“No Room For ‘Opposing Views’ on Holocaust: Rep. Deutch Speaks Out After Texas Controversy

by Kevin Deutsch October 19, 2021

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"No Room For ‘Opposing Views’ on Holocaust: Rep. Deutch Speaks Out After Texas Controversy

Jews captured by SS and SD troops during the suppression of the Warsaw ghetto uprising are forced to leave their shelter and march to the Umschlagplatz- or holding area near the train station for deportation. {United States Holocaust Memorial Museum}

By Kevin Deutsch

Rep. Ted Deutch is speaking out about the importance of Holocaust education in schools after teachers in Texas were told to teach “opposing views” of the Nazi genocide during a training session.

An administrator for the Carroll Independent School District in Southlake, Texas, guided teachers during a training session on complying with a new state law, HB3979, which aims to limit teaching about race.

The law states that a teacher may not be compelled to talk to students about “a particular current event or widely debated and currently controversial issue of public policy or social affairs.”

“Just try to remember the concepts of 3979,” Gina Peddy, executive director of curriculum and instruction for the district, is heard saying on a recording of the session. “And make sure that if you have a book on the Holocaust, that you have one that has opposing, that has other perspectives.”

The district’s superintendent has since apologized for the remarks.

“When it comes to learning the lessons of the Holocaust, there is no room for ‘opposing views’ that advance exactly the type of hate that Holocaust education is meant to combat,” Deutch, who represents Coral Springs and Parkland, said in a joint statement with Rep. Chris Smith, a New Jersey Republican.

“Regardless of what form antisemitism takes, which state or which side of the political spectrum it stems from, we are committed to responding with strength and urgency,” said the congressmen, who are co-chairs of the House Bipartisan Task Force for Combating Antisemitism. “We must use every tool we have to push back against rising antisemitism and Holocaust denial in our country, and education is a key tool to eliminating the root causes of antisemitism and anti-Semitic violence.”

“When we teach about the atrocities committed by the Nazis and the horrors of the Holocaust, it is a step toward giving real and powerful meaning to ‘never again.’”

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Author Profile

Kevin Deutsch

Kevin Deutsch is an award-winning journalist and author of two nonfiction books. He covers general assignment news and Jewish community issues for Talk Media. He has also worked as a staff writer at The Miami Times, the Rio Grande SUN, the New York Daily News, Newsday, The Miami Herald, The Palm Beach Post, The Riverdale Press, and Bronx Justice News.