AB 1915 Summary

• Establishes the Armenian Genocide Education Act and defines the Armenian Genocide as the torture, starvation, and murder of 1,500,000 Armenians and exile of over 500,000 people from 1915-1923 by Ottoman Turkish Empire rulers.

• Amends Education Code Section 51220 to permit instruction in human rights issues to include particular attention to the study of the Armenian Genocide alongside genocide, slavery, and the Holocaust.

• Directs the State Department of Education to incorporate curriculum materials about the Armenian, Cambodian, Darfur, and Rwandan genocides into publications providing examples of curriculum resources for teachers.

• Requires the Instructional Quality Commission to consider including the Armenian, Cambodian, Darfur, and Rwandan genocides in the history-social science curriculum framework when it is revised.

• Encourages incorporation of survivor, rescuer, liberator, and witness oral testimony into teaching about human rights, genocide, and the Holocaust, including the Armenian and other named genocides, and encourages professional development activities to provide teachers with resources on these topics.