By Stewart Ain January 10, 2022

At a hearing on his bill to ban teaching on “divisive ideologies,” an Indiana state senator last week said teachers should be impartial in the classroom — even when teaching about Nazism or fascism.

“I have no problem with the education system providing instruction on the existence of those isms,” said Republican Scott Baldwin. “I believe that we’ve gone too far when we take a position on those isms … We need to be impartial.”

Teachers should “just provide the facts,” he added. “I’m not sure it’s right for us to determine how that child should think, and that’s where I’m trying to provide the guardrails.”

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

During that same hearing, history teacher Matt Bockenfeld said neutrality is not called for when the subject is fascism or Nazism: “We condemn it, and we condemn it in full, and I tell my students the purpose, in a democracy, is understanding the traits of fascism so that we can recognize it and we can combat it.” He continued: “We’re not neutral on Nazism. We take a stand in the classroom against it, and it matters that we do.”

Get the Forward delivered to your inbox. Sign up here to receive our essential morning briefing of American Jewish news and conversation, the afternoon’s top headlines and best reads, and a weekly letter from our editor-in-chief.

The controversy follows a similar one in North Texas, where a school administrator in October apologized after announcing that teachers had to present “opposing” views on “currently controversial” topics, including the Holocaust.

Baldwin has since backtracked on his remarks, which outraged many educators and members of the Jewish community. In an email to the Indianapolis Star the day after the hearing, he sought to clarify that the bill was to ensure teachers were impartial when discussing “legitimate political groups.”

“When I was drafting this bill, my intent with regard to ‘political affiliation’ was to cover political parties within the legal American system,” he wrote. “In my comments during this committee, I was thinking more about the big picture and trying to say that we should not tell kids what to think about politics.”

But the Midwest division of the Anti-Defamation League said Baldwin’s apology was insufficient. “There’s nothing neutral about Nazism,” it said in a statement. “The Nazis were responsible for the death of more than 11 million innocent people including 6 million Jews. Sen. Baldwin’s apology doesn’t change the deep harms of using ‘impartiality’ or ‘neutrality’ as tools to sanitize history.”

Baldwin’s bill is part of an ongoing debate about the role of parents in public education that focuses in part on critical race theory. Although not taught in K-12 schools, the theory has become a catch-all term for teaching on race and racism in American history and culture. Many conservative parents argue that it stigmatizes white students and paints American history with too negative a brush, while most educators say students must learn how racism has shaped the country and its people.

Baldwin’s bill would require schools to give parents a formal way to weigh in on curricula.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

$90 $180

$360

Other amount