A statue of Vladimir Lenin near Weimar, Germany, is covered in graffiti in this 2009 picture. /Photo by Cuito Cuanavale /Flickr/CC BY 2.0
BY JEROD MACDONALD-EVOY|Arizona Mirror
High school students in Arizona will soon have to learn how communism and totalitarianism conflict with the American “principles of freedom and democracy” before they can graduate.
House Bill 2008, signed into law Friday by Gov. Doug Ducey, directs the State Board of Education to update its high school social studies academic standards to include a “comparative discussion of political ideologies, such as communism and totalitarianism, that conflict with the principals of freedom and democracy that are essential to the founding principles of the United States of America.”
The bill’s sponsor, Prescott Valley Republican Rep. Quang Nguyen, fled communist Vietnam as a child and cited his upbringing in the country as a major factor in pushing the change to high school curriculum.
