In March 2024, a proposal to revise Maine’s science standards was rejected by both the House of Representatives and the Senate. The rejection followed a unanimous recommendation from the House Committee on Education and Cultural Affairs, which had previously issued a recommendation against the proposed changes.
The revisions aimed to include teaching about genocide, eugenics, and the Holocaust in middle school standards related to evolution and heredity. The proposal suggested that misinterpretations of fossil observations and ideas of natural selection had led to false beliefs about human hierarchies and racial inequality. These misconceptions were said to have contributed to atrocities such as the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide, and the mistreatment of indigenous people in Maine.
In December 2023, a spokesperson for the Maine Department of Education explained that the proposed revisions were mandated by a new law requiring the incorporation of African American studies, Maine Native American history, and the history of genocide in instruction. However, this law did not specify which subjects or grades these topics should be taught in.
Various groups and individuals raised concerns about the proposed revisions, including the Maine Science Teachers Association and academics like Alison Riley Miller of Bowdoin College and Joseph L. Graves Jr., a member of NCSE’s board of directors. These critics suggested that civics and social studies programs may be more suitable for teaching these topics than science standards.
