About the Center

Legislature

• Assembly Bill 2003 Chapter 702 (Koretz: The Holocaust and genocide) was passed by the California State Assembly and Senate and signed by former Governor Gray Davis in October 2002. The law took affect in January of 2003. It created both the California Center for Excellence on the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, Human Rights and Tolerance and the California Taskforce on Holocaust, Genocide, Human Rights, and Tolerance Education. The bill charges the Center and the Taskforce with the training of California’s 25,000 to 45,000 history and social science teachers and 20,000 to 40,000 language arts teachers on genocide, human rights and tolerance so that these topics can be covered more widely and more effectively in the classroom. The Center provides workshops and other support to teachers for the genocides and human rights violations mentioned in the Social Science and Language Arts Frameworks, including 20th century genocides like the Armenian Genocide, the Soviet Genocide, the Holocaust, the Cambodian Genocide, and the Genocide in Rwanda. The Center also covers human rights violations in the United States against Native Americans and African Americans.
• Assembly Bill 1175 (Koretz), passed by the State Legislature and signed by the Governor in 2004, extended the life of the State of California Center for Excellence on the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, Human Rights, and Tolerance until 2007.