To Members of the California Native American Legislative Caucus:
We are a collective of over seventy five California Indian scholars and educators that are deeply disturbed by the use of recently passed legislation to suppress our ability and the ability of our students to learn about, teach, and protest the current genocide taking place in Gaza and Palestine more broadly. As descendants of survivors of the California genocide, which is still largely underrecognized in terms of its occurrence and lasting effects, we are all too familiar with the forms of suppression of knowledge, genocide denial, and educational manipulation that are used to narrate histories such that those in power benefit. We are also very familiar with how the legislative bodies in California have historically been complicit in suppressing knowledge and contributing to genocidal policies. As the representative caucus for us, charged with “increasing awareness and education in the Legislature about the culture, history and impact of various social issues on our state’s Native Americans,” we call on you, members of the California Native American Legislative Caucus, to educate your colleagues in congress on two very dangerous bills that were recently signed into law and to begin the process of repealing these laws.
SB-1277: Pupil instruction: genocide education: the Holocaust, is a bill that purports to be expanding education about state violence in the form of genocide, when in fact its intention is to suppress such knowledge and education. As stated in the bill, “Existing law requires the State Department of Education to incorporate age-appropriate materials relating to, among other things, genocide and the Holocaust into publications that provide examples of curriculum resources for teacher use, consistent with the subject frameworks on history and social science. Under existing law, the Legislature encourages the incorporation of survivor, rescuer, liberator, and witness oral testimony into the teaching of genocide and the Holocaust.” This bill prioritizes the teaching of the most well-known, well-documented, and well-represented genocide in modern history, the Jewish Holocaust, by establishing a California Teachers Collaborative for Holocaust and Genocide Education, which Jewish Voice for Peace describes as “an anti-Palestinian group that denies the genocide being carried out by Israel in Gaza.” Again, state law that requires age appropriate education on genocide for 7-12 grade students already exists. Despite this law, which has been in existence since 1985, the genocide of California Indians in California was only officially recognized a few years ago, in 2019, via Governor Newsom’s apology to California Indian communities. Public education on the California Indian genocide is now only currently being developed through the Native American Studies Model Curriculum project by members of the California Indian Studies and Scholars Association. These advancements in education are due to the decades long struggle of Native American communities and Native American studies scholars to have the U.S. perpetration of genocide against Native Americans acknowledged. However, this is an argument that was most strenuously opposed by Holocaust scholars who widely argued throughout the 1990s that calling what happened to Native Americans a genocide was antisemitic as it undermined the uniqueness of the Holocaust.1 Those who deny that Israel is currently committing genocide in Gaza, despite ICC and ICJ rulings, similarly confuse the very real force of antisemitism, in this case by conflating it with critiques of Israeli state violence. We see two very serious effects of this bill: 1. At a moment when a fuller education on the U.S.’s genocide against Native Americans is finally possible, the bill hierarchizes genocide education to center the Holocaust and include “other genocides” secondarily; 2. The bill directly targets any information, education, and critique of the state of Israel’s state violence in the form of genocide against Palestinians, thereby betraying the memory of those killed in the Holocaust for the purposes of state propaganda.
SB-1287: Public postsecondary education: Equity in Higher Education Act: prohibition on violence, harassment, intimidation, and discrimination, is a bill also related to the genocide taking place in Gaza. While on its face, it appears to be about protecting free speech (which is redundant as there are already adequate laws and policies to protect speech; this redundancy is a sign of its intent which is the opposite of what it claims to be doing) it seeks to silence discussions of Israeli violence against Palestinians. It does so by attempting to restrict and suppress the first amendment rights of students to free speech and assembly on California’s campuses. It also infringes on students access to free exchange of ideas and expression, a core tenet of college and university education. Despite the bill’s stated intention to protect free speech and the exchange of ideas, as has become common amongst reactionary politics, these important principles are being used as cover for repressive policies. We call on you to repeal this bill because: 1. The bill places unconstitutional restrictions on students’ right to free expression based on their viewpoint and content alone; 2. As a condition of college enrollment, this bill requires students to waive their 1st amendment rights; 3. Pre-existing California law and policies already offered protections against the unlawful harassment, violence, and threats of students without encroaching on their first amendment rights. This bill actually rolls back those rights by denying certain students’ the ability to participate fully in the educational process. Further, campuses already have explicit policies that prohibit unlawful harassment, violence, and threats; 4. This bill is clearly targeting student expression of support for Palestinian human rights and their critiques of Israel’s violence in Gaza. The bill leads to further suppression and censorship of Muslim and other students’ rights to free expression and contributes to the ongoing criminalization of protest; 5. This bill undermines the historical and vital role U.S. universities, colleges, and student protests have played in supporting human rights, from the Civil Rights movement, including the American Indian Movement, to the Anti-Vietnam War movement to climate change activism. As such, SB-1287 has no place in an educational institution governed by principles of democracy.
