Illinois Code § 27-525

§ 27-525.

Holocaust and Genocide Study. (a) Every public elementary school and high school shall include in its curriculum a unit of instruction studying the events of the Nazi atrocities of 1933 to 1945. This period in world history is known as the Holocaust, during which 6,000,000 Jews and millions of non-Jews were exterminated. One of the universal lessons of the Holocaust is that national, ethnic, racial, or religious hatred can overtake any nation or society, leading to calamitous consequences. To reinforce that lesson, such curriculum shall include an additional unit of instruction studying other acts of genocide across the globe. This unit shall include, but not be limited to, the Native American genocide in North America, the Armenian Genocide, the Famine-Genocide in Ukraine, and more recent atrocities in Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda, and Sudan. The studying of this material is a reaffirmation of the commitment of free peoples from all nations to never again permit the occurrence of another Holocaust and a recognition that crimes of genocide continue to be perpetrated across the globe as they have been in the past and to deter indifference to crimes against humanity and human suffering wherever they may occur. (b) The State Superintendent of Education may prepare and make available to all school boards instructional materials which may be used as guidelines for development of a unit of instruction under this Section; provided, however, that each school board shall itself determine the minimum amount of instruction time which shall qualify as a unit of instruction satisfying the requirements of this Section. Instructional materials that include the addition of content related to the Native American genocide in North America shall be prepared and made available to all school boards on the State Board of Education's Internet website no later than July 1, 2024. Notwithstanding subsection (a) of this Section, a school is not required to teach the additional content related to the Native American genocide in North America until instructional materials are made available on the State Board's Internet website. Instructional materials related to the Native American genocide in North America shall be developed in consultation with members of the Chicago American Indian Community Collaborative who are members of a federally recognized tribe, are documented descendants of Indigenous communities, or are other persons recognized as contributing community members by the Chicago American Indian Community Collaborative and who currently reside in this State or their designees. (Source: P.A. 103-422, eff. 8-4-23; 103-564, eff. 11-17-23; 104-391, eff. 8-15-25.)