I was an expert witness against a teacher who taught students to question the Holocaust

[guillaumeb]

From the article:

When I first set out to research how the Holocaust was being depicted in textbooks in New Jersey’s public schools, my hope was to see what students were being taught about the systematic state-sponsored killing of 6 million Jewish men, women and and children.

I never imagined that my work would lead me to serve as a witness against a history teacher who encouraged his students to question whether the Holocaust had ever taken place at all.....

In Mr. Ali’s case, he alleged – among other things – that he had a First Amendment right to share materials that he saw fit.
When he was asked whether he taught his students to “question the facts as to whether Hitler chose to brutally abuse, take advantage, starve and murder Jews for absolutely no reason at all,” Mr. Ali responded that he taught his students to “question everything.” …


But United States District Judge Madeline Cox Arleo disagreed. She ruled that the school district, not the classroom teacher, “has the ultimate right to decide what will be taught in the classroom.” Except for a procedural matter unrelated to his teaching, she tossed out the various claims in Mr. Ali’s lawsuit, saying that he failed to show he was fired for anything other than the reasons given by the school district – not his race or his religion like he claimed.

To read more:

https://religionnews.com/2019/05/30/i-was-an-expert-witness-against-a-teacher-who-taught-students-to-question-the-holocaust/

The First Amendment does not give anyone the right to teach lies.

[DFW]

1. I suppose he would have sued for his right to teach that 2+2 equals 5, too?

Hiding behind the first amendment to teach hate should not even be something a court needs to contend with. Deny the holocaust in these parts, and it's about the only verbal utterance that can land you a prison sentence here.

[guillaumeb]

2. The Judge agreed.

But the teacher has appealed the verdict.

Bad enough that Nazis are open and proud, but to have a teacher claiming a First Amendment right to deny something that happened 75 years ago is insane.

Anti-Semitism, combined with conspiracy theory lunacy.

[abqtommy]

3. While the word "Holocaust" is used by professional historians to refer

to the targeting of Jews, let's remember that other persons such as " 'gypsies' (Romanies and Sinti), Soviet prisoners of war, Communists, liberals, other political dissidents, incurables, Jehovah's Witnesses and homosexuals and the handicapped/mental defectives". The Nazis were and are
terrible people...
https://www.answers.com/Q/Which_groups_did_the_Nazis_target_as_victims

[Aristus]

4. I had always taken it that 'Holocaust' referred to the entire program of mass extermination,

Jews, Roma, Jehovah's Witnesses, gays, etc.

We remember the Jews, because they were murdered in the largest numbers. But AFAIAC, 'Holocaust' refers to all the victims.

'Holocaust' is a Greek word that means 'all-consuming fire.'.

[abqtommy]

14. I don't have any problem with using "Holocaust" as

an all-inclusive term for Nazi victims.

[DFW]

38. I realize terminology is all over the place

The Gypsies are a perfect example. They are a tribe from northern India that emigrated to Europe centuries ago and spread out over a large geographical area. As many of them settled in Romania, they adopted the Romanian word for Romanians ("Romani" ), which they are not. Some of them claimed they were the descendants of the ancient Egyptians (hence the term "gypsy" ), which they are also not. Rejecting integration--with the predictable negative reaction of the host countries--they have mostly (with some notable exceptions) kept to themselves even today, and there are colorful caravans of VW microbuses on the rims of most cities in Germany and eastward. Easy pickings for a party looking for scapegoats.

Even the word "Nazi" is nothing more than an abbreviation of the German pronunciation of "national (nah-tsee-oh-NAHL)," as the word "Nationalsozialist" was just too cumbersome even for the Germans, and anyway, the Europeans love their abbreviations. The era of Nazi domination here in Germany is usually just referred to as "die NS-Zeit."

Hitler's deputy, Hermann Goring laid it out rather plainly during his prison time at the Nürnberg trials:

"But after all it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or fascist dictorship, or a parliament or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peace makers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”

And what easier way to find an "attacker" or a "peace maker" than the house next door if the people who live there are in the slightest way different?

[ripcord]

43. What is sad is that General Eisenhower saw this coming

That is why he had photographers, film crews, historians and many others document the nazi abuses.

[LAS14]

5. I wonder what the verdict would have been if it had been the school district that...

... decided to question the holocaust.

[guillaumeb]

6. An interesting question.

Given the abundant evidence, and the fact that there are living survivors, one would think that there could be no controversy.

[LAS14]

7. Yeah. I wish the judge had come down more firmly on truth vs lies. nt

[guillaumeb]

8. This decision narrowly focused on the right of the District to set policy. eom

[lunatica]

12. There is also forensic evidence in the concentration camp sites

You can dig up mass graves when you know where they are, and there are plenty all over Europe and Russia.

[guillaumeb]

13. Exactly.

Perhaps these Holocaust deniers claim that these graves held victims of natural disasters?

I truly cannot understand the idea that what happened so recently can be explained away.

Or why anyone would wish to explain it away.

[Haggis for Breakfast]

36. I feel that anyone who denies the Holocaust

should be forced to sit and watch every single news reel/interview/photograph/documentary EVER made validating what happened. I don't care if it takes five years. They should watch every last bit of footage available in every language.

NEVER FORGET.

