Colorado Senate Bill SB123

Colorado 2025 Regular Session

• Introduced: 2/4/25
• Refer: 2/4/25
• Failed: 4/28/25

Caption

Education Curriculum on Genocide Against Native Americans

Summary

SB123 would expand Colorado’s Holocaust and genocide studies requirements in public schools to explicitly include genocide against Native Americans, the Sand Creek Massacre and other massacres, and Native American residential and boarding schools. The bill amends the statutory definition of “Holocaust and genocide studies” and updates related provisions governing state standards and the statewide resource bank used by schools to teach the subject. The measure also directs the State Board of Education to adopt standards identifying the knowledge and skills students must learn about these topics and requires the Department of Education’s resource bank to include materials and case studies on them. For the new Native American-related content, the bill requires consultation with affected Native American communities, including the Southern Ute and Ute Mountain Ute Tribes.

Impact

If enacted, SB123 would revise sections of Colorado law governing Holocaust and genocide education, specifically C.R.S. 22-1-104.7, 22-2-127.3, and 22-7-1005. It would add Native American genocide, the Sand Creek Massacre and other massacres, and Native American boarding/residential schools to the list of required genocide studies topics, and it would require corresponding standards and instructional resources to be developed and made available to schools and the public. The bill would affect the State Board of Education, the Department of Education, school districts, charter schools, and BOCES by expanding curriculum obligations and resource-bank content.

Sentiment

The bill appears to have been framed positively by its sponsor and supporters as a corrective measure that recognizes historical harms to Native Americans and ensures those events are taught in public schools. The available vote history shows the Senate Education Committee voted 5-0 to postpone the bill indefinitely, indicating that while the subject matter may have had support in principle, the bill did not advance out of committee. No committee transcript is available, so the record reflects procedural opposition or lack of consensus rather than detailed debate.

Contention

The main point of contention is likely whether Colorado’s Holocaust and genocide studies statute should be expanded to include Native American genocide and related events, and whether those topics should be treated as genocide within the school curriculum. Another likely issue is implementation: the bill imposes new standards-development and resource-bank obligations, and it requires consultation with specific tribes, which may raise questions about scope, timing, and who should define the instructional content. The unanimous committee vote to postpone indefinitely suggests that concerns were sufficient to stop the bill despite the absence of recorded debate.