Wisconsin passes law requiring schools teach students about Holocaust and other genocides

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers (D) signed legislation into law on Tuesday making it mandatory for schools to include lessons about the Holocaust and other genocides in social studies education for students.

“This bill will affect generations of kids in our state and bring increased awareness, and recognition in our schools to the tragedies of the Holocaust, the pervasiveness of anti-Semitism to this day, and hopefully cultivate a generation that is more compassionate, more empathetic, and more inclusive,” Evers said in a statement.

“States across our country require or encourage education about the Holocaust for students, I am glad that today, Wisconsin will be joining them,” he added.

Under the measure, school districts, independent charter schools and private schools that participate in a choice program will be required to teach about the Holocaust and other genocide “at least once in grades five through eight, and again at least once in grades nine through twelve,” an announcement from Evers’s office detailing the measure states.

The State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Carolyn Stanford, will also be required to include the Holocaust and other genocides into model academic standards for social studies and develop model curriculum “in consultation with a state agency in another state that has developed such standards,” his office states. 

Additionally, the legislation also requires consultation with an organization that is committed to Holocaust remembrance, education, and the “preservation of the memory of victims and that provides free Holocaust education programs to schools and training and tools to educators,” the governor’s office added in the release.

The legislation’s passage comes as a legislators in a number of states — including Oregon, Colorado and North Carolina — have either passed or considered similar measures in recent years that would require education about the Holocaust and other genocides to be taught in schools. 

Social media companies like Facebook and Twitter have also updated their policies in recent months to prohibit the sharing of content that denies the Holocaust.

Facebook was first to implement the ban last September, which CEO Mark Zuckerberg came as data showed “an increase in anti-Semitic violence.”

When it announced the decision then, the company also pointed to a survey released not long before in which nearly a quarter of adults between the ages of 18-29 said they thought the mass genocide was a myth or exaggerated.