[gratuitous]

10. An interesting question

School boards are subject to periodic review by the citizens (usually called "elections&quot , and there are usually tools in place for a recall election in between regularly-scheduled elections. A school board that instituted a curriculum of Holocaust denial would probably be subject to a very powerful public backlash, and any members voting in favor of that curriculum would probably find themselves out of office very quickly.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

9. An interesting perspective from a great woman

I agree with the Judge Cox on the subject case.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deborah_Lipstadt
Deborah Esther Lipstadt (born March 18, 1947) is an American historian, best known as author of the books Denying the Holocaust (1993), History on Trial: My Day in Court with a Holocaust Denier (2005) and The Eichmann Trial (2011). She is the Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish History and Holocaust Studies at Emory University in Georgia, United States.
...
On September 5, 1996, Holocaust denier David Irving sued Lipstadt and her publisher Penguin Books for libel in an English court for characterizing some of his writings and public statements as Holocaust denial in her book Denying the Holocaust.
...
The case was argued as a bench trial before Mr Justice Gray, who produced a written judgment 349 pages long detailing Irving's systematic distortion of the historical record of World War II. The Times (April 14, 2000, p. 23) said of Lipstadt's victory, "History has had its day in court and scored a crushing victory".
...
Despite her acrimonious history with Irving, Lipstadt has stated that she is personally opposed to the 3-year prison sentence Austria imposed on Irving for two speeches he made in 1989, where he claimed there had been no gas chambers at Auschwitz. In Austria, minimizing the atrocities of the Third Reich is a crime punishable with up to 10 years imprisonment. Speaking of Irving, Lipstadt said "I am uncomfortable with imprisoning people for speech. Let him go and let him fade from everyone's radar screens... Generally, I don't think Holocaust denial should be a crime. I am a free speech person, I am against censorship."

[guillaumeb]

11. Thank you.

While she is uncomfortable with punishing speech, there is no such thing as truly free speech.

And certain things, like Holocaust denial, does not fade away.

There are still denialists from the American civil war who insist that slavery was not all bad.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

24. As they say: freedom is free

There will always be those who misuse their freedom.


Any of those folks that insist "slavery was not all bad" trying to change the law so they can sign up as slaves?

[ancianita]

15. Thank you for your service. I'm glad he was fired and his suit tossed.

[guillaumeb]

26. I was not the witness.

But I am happy with the outcome.

[ancianita]

29. Oops. Thanks for the post, then. I'm happy, too, to see "1A cover" for bad teaching go down.

[Gore1FL]

16. While I fundamentally agree with the "question everything" style.

It needs to be followed up by research, testing, and then accepting the outcomes of those endeavors.

[guillaumeb]

27. I agree when it comes to political and philospohical assumptions.

But the fact of the Holocaust is undeniable.

[Gore1FL]

30. I agree, absolutely.

My point is if he had debunked the statement with research it would have been a good demonstration. The follow-through of answering the question properly is what separated this from from a learning experience and the rantings of a history denying lunatic.

[guillaumeb]

31. And I agree absolutely.

Holocaust deniers are, to me, no different from the apologists for slavery in that their goal is to excuse or distract from genocide.

[FakeNoose]

22. Never deny something that has already been factually, historically proven

It only makes the denier look stupid and unqualified to be a teacher.

[Harker]

23. I once met a man who expressed outraged disbelief

that the Nazis murdered upwards of six million people.

I asked him were the numbers inflated, and had "only" a million perished - would that be okay, then?

That shut his stupid mouth.

[ProudLib72]

32. Rumpers must be really outraged by Stalin's record

"Mutha Rusher wouldn't never do thet to 30 milyun or more peeple!"

[Harker]

35. Happily

my confrontation was in the mid-1980s, and I haven't been directly addressed on the matter.

Yep... from "Evil Empire" to "Mutha Rusher."... whee... what a life.

[bhikkhu]

25. Having studied toward an education degree myself, the 1st amendment doesn't apply

There is no first amendment protection for either teachers or students in a state school. That my sound bad, but it's for very good reason. As a teacher you are a "state actor", children are compelled to be there, and they are under special status as protected individuals. A teacher is not just some guy on the corner who can spout off whatever he likes.

At least in Oregon, you can't even get into a Master's program without learning the basic legal framework and standards behind the education system.

[guillaumeb]

28. And as a retired, Federal, union representative,

I can say that Federal employees do not enjoy complete freedom of speech.

[GulfCoast66]

37. No one does in the workplace.

Or rather we all have the freedom to say whatever we want. The government cannot prosecute for it.

Your employer is a different matter.

[ProudLib72]

33. Have the bailiff punch him in the stomach and kick him in the balls

Then the judge can order that it never happened. Next case...

[guillaumeb]

34. He is an idiot with an agenda.

I am shocked that he is not in the Trump Administration.

[MadDAsHell]

39. This sounds like it was a racist witch-hunt against a man of Islamic faith.

I'm sure it's total coincidence that they went after the guy named Jason Mostafa Ali.

[guillaumeb]

40. First, he is, at best, a Holocaust "doubter".

Google the name Robert Faurisson, a French Holocaust denier.

It seems there is an industry of Holocaust deniers. Some might be Nazi apologists, others are deluded, others misinformed, and others?

Anti-Semites.

In which category should we place Mr. Ali?

[MadDAsHell]

41. I'd put him in the victim of a hate crime category.

He was targeted because he's Muslim.

[guillaumeb]

42. He was targeted because he promoted delusion instead of teaching the course.

The only hate here was that exhibited by Mr. Ali.

[Turin_C3PO]

44. He was teaching anti-Semitic garbage.

That’s why he was targeted.