Tomorrow's
New York Times has a front page story about the Arizona ethnic studies ban, "
Rift in Arizona as Latino Class Is Found Illegal." This passage in the beginning disturbed me: "Although open to any student at Tucson High Magnet School...Curtis Acosta’s Latino literature class...and others in the Tucson Unified School District’s Mexican-American program have been declared illegal by the State of Arizona — even while similar programs for black, Asian and American Indian students have been left untouched."
WHAT? So it's OK to have African-American studies. OK to have US History (or "white studies" as bigots say). OK to have Native American studies. Asian-American studies are cool too. But no Latino studies?
Oh, the article also notes that Arizona "includes some Mexican-American studies in its official curriculum" yet "sees the classes as less about educating students than creating future activists." Gee, I wonder why Arizona won't straight up cross out the Mexican-American study requirement. Because those legislators know damn well that they'll get thrown out of office and get bankrupted by million-dollar lawyers who'll wave the 14th Amendment to their faces by doing that and instead decided on a covert method to subvert Arizona's official curriculum? (And I await the NY Times' corrections footnote regarding this claim.)
Mr. (Sr.?) Acosta and other teachers are challenging this law, and the school district says that these types of courses enrich students and encourage them to do better in school:
John Huppenthal, a former state senator who took over as Arizona’s schools chief, said he supported Mr. Horne’s 11th-hour ruling. Mr. Huppenthal sat in on one of the Tucson classes taught by Mr. Acosta, and said that Benjamin Franklin was vilified as a racist and a photo of Che Guevara was hanging on the wall. Besides that, he said, Tucson’s test scores are among the lowest in the state, indicating that the district needs to focus on the fundamentals.
Officials here say those enrolled in the program do better on state tests than those of the same ethnicity who are not enrolled.
The battle means that Tucson, a struggling urban district, stands to lose nearly $15 million in an already difficult budget environment. So far, the school board has stood by the program, declaring that it considers it to be in compliance with the law.
If financing were pulled, the district would have an opportunity to appeal, and school officials were already talking about the possibility of the matter ending up in court. Meanwhile, 11 teachers, including Mr. Acosta, have filed suit in federal court challenging the constitutionality of the state restrictions.
Benjamin Franklin racist? I Googled that and found this
CBS News Sunday Morning story from 2002 profiling a historian who claims that Franklin
wanted to "keep America white." Franklin was also an ex-slaveowner who became leader of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, according to Wikipedia.
A closer look at what the Arizona bosses dislike about the Mexican American classes:
To buttress his critique of the Tucson program, Mr. Horne read from texts used in various classes, which in one instance referred to white people as “gringos” and described privilege as being related to the color of a person’s skin, hair and eyes. He also cited the testimony of five teachers who described the program as giving a skewed view of history and promoting racial discord.
“On the first day of school, they are no different than students in any other classes,” said John Ward, who briefly taught a Latino history class in Tucson. “But once they get told day after day that they are being victimized, they become angry and resentful.”
The equality director at Tucson schools nails it here:
Augustine F. Romero, director of student equity in the Tucson schools, said the program was intended to make students proud of who they are and not hostile toward others. “All of our forefathers have contributed to this country, not just one set of forefathers,” he said. “We respect and admire and appreciate the traditional forefathers, but there are others.”
The debate over the program’s future, Mr. Romero said, proves more than ever the need for the program. “There’s a fierce anti-Latino sentiment in this state,” he said. “These courses are about justice and equity, and what is happening is that the Legislature is trying to narrow the reality of those things.
With SB1070 and a sensible law that's instead being used to single out one set of ethnic studies courses, it's hard to believe that the law is being equally applied isn't it?
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