Letter to the ACLU of Massachusetts

A Plaintiff’s Statement to the ACLU Legal Committee*

Griswold v. Driscoll

As a plaintiff in the Griswold Case, I would like to add my voice to those of my legal team who are present tonight to ask for your support as we move forward through our case.

I am not a lawyer, so there will no doubt be nuances in your deliberations with which I am not familiar. I am a history teacher, completing my 32nd and final year at Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School.

I did not come to this case with a firm position on the so-called Armenian Genocide. I remain uncertain about the historical arguments that divide Armenians and the Turks, as well as scholars of many nationalities. I have become convinced that there are reputable scholars on both sides of the question, albeit not evenly divided.

I did come to this case with a long-standing and deep concern about the dangers of increased state control over history curricula in an age of high stakes, standardized testing. In the past, repressive governments have sought to control their populations not only by manipulating news about current events, but by imposing upon them an "official" version of the past. History, of course, helps to grind the lens through which we perceive the present.

We base our case on the Pico Decision of 1982, updated to an Internet age where web sites serve as a new kind of library for students (Indeed, these sites may be supplanting the "old" libraries). It may be that some of you disagree that the facts of our case do fit Pico or fit it strongly enough.

I would like to address the following comments to those with honest doubts.

If you disagree, then please forget Pico and just consider: that a non-mandatory state curriculum guide was compiled and approved in the prescribed manner; that a state legislator, representing many Armenian taxpayers, intervened and pressured the DOE to excise a portion of the guide that listed resources congenial to another group of taxpayers; that the state senator defended his actions by claiming that the Great and General Court had already legislated historical truth in a controversy that continues to be debated among reputable historians.

Some students in my school learn about the Armenian Genocide from teachers who sincerely believe there is only one side to this dispute. I defend the academic freedom of my colleagues to teach the material in this manner. But students should have a right, in libraries and on government Internet sites, to find resources that provide them with alternative views. Or, at least they should have a right not to have resources in libraries and on official sites removed, excised, or censored for partisan reasons once professional educators have made a judgment to place them there.

What is at stake in this case–and this goes beyond even such an important matter as a disputed genocide–is freedom of speech and what Justice Brennan described as the "right to receive information," without which speech itself becomes irrelevant.

I do not want my history cherry-picked by politicians who believe their constituents possess the truth. I don’t want the censorship of controversial but plausible views. What begins with non-mandatory materials will migrate soon enough to mandatory materials if it hasn’t already, and only the former can help to compensate for the latter.

If some of you are concerned with the strength of precedent in this case, please go out and establish a new precedent that broadens Pico, if that is what is required. There’s a lot at stake: Free speech. Free thought. Freedom of Inquiry. Right to Receive Information. History that remains the province of historians seeking truth rather than politicians seeking votes.

ACLU, I ask for your support because important rights are at stake –actually, the rights of all, those of students and scholars, and those of all Americans, including Turkish-Americans and Armenian-Americans.

Bill Schechter

76 Brook St.

Brookline, MA 02445

April 5, 2006

*The online version of this letter has been slightly modified from the original letter.