Due to the explanations given above, we urge members of the California Native American Legislative Caucus to educate your colleagues in congress on these two very dangerous and recently passed bills and to begin the process of repealing these laws.
Sincerely,
The Members of the California Indian Studies and Scholars Association (CISSA)
1. Alan Rosenbaum, ed., Is the Holocaust Unique? Perspectives on Comparative Genocide (New York: Routledge, 1995); Gavriel Rosenfeld, “The Politics of Uniqueness: Reflection on the Recent Polemical Turn in Holocaust and Genocide Scholarship,” Holocaust and Genocide Studies 13, no. l (Spring 1999): 28–61. David Stannard, Norman Finkelstein, and Cherokee-identifying non-Native scholar Ward Churchill have critiqued the works of a number of historians of the Holocaust for their claims about its singularity and their refusals to acknowledge genocide against Native Americans, including Deborah Lipstadt, Steven Katz, and Daniel Goldhagen. The presence of the Holocaust narrative in both instances is amplified by Ward Churchill’s centrality (or at least visible presence) in the debate with Holocaust scholars over whether or not US violence against Native Americans can be called genocide. His engagements with Deborah Lipstadt, who had won a legal case against the notorious Holocaust denier David Irving (who had sued her for libel) are noteworthy. In his piece “An American Holocaust: The Structure of Denial,” Churchill makes the argument that not only does Lipstadt uphold the singularity of the Holocaust as reason to deny that US violence constitutes genocide against Native Americans but also that Lipstadt refuses to acknowledge other groups affected by the Holocaust, such as “Gypsies, Sinti, Roma, Romani.” Echoing the argument about instrumental violence common to this discussion, Lipstadt responded, “The Native Americans were seen as ‘competitors’ for land and resources”; it was not a genocide for her, because “there was a certain logic.” Ward Churchill, “An American Holocaust? The Structure of Denial,” Socialism and Democracy 17, no. 1 (2003): 29–30. Quoted in Jodi Byrd, “‘Living My Native Life Deadly,’” 328.
We are a collective of over seventy five California Indian scholars and educators that are deeply disturbed by the use of recently passed legislation to suppress our ability and the ability of our students to learn about, teach, and protest the current genocide taking place in Gaza and Palestine more broadly. As descendants of survivors of the California genocide, which is still largely underrecognized in terms of its occurrence and lasting effects, we are all too familiar with the forms of suppression of knowledge, genocide denial, and educational manipulation that are used to narrate histories such that those in power benefit. We are also very familiar with how the legislative bodies in California have historically been complicit in suppressing knowledge and contributing to genocidal policies. As the representative caucus for us, charged with “increasing awareness and education in the Legislature about the culture, history and impact of various social issues on our state’s Native Americans,” we call on you, members of the California Native American Legislative Caucus, to educate your colleagues in congress on two very dangerous bills that were recently signed into law and to begin the process of repealing these laws.
SB-1277: Pupil instruction: genocide education: the Holocaust, is a bill that purports to be expanding education about state violence in the form of genocide, when in fact its intention is to suppress such knowledge and education. As stated in the bill, “Existing law requires the State Department of Education to incorporate age-appropriate materials relating to, among other things, genocide and the Holocaust into publications that provide examples of curriculum resources for teacher use, consistent with the subject frameworks on history and social science. Under existing law, the Legislature encourages the incorporation of survivor, rescuer, liberator, and witness oral testimony into the teaching of genocide and the Holocaust.” This bill prioritizes the teaching of the most well-known, well-documented, and well-represented genocide in modern history, the Jewish Holocaust, by establishing a California Teachers Collaborative for Holocaust and Genocide Education, which Jewish Voice for Peace describes as “an anti-Palestinian group that denies the genocide being carried out by Israel in Gaza.” Again, state law that requires age appropriate education on genocide for 7-12 grade students already exists. Despite this law, which has been in existence since 1985, the genocide of California Indians in California was only officially recognized a few years ago, in 2019, via Governor Newsom’s apology to California Indian communities. Public education on the California Indian genocide is now only currently being developed through the Native American Studies Model Curriculum project by members of the California Indian Studies and Scholars Association. These advancements in education are due to the decades long struggle of Native American communities and Native American studies scholars to have the U.S. perpetration of genocide against Native Americans acknowledged. However, this is an argument that was most strenuously opposed by Holocaust scholars who widely argued throughout the 1990s that calling what happened to Native Americans a genocide was antisemitic as it undermined the uniqueness of the Holocaust.1 Those who deny that Israel is currently committing genocide in Gaza, despite ICC and ICJ rulings, similarly confuse the very real force of antisemitism, in this case by conflating it with critiques of Israeli state violence. We see two very serious effects of this bill: 1. At a moment when a fuller education on the U.S.’s genocide against Native Americans is finally possible, the bill hierarchizes genocide education to center the Holocaust and include “other genocides” secondarily; 2. The bill directly targets any information, education, and critique of the state of Israel’s state violence in the form of genocide against Palestinians, thereby betraying the memory of those killed in the Holocaust for the purposes of state propaganda.
