Existing law requires the adopted course of study for grades 1 to 6, inclusive, and for grades 7 to 12, inclusive, to offer courses in specified areas of study, including social sciences. Existing law requires the instruction in social sciences, for grades 7 to 12, inclusive, to provide instruction in, among other things, human rights issues, with particular attention to the study of the inhumanity of genocide, slavery, and the Holocaust, and contemporary issues.

Existing law encourages the State Department of Education to incorporate into publications that provide examples of curriculum resources materials that are age appropriate and consistent with the subject frameworks on history and social science that deal with specified genocides. Existing law states that the Legislature encourages the incorporation of survivor, rescuer, liberator, and witness oral testimony into the teaching of human rights, the Holocaust, and genocide, as specified, and encourages professional development activities to provide teachers with content background and resources to assist in teaching about civil rights, human rights violations, genocide, slavery, the Armenian Genocide, and the Holocaust.

This bill would, for purposes of encouraging the incorporation of survivor and witness testimony into the teaching of human rights, include the unconstitutional deportation to Mexico during the Great Depression of citizens and lawful permanent residents of the United States within the definition of human rights. The bill would encourage professional development activities to provide teachers with content background and resources to assist in teaching about that deportation. The bill would require the State Board of Education to consider providing for the inclusion of the study of that deportation when the curriculum frameworks for history-social science are revised on or after January 1, 2016.