word "Holocaust" before.
The survey, touted as the first 50-state survey of Holocaust knowledge among millennials and Generation Z, showed that many respondents were unclear about the basic facts of the genocide. Sixty-three percent of those surveyed did not know that 6 million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust, and over half of those thought the death toll was fewer than 2 million. Over 40,000 concentration camps and ghettos were established during World War II, but nearly half of U.S. respondents could not name a single one.
This move will only ensure that students remain ignorant about Nazi Germany’s horrific treatment of Jewish people.
Lastly, it is clear that this decision was made because of the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas. The conflict has sparked debate across the country – even in government-run schools. It is more likely that this move was intended to prevent the students from becoming too sympathetic to the Jewish people and more likely to side with the Palestinians.
Of course, I might be too cynical in this assessment. But given what we have seen from the far left over recent years, especially from Fairfax County Public School District, it is difficult to take their explanation at face value.