SB-1287: Public postsecondary education: Equity in Higher Education Act: prohibition on violence, harassment, intimidation, and discrimination, is a bill also related to the genocide taking place in Gaza. While on its face, it appears to be about protecting free speech (which is redundant as there are already adequate laws and policies to protect speech; this redundancy is a sign of its intent which is the opposite of what it claims to be doing) it seeks to silence discussions of Israeli violence against Palestinians. It does so by attempting to restrict and suppress the first amendment rights of students to free speech and assembly on California’s campuses. It also infringes on students access to free exchange of ideas and expression, a core tenet of college and university education. Despite the bill’s stated intention to protect free speech and the exchange of ideas, as has become common amongst reactionary politics, these important principles are being used as cover for repressive policies. We call on you to repeal this bill because: 1. The bill places unconstitutional restrictions on students’ right to free expression based on their viewpoint and content alone; 2. As a condition of college enrollment, this bill requires students to waive their 1st amendment rights; 3. Pre-existing California law and policies already offered protections against the unlawful harassment, violence, and threats of students without encroaching on their first amendment rights. This bill actually rolls back those rights by denying certain students’ the ability to participate fully in the educational process. Further, campuses already have explicit policies that prohibit unlawful harassment, violence, and threats; 4. This bill is clearly targeting student expression of support for Palestinian human rights and their critiques of Israel’s violence in Gaza. The bill leads to further suppression and censorship of Muslim and other students’ rights to free expression and contributes to the ongoing criminalization of protest; 5. This bill undermines the historical and vital role U.S. universities, colleges, and student protests have played in supporting human rights, from the Civil Rights movement, including the American Indian Movement, to the Anti-Vietnam War movement to climate change activism. As such, SB-1287 has no place in an educational institution governed by principles of democracy.
Due to the explanations given above, we urge members of the California Native American Legislative Caucus to educate your colleagues in congress on these two very dangerous and recently passed bills and to begin the process of repealing these laws.
Sincerely,
The Members of the California Indian Studies and Scholars Association (CISSA)
1. Alan Rosenbaum, ed., Is the Holocaust Unique? Perspectives on Comparative Genocide (New York: Routledge, 1995); Gavriel Rosenfeld, “The Politics of Uniqueness: Reflection on the Recent Polemical Turn in Holocaust and Genocide Scholarship,” Holocaust and Genocide Studies 13, no. l (Spring 1999): 28–61. David Stannard, Norman Finkelstein, and Cherokee-identifying non-Native scholar Ward Churchill have critiqued the works of a number of historians of the Holocaust for their claims about its singularity and their refusals to acknowledge genocide against Native Americans, including Deborah Lipstadt, Steven Katz, and Daniel Goldhagen. The presence of the Holocaust narrative in both instances is amplified by Ward Churchill’s centrality (or at least visible presence) in the debate with Holocaust scholars over whether or not US violence against Native Americans can be called genocide. His engagements with Deborah Lipstadt, who had won a legal case against the notorious Holocaust denier David Irving (who had sued her for libel) are noteworthy. In his piece “An American Holocaust: The Structure of Denial,” Churchill makes the argument that not only does Lipstadt uphold the singularity of the Holocaust as reason to deny that US violence constitutes genocide against Native Americans but also that Lipstadt refuses to acknowledge other groups affected by the Holocaust, such as “Gypsies, Sinti, Roma, Romani.” Echoing the argument about instrumental violence common to this discussion, Lipstadt responded, “The Native Americans were seen as ‘competitors’ for land and resources”; it was not a genocide for her, because “there was a certain logic.” Ward Churchill, “An American Holocaust? The Structure of Denial,” Socialism and Democracy 17, no. 1 (2003): 29–30. Quoted in Jodi Byrd, “‘Living My Native Life Deadly,’” 328.
