BOSTON—The United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Wednesday upheld a lower court ruling that prevented the insertion of literature denying the Armenian Genocide into the state school curriculum.
The unanimous opinion written by retired Supreme Court Justice David Souter, sitting on a three judge panel that included Michael Boudin and Jeffery R. Howard of Appeals Court dismissed the Griswold v. Driscoll case, in which plaintiffs were arguing for the inclusion of literature that denied the Armenian Genocide in the Massachusetts state human rights curriculum.
The appeals court said that the Guide on Armenian Genocide instruction “fit into the curriculum classification … [and] that law would not allow the genocide denial actions that the plaintiffs sought.”
“We welcome the Court’s landmark decision rejecting profoundly hateful and misguided pressure on educators to teach Armenian Genocide denial in America’s public schools,” said ANCA Executive Director Aram Hamparian. “We are deeply gratified to have played a meaningful role, along with our partners in the Armenian Bar Association, Irish Immigration Center, Jewish Alliance for Law and Social Action, the Genocide Education Project, and the Zoryan Institute, in this major legal victory. We also want to especially thank Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr for their representation to ensure that America’s schoolchildren learn the truth about the Armenian Genocide and all instance of man’s inhumanity to man.”
The Assembly of Turkish American Associations and its supporters initially filed the suit in 2005 as a First Amendment case to thwart the teaching of the Armenian Genocide in public schools by insisting on the inclusion of denialist literature in the commonwealth’s mandated curriculum.
ATAA partnered with the Turkish-American Legal Defense Fund on this case. The spokesperson for the latter is the infamous genocide denialist Bruce Fein, who has often presented testimony to Congress and elsewhere in support of Turkey and against the Armenian Genocide.
My befallen martyr grandfather Khatchig, my grandmother Khatchkhatoun, My great grandparents, Kevork and Hazarkhan’s spirit is a little bit happier today with this news. Who knows where their scattered poor bones are unburied either in Palou or the Mesopotamian deserts; but at least their spirits is a little bit happier today. They are probably saying from heaven that itsn’t it about time that America, the land of the free does the ultimate moral thing and accept the Armenian Genocide, so that the heirs of the Armenians all around the world would be able to collect the blood money that it is way overdue to them in the form of the Wilsonian Armenia?
Seervart Kevorkian
Yes, I do hope that their tormented souls are a little happier after today. God bless their souls and the souls of all those innocent angels who fell so brutally at the sword of the barbarian Turks.Let us hope that justice will finally prevail. We have waited far too long and so have the restless and voiceless innocents who are no longer with us.We are all waiting for the full recognition of the Armenian Genocide and neither those alive nor those who are no longer with us will rest until that day!
Yes Satenik jan, Thank you and I most certainly pray to God to continue to bless our million and a half innocent, helpless angelic martyrs’ souls. They all died never knowing why and for what? Just for being Armenian and Christians.
Very beautiful.
And very good.
Astvats irents hokineru loysavore !!
Thank you Abbe; and the same applies to your anscestors’ souls as well as the 1.5 Million martyrs’ souls.
A great day for justice. A great victory for the Armenians. A slap on the face of lie and hypocracy. Truth should be known, for no one can suppress the truth. The Armenian Genocide is a tragic truth and as such it reigns supreme! LongLive Justice!
Who is Bruce Fein? What do know about him? Is he a Jew on the Turkish payroll? He needs to be educated.
Bravo to all the justices on the Appeals Court. Let’ s hope our government takes heed and calls the Armenian Genocide a genocide! I still think that the Armenian government should take the issue to the International Criminal Court in The Haig.!
Shakeh
I am very happy about this, always said no one has the right to change history
Turkey run. Turkey hide. Turkey guilty of Genocide. Turkey the author of Genocide. This is another set back for Genocidal Turkey.
What are all you fellow Armenians so happy about?? I never get happy when people do the right thing…because thats what they are suppossed to do anyway!!!!
Turkey is slowly losing their battle of genocide denial. With this and Sweden our latest victories. Just have patience, and justice will prevail.
Turkey’s history is preserved in a unique place called LIEbrary.