No First Amendment Problem With Excluding Turkey-Friendly Materials from an Armenian Genocide Curriculum:

An eminently predictable result under current First Amendment law (Griswold v. Driscoll, D. Mass., June 10, 2009), but still worth noting, I think, for the clear First Amendment defense of leaving curricula to the political process (in the second to last paragraph of the excerpt below):

It appears that reference to the contra-genocide websites was added to the Curriculum Guide because of concerns expressed by the Turkish community. Viewed in the light most favorable to plaintiffs for the purpose of deciding the motion to dismiss, the court assumes that those references were later removed in response to "political pressure" that the Armenian community put on elected and appointed officials. This, however, is not unlawful.

Politics is not a pejorative term in our nation. Properly understood, politics is the essence of democracy. It is the way that a free and vigorous people make and then change public policy. With regard to what will be taught in public school classrooms, we rely on the power of the people to elect and, if they wish, change their representatives as the means to hold them accountable for decisions concerning the content of the curriculum. Except in limited circumstances not at issue here, this is not a role to be performed by United States judges in our federal form of government.

The facts of this case demonstrate that the plaintiffs and those who share their viewpoint concerning Armenians in the Ottoman Empire are fully capable of participating in the political process. It is in the political arena that they must seek the relief to which they are not entitled in federal court.