The Juridical Hypocrisy of Human Rights and Genocide Education Laws

• In Event: Education at the Borders: Rights, Refugees, and Responsibilities

Abstract

Context and Problem:
In 2014, Pennsylvania amended its School Code to state that is it of “high priority that children…be educated on the Holocaust, genocide and human rights violations.” Since then, similar legislation has passed in Texas (S.B. 1829, 2019), Kentucky (House Bill 128, 2018), and Oregon (S.B. 664, 2019). In 2020, the federal government unanimously passed legislation on The Never Again Education Act. These laws denote that human rights violations and genocide take place ‘over there’ and ‘by others’ but not in ‘my country’ or by ‘my government.’ Additionally, most states do not include in their school codes instruction on the cultural genocide of indigenous populations in North America (Kingston, 2015) or black history (King, 2017), which could include studying the theory of “legalized genocide of colored people…one person at a time, so as not to raise alarm” (Crump, 2019). That there also ought to be instruction on human rights abuses taking place at U.S. migrant detention centers that are tantamount to “concentration camps” (see Serwer, 2019) could well be seen as treasonous. Nevertheless, these curricular omissions raise ethico-political questions concerning whose genocidal histories and rights get taught and to what ends. To frame this analysis, I draw from Arendt’s political writings on “The Perplexities of the Rights of Man” (Arendt, 1973) and “collective responsibility” for things we have not done (Arendt, 2003). Yankah’s (2019) theory of “legal hypocrisy” is also pertinent to this analysis.

The aim of the paper is to provide insight into the ways that attitudes toward one’s country and ‘one’s people’ and other countries and other people can get shaped in school. Attitudes shape cultural identities and political choices, each of which speak to what it means to (not) belong in an age of increasing migration.

Modes of Inquiry:
This analysis is hermeneutic (Gadamer, 2004) and critical (Althusser, 1970). Hermeneutics underscores the search for an everchanging truth through individual understanding of text and experience. Drawing upon this tradition, this analysis seeks to engage in document-based analysis of education laws pertaining to human rights violations and genocide. The hermeneutic interpretation leads to a more critical analysis that draws upon ideology critique. Following Althusser, educational institutions are part of the ideological state apparatus that reinforce narratives such as American exceptionalism, which teachers and students can take as axiomatic.

Significance:
At a time when anti-Semitism is on the rise in Europe (Cosse, 2019) and the U.S. (Cooper, 2019), instruction on the Holocaust must (continue to) be taught. At the same time, when legislation requires instruction on some but not other human rights violations such as those occurring at the El Paso Immigration Detention Center (Long & Austin-Hillary, 2019), children may learn that such atrocities take place far away and/or by others. Such naiveté poses certain dangers in the world. On the flipside, youth may begin to question why some human rights abuses and not others are studied in schools, leading to ironic consequences such as developing hostilities toward those same group(s) being studied.

Author

• Hannah Spector, Penn State University - Harrisburg