New York state Democrats proposed a bill in January that would require all students over the age of eight to learn about the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
Introduced by Assemblymembers Charles Lavine, Deborah Glick and Tony Simone, bill A3966 would amend the state’s education law to mandate lessons on the event in all K-12 schools, appearing alongside lessons on slavery and the Holocaust in the bill’s text.
The lessons are meant “to promote a spirit of patriotic and civic service and obligation and to foster in the children of the state moral and intellectual qualities which are essential in preparing to meet the obligations of citizenship in peace or in war,” the bill’s text states. The courses are considered to be “instruction in patriotism, citizenship, civic education and values, our shared history of diversity, the role of religious tolerance in this country, and human rights issues.”
“Not since the War of 1812, when British forces set fire to the Capitol, have the halls of power in Washington been overtaken by violent intruders as they were on Jan. 6,” Lavine said, according to the Long Island Press. “Our students, in order to be able to protect, maintain and advance American democracy, must know what happened on that day and must be aware of those events in order to protect American democracy.”
The legislation was announced shortly after President Donald Trump pardoned around 1,500 Jan. 6 protesters, calling the prosecution of the demonstrators “outrageous.”
Over 6 million Jews were murdered during the Holocaust and around 10 million people were enslaved in the United Stated throughout the nation’s history. Only one person, Trump supporter Ashli Babbitt, died as a direct result of the Jan. 6 riot after she was fatally shot by law enforcement.
The Supreme Court in 2024, found that the Biden administration’s Department of Justice abused its power in prosecuting many individuals for their involvement in the riot. Some Democrats attempted to block Trump from appearing on the 2024 election ballot due to what they consider his role in inciting the “insurrection.”
Trump was impeached by mostly Democrats for the second time following the events at the Capitol, and later Democrats launched a select committee to investigate the incident. Trump has since worked to clear out FBI officials who assisted in the Jan. 6 investigations.
Schools that do not comply with the law would risk having their funding revoked, the bill states.
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