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Jordan April and Archer Shurtliff, both seniors in Oswego County high schools, want a teacher to stop assigning an argumentative essay that asks some students to justify the Holocaust.

(Julie McMahon | jmcmahon@syracuse.com)

OSWEGO, N.Y. -- Archer Shurtliff and Jordan April, both 17, felt "weird" when in February they received an assignment asking students to argue for the extermination of Jewish people.

The words "TOP SECRET" were stamped across the top in red. The "memorandum," first posted online and addressed to senior Nazi party members, asked students to put themselves in the shoes of Adolf Hitler's top aides.

Archer and Jordan, who are not Jewish, wondered if they understood the assignment correctly. Did their teacher, Michael DeNobile, really mean for his students to argue in favor of the "Final Solution," the Nazis' justification for genocide?

During class the next day, DeNobile randomly assigned half the students to argue for, and half to argue against the extermination of Jews. Archer was assigned to be in favor of the Final Solution, and Jordan was picked to be against.

The students were "disturbed" by the assignment, which they viewed as encouraging anti-Semitism and fascist speech.

The assignment itself notes that the point is "not for you to be sympathetic to the Nazi point of view."

"Ultimately, this is an exercise on expanding your point of view by going outside your comfort zone and training your brain to logistically find the evidence necessary to prove a point, even if it is existentially and philosophically against what you believe," the assignment says.

Yet the assignment did create an atmosphere where one student seemed OK with making a Nazi salute, Jordan and Archer said.

Jordan overheard a classmate say he wished he'd been assigned to argue "for." According to Jordan, when she asked the student why, he said, "because Heil Hitler, duh."

The Oswego County high school seniors, Archer from Central Square and Jordan from Hannibal, said they received the assignment in "Principles of Literary Representation."

The course was offered through the countywide CiTi / BOCES New Vision program. The program allows students to specialize in fields such as health, business or law. They take college-level classes on SUNY Oswego's campus three days a week and spend two days a week at internships. Jordan and Archer are in the program's law and government track.

The students brought their concerns over the assignment to DeNobile, administrators in the New Vision program and educators at their home schools.

The classroom assignment took them on a mission: To make sure no other student would be asked to argue in favor of killing Jews again.

They carefully documented each meeting and conversation with their teachers. They researched other cases, including one in which a teacher was disciplined.

They came up with dozens of alternate assignments and materials that didn't force kids to argue on behalf of mass killings. They contacted the Anti-Defamation League, which advocates for Jews.

Within a few days, an alternative assignment was offered. Jordan wrote about America's AIDS crisis and response. Archer wrote about the internment of Japanese-Americans and compensation paid to survivors.

The students said they weren't satisfied with the administration's response.

They are calling for an apology, for the program to retract the assignment completely, and agree to never give it again.

They said they contacted the ADL and a reporter because they love the New Vision program. They don't want it to be tarnished by "an assignment advocating for the death of Jewish people," Jordan said.

According to the students, many other kids in the class chose to continue with the original assignment, and administrators refused to retract the assignment or apologize for it.

DeNobile did not respond to phone and email requests for comment. A man who answered his listed work phone number refused to identify himself, said DeNobile was not available and hung up on a reporter.

Another official referred questions to Roseann Bayne, CiTi's assistant superintendent for instruction, who declined to comment.

CiTi superintendent Christopher Todd wouldn't take questions, but provided a statement through a spokeswoman:

"We embrace creativity and respect, and all of the students in the class were offered an alternative project of their choosing, three of which took advantage of that opportunity and completed the assignment successfully."

According to the students, DeNobile and administrators stood by the assignment. The students said they were told the essay was a lesson in having to do things you don't like, and in seeing the other side of an argument.

The students argued that there are plenty of other subjects that are considered controversial today that could have been debated in place of the "Final Solution."

"It's settled opinion," Archer said. "You can't say that Jews deserve to die. It should be a settled thing."

Jordan and Archer also argue there are better ways to teach students about the Holocaust.

Jordan, for example, referenced an academic trip she took to Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic, during which she visited concentration camps with a Jewish teacher.

"To literally stand in the effects of the Holocaust and see what it has done, and the fact that there are still extremely anti-Semitic protests going on in places like France, and now, with all of the Jewish community centers getting bomb threats and Jewish cemeteries getting vandalized ... it's especially -- in this atmosphere -- it should not be an assignment given in an educational setting."

According to the students, there were no Jewish students in the class this year.

In their view, the assignment is still wrong. They pointed out that the Holocaust also targeted Slavs, Roma people, homosexuals, Jehoveh's Witnesses and other groups.

Anti-Defamation League Education Director Beth Martinez wrote to the New Vision administrators, calling the assignment "deeply troubling."

"There is no assignment that could ever be given to students that even hints at their [sic] being 'two sides' to the 'Final Solution' / Holocaust that would be pedagogically or morally sound, and we are very disturbed that students are reportedly being asked to be a part of this," Martinez wrote.

Martinez said she received an email response from Bayne, the administrator, who said the assignment was still offered in the class along with an alternative.

Martinez said she offered resources compiled by the ADL, including culturally sensitive curriculum and materials for teaching the Holocaust.

She also said the ADL offers training for teachers, and has grants available to make it affordable.

According to Martinez, Bayne said CiTi / BOCES would address the matter internally.

Martinez said that assignments similar to DeNobile's have come up occasionally in recent years, especially since the Common Core learning standards push teachers to develop assignments that have students argue from a perspective with which they don't agree.

A similar assignment was given at Albany High School in 2013.

Its wording went even further, asking students to "argue that Jews are evil" and "the source of our problems."

The superintendent at the time acknowledged that the teacher's intent was not to be malicious, but said the teacher faced disciplinary action and possible termination.

"Obviously, we have a severe lack of judgment and a horrible level of insensitivity," then-superintendent Marguerite Vanden Wyngaard told The New York Times.

For their part, the Oswego County students are not calling for their teacher to be fired.

"Our teacher is not an inherently bad person," Archer said. "He just made a mistake and will not apologize for it."

Final Solution homework assignment by Julie McMahon on Scribd

Reporter Julie McMahon covers education. She can be reached anytime: Email | Twitter | 315-412-1992