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HIGH COURT WON'T HEAR CASE AGAINST ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
Lisa Redmond
Lowell Sun (Massachusetts)
January 26, 2011 Wednesday
LOWELL -- "An abomination" is how Pearl Teague describes a
Turkish-American group's attempt to use the nation's high court to
force public-school systems in Massachusetts to include a viewpoint
in the curriculum that denies there was an Armenian genocide after
World War I.
The court case drew attention because it brought into public classrooms
the controversial, historical debate over whether the deaths of about
1.5 million Armenians at the hands of Ottoman Turks could be labeled
a genocide.
But late last week, Armenians across the country and the approximately
7,000 Armenians in the Lowell area applauded a U.S. Supreme Court
ruling that refused to take up a case of the "contra-Armenian genocide"
viewpoint.
The Supreme Court declined to hear a First Amendment appeal in the
Massachusetts' case of Griswold versus Driscoll.
Theodore Griswold, a Lincoln-Sudbury High School student; his father,
Thomas Griswold, of Sudbury; William Schechter, a Lincoln-Sudbury
social-studies teacher; and Lawrence Aaronson, a social-studies
teacher at Cambridge Rindge & Latin, along with the Assembly of Turkish
American Associations, sued Massachusetts Commissioner of Education
David Driscoll in federal court for not allowing their standpoint in
statewide curriculum.
Teague, a spokeswoman for the Lowell-based Armenian National Committee
of Merrimack Valley, explained that the contra-genocide viewpoint
for Armenians is "tantamount to denying the Holocaust" for the Jews.
Joseph Dagdigian, a past chairman of ANC of Merrimack Valley, said
the lawsuit is just another attempt by those who deny there was
an Armenian genocide to "reach into American society and refuse to
acknowledge that this was a planned genocide."
Attorney Harvey Silverglate, one of the attorneys representing
Griswold, described the case on his website as "an important First
Amendment case involving censorship from school reference materials..."
The Turkish-American group maintains that the Muslim Turkish Ottoman
Empire did not commit "a policy" of genocide after World War I. While
not denying the tragedy, Silverglate wrote, his clients "dispute the
genocide label."
The plaintiffs filed a lawsuit in 2005 in U.S. District Court in
Boston alleging their First Amendment rights to learn, free from
discrimination, were violated by eliminating from public-school
materials viewpoints that suggest there was no genocide.
The First U.S. District Court of Appeals in August affirmed a
lower-court decision dismissing the lawsuit. When the high court
decided not to tackle the issue, it allowed the appeals-court decision
to stand.
"This victory, while certainly a serious setback to Turkey's campaign
of denial...will, just as surely, not mark the end of the concerted
and well-funded efforts by allies of Ankara to use our nation's great
freedoms to silence discussion of the Armenian genocide in America's
classrooms," said Armenian National Committee of America Executive
Director Aram Hamparian.
"There will always be those who deny the genocide," said Teague. "But
it legitimates that viewpoint if it becomes part of public-school
curriculum. "
As recently as two years ago, Vergin Mazmanian, then 100, a survivor of
the 1915 Armenian genocide, spoke to Wilmington High School students
about being rounded up by the Ottoman Army before daylight and forced
to begin a death march with only the clothes on their backs.
She told the students stories about hunger, suffering and watching
family members die.
Mazmanian never saw her home again.
From: A. Papazian
Lisa Redmond
Lowell Sun (Massachusetts)
January 26, 2011 Wednesday
LOWELL -- "An abomination" is how Pearl Teague describes a
Turkish-American group's attempt to use the nation's high court to
force public-school systems in Massachusetts to include a viewpoint
in the curriculum that denies there was an Armenian genocide after
World War I.
The court case drew attention because it brought into public classrooms
the controversial, historical debate over whether the deaths of about
1.5 million Armenians at the hands of Ottoman Turks could be labeled
a genocide.
But late last week, Armenians across the country and the approximately
7,000 Armenians in the Lowell area applauded a U.S. Supreme Court
ruling that refused to take up a case of the "contra-Armenian genocide"
viewpoint.
The Supreme Court declined to hear a First Amendment appeal in the
Massachusetts' case of Griswold versus Driscoll.
Theodore Griswold, a Lincoln-Sudbury High School student; his father,
Thomas Griswold, of Sudbury; William Schechter, a Lincoln-Sudbury
social-studies teacher; and Lawrence Aaronson, a social-studies
teacher at Cambridge Rindge & Latin, along with the Assembly of Turkish
American Associations, sued Massachusetts Commissioner of Education
David Driscoll in federal court for not allowing their standpoint in
statewide curriculum.
Teague, a spokeswoman for the Lowell-based Armenian National Committee
of Merrimack Valley, explained that the contra-genocide viewpoint
for Armenians is "tantamount to denying the Holocaust" for the Jews.
Joseph Dagdigian, a past chairman of ANC of Merrimack Valley, said
the lawsuit is just another attempt by those who deny there was
an Armenian genocide to "reach into American society and refuse to
acknowledge that this was a planned genocide."
Attorney Harvey Silverglate, one of the attorneys representing
Griswold, described the case on his website as "an important First
Amendment case involving censorship from school reference materials..."
The Turkish-American group maintains that the Muslim Turkish Ottoman
Empire did not commit "a policy" of genocide after World War I. While
not denying the tragedy, Silverglate wrote, his clients "dispute the
genocide label."
The plaintiffs filed a lawsuit in 2005 in U.S. District Court in
Boston alleging their First Amendment rights to learn, free from
discrimination, were violated by eliminating from public-school
materials viewpoints that suggest there was no genocide.
The First U.S. District Court of Appeals in August affirmed a
lower-court decision dismissing the lawsuit. When the high court
decided not to tackle the issue, it allowed the appeals-court decision
to stand.
"This victory, while certainly a serious setback to Turkey's campaign
of denial...will, just as surely, not mark the end of the concerted
and well-funded efforts by allies of Ankara to use our nation's great
freedoms to silence discussion of the Armenian genocide in America's
classrooms," said Armenian National Committee of America Executive
Director Aram Hamparian.
"There will always be those who deny the genocide," said Teague. "But
it legitimates that viewpoint if it becomes part of public-school
curriculum. "
As recently as two years ago, Vergin Mazmanian, then 100, a survivor of
the 1915 Armenian genocide, spoke to Wilmington High School students
about being rounded up by the Ottoman Army before daylight and forced
to begin a death march with only the clothes on their backs.
She told the students stories about hunger, suffering and watching
family members die.
Mazmanian never saw her home again.
From: A. Papazian