Quiet teen steps into tempest

A Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School senior described by friends and teachers as a sweet, shy, ''string bean of a guy," has become an unlikely partisan in the latest salvo in a decades-old tragedy that left more than 1 million Armenians dead.

Last month, 17-year-old Ted Griswold of Sudbury joined a controversial lawsuit against the Massachusetts Department of Education over its curriculum on the Armenian genocide.

The suit alleges that education officials violated the free speech and due process rights of the state's students by eliminating teaching material that challenged whether the massacre of more than 1 million Armenians by Turks during World War I was actually a deliberate attempt to destroy a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group.

The Turkish government has long rejected the genocide label, saying the killing of Armenians was not a result of a state-sponsored plan of mass extermination.

But Massachusetts students are not necessarily hearing all viewpoints about the deaths. In 1998, the Massachusetts Legislature passed a bill requiring state education officials to create guidelines for a high school curriculum on genocide and human rights. But dissenting views from Turkish groups and a small group of historians were removed after the bill's sponsor, Senator Steven A. Tolman, a Brighton Democrat, sent a letter of protest to state education officials. Tolman has defended his action, saying the massacre was clearly a genocide, and that definition should not be questioned.

A Lincoln-Sudbury history teacher, Bill Schechter, asked Griswold (as they needed a student) if he wanted to join the suit as a plaintiff alongside the Assembly of Turkish American Associations in the case when it was filed in US District Court in Boston.

After talking the issue over with friends who had studied the massacre, Griswold concluded that students should have the opportunity to hear dissenting views and make up their own minds about what happened.

''It's censorship if the government removes one perspective of a controversial historic event," he said. The case doesn't concern what happened more than 80 years ago, but whether the state should eliminate information from the curriculum because one legislator places a call, he said.

When a photo was taken of the teacher-student team last week to accompany news accounts about the lawsuit, ''I think it was the first time I hadn't smiled in a picture," Griswold said.

He and Schechter thought it would be inappropriate to smile in the photo because of the serious nature of the lawsuit.

Ted's father, Tom Griswold, a software salesman, said he was at first skeptical about his son joining the suit. Why argue about what so many historians have come to believe -- that the massacre was genocide?

But Ted argued that the state should not decide to eliminate teaching materials for political reasons.

Anthony Barsamian, chairman of the Washington, D.C.-based Armenian Assembly of America, said he encourages critical thinking about history, but said historical records have established that this was genocide.

The International Center for Transitional Justice concluded in 2003 that the Armenian massacres fit the definition of genocide set by a 1948 United Nations convention.

''I think it's good that students look at what brought about these events in history, but the truth has to be taught," Barsamian said.

Griswold has plenty of noncontroversial teenage interests. He was a founding member of the school's rugby club, edits the school newspaper, and plays bass guitar in a band that plays rhythm, ska, and blues.

But politics and social justice issues are also priorities, he said.

Griswold said his interest in politics bloomed in the ninth grade when he began watching Bill O'Reilly on Fox news. When O'Reilly argued with the American Civil Liberties Union, Griswold found he always agreed with the ACLU's stance.

Griswold read Ayn Rand's ''The Fountainhead," then delved into philosophy, developing a taste for John Locke, who opposed authoritarianism, and Friedrich Nietzsche, who challenged traditional morality.

He has volunteered with the nonprofit Boston Youth Organizing Project, protesting cuts in youth employment.

During his sophomore year, he founded a chapter of the ACLU at Lincoln-Sudbury, one of only two chapters active in Massachusetts schools.

The group presented a resolution at Town Meeting denouncing the USA Patriot Act, which the town passed.

Last year, while Griswold and his friend, Gerald McElroy, worked late nights putting out the school paper, The Forum, they often engaged in political banter that attracted the attention of the school's night janitor.

It was always Griswold, the opinion page editor, who managed to sway the custodian with his persuasive arguments, said McElroy, now a freshman at Yale University.

''It feels like he's been thinking about these issues for decades," he said.

Even discussing the most political of topics, Griswold somehow manages not to lose his cool, friends said.

''I am emotional about it, but I realize the value of the discussion, so I am not going to hold anything against anyone or let it ruin a friendship," he said.

Griswold held summer internships at two law firms specializing in criminal defense and said he is considering a career as a judge. He is thinking about studying philosophy or political science.

For now, he is working on college applications -- he just applied early decision to Yale -- and keeping an eye on how his lawsuit fares in court.

He wonders what the long-term impacts will be for future history students.

''I hope that we win the case," he said.