A Virginia resident is asking a Prince William County district court to order the state’s superintendent of public instruction to demonstrate how the Virginia Department of Education defines the term “genocide” in the state’s K-12 history curriculum.
Prince William resident Gene Sokolowski filed a FOIA lawsuit in his county district court, alleging that Superintendent of Public Instruction Jenna Conway of the Virginia Department of Education could not identify the source material supporting the definition used in statewide history and social science standards, designed to ensure students master key subjects before graduation.
Sokolowski, a Polish-American, alleges that the state’s history standards incorrectly define groups that can be targeted for genocide, diverging from the 1948 Genocide Convention.
According to the petition, Sokolowski requested on Feb. 8 all records that “identify, cite, reference, or describe the source for the definition of the four victim groups of genocide as ‘racial, political, religious, or cultural.’”
Sololowski expressed concern that students are being taught a version of history lacking an authoritative source and one that’s not aligned with international law.
“I submit that it’s an objective assessment that there’s a deliberate effort to avoid mentioning the Genocide Convention,” said Sokolowski.
The Genocide Convention was adopted by the United Nations in 1948 and defines genocide as an international crime that member nations must avoid and prosecute. The treaty was spurred by World War II and the Nazi’s mass slaughter of Jewish people during the Holocaust.
“Genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group,” the treaty reads, followed by a list of eligible acts, including killing and seriously harming members of the groups.
“One of the reasons, obviously, would be that if (the UN definition) were included in the curriculum, students would immediately see that it conflicts with the definition of the four victim groups that were previously included by the department. And, by the way, that has been in the standards since 2008.”
Under Virginia’s History and Social Science Standards of Learning, specifically World History and Geography II standard WHII.12a, students are directed to apply history and social science skills to explain global changes during the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Students must learn to identify modern-era genocides and crimes against humanity, including but not limited to Mao’s Cultural Revolution, the Stalin regime, atrocities in Armenia, Cambodia, Darfur, and Rwanda, Fidel Castro’s repressive authoritarianism in Cuba, and human rights abuses against China’s minority Uyghur population.
The teacher’s guide for this standard also states that The Holocaust “was an example of a genocide, a state-sponsored, systematic, and purposeful destruction of a racial, political, religious, or cultural group.”
After requesting a seven-day extension, the agency cited a cost estimate of $1,012 for the records Sololowski requested, which he paid.
On May 19, VDOE sent Sololowski 30 files labeled as “administrative materials such as rationale forms, public comments, meeting minutes, and other documents.”
Sololowski’s petition stated these documents were “unrelated” to the source of VDOE’s genocide definition or did not describe the source for VDOE’s victim group categories.
The petition also noted that VDOE did not produce the requested source record, did not invoke any FOIA exemption, nor did it state whether the record exists, as required by state law.
“VDOE did none of these,” Sokolowski wrote in the petition, “Instead, it produced a data dump of irrelevant documents, which does not satisfy FOIA.”
In a phone interview before his Aug. 11 hearing, Sokolowski explained that he tried to gain more transparency via FOIA after over four years of unsuccessful efforts to lobby state officials for curriculum corrections.
In 2023, after a lengthy process that faced criticism and required multiple revisions, the agency and the Board of Education adopted updated history standards. The instructional guides were added in 2025.
Sokolowski is asking the court to order VDOE to provide the record showing where it obtained its definition of genocide victim groups or officially confirm that no such record exists. He is also requesting that VDOE reimburse him $830 in FOIA fees and any other relief deemed appropriate.
The changed genocide definition has broader implications for educators and students, Sokolowski said.
“The teachers and students have been misled by this, and the point here is this is a fundamental misrepresentation. This is not a minor wording difference,” he added.
Tuesday’s hearing was continued until Sept. 8 because the Office of the Secretary of the Commonwealth, which handles service requests, has yet to respond to the service.
Sokolowski filed the request for service with Prince William General District Court, which sends out the services, on July 1. However, a clerk told Sokolowski that the service was not sent to the secretary’s office until July 27, and again on July 28 after it was returned.
The clerk, who spoke with Sokolowski on Tuesday, was unable to confirm whether the second attempt to serve the state secretary was successful.
Conway and the Virginia Department of Education did not respond to requests for comment on the case or Sokolowski’s FOIA.
