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Ruling On Arizona Ethnic Studies Law Appealed

Ruling On Arizona Ethnic Studies Law Appealed
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By 

National Reporter, HuffPost

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Superintendent of Public Instruction John Huppenthal announces that the Tucson Unified School District violates state law by teaching it's Mexican American Studies Department's ethic studies program at a news conference at the Arizona Department of Education Wednesday, June 15, 2011, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

The Mexican American Studies curriculum banned from Tucson classrooms will have another day in court.

In March, a federal court largely upheld an Arizona state law used to shut down the controversial classes that conservative legislators accused of politicizing Latino students. As expected, students and parents suing Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction John Huppenthal and other state officials filed an appeal of the decision to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the Arizona Daily Star reported Thursday.

The appeal argues that when Huppenthal ordered the program to be shut down, he arbitrarily disregarded the input of Tucson school district officials, education experts and independent audit, violating the First and 14th amendments, according to the Arizona Daily Star.

Tucson’s dismantled Mexican American Studies curriculum drew praise from supporters for boosting student achievement in the majority-Latino school district.

But conservative politicians, led by then-State Sen. Huppenthal and then-Superintendent of Public Education Tom Horne accused the teachers of stirring resentment against whites -- an accusation the teachers deny.

Horne and Huppenthal led the effort to pass a 2010 law that banned from public schools courses that advocate the overthrow of the U.S. government, that foster racial resentment, or that are designed for students of a particular ethnicity.

A state-commissioned independent audit recommended the expansion of the Mexican American Studies program in 2011, citing its success in engaging students and fostering advanced critical thinking skills. Huppenthal disputed the audit and ordered the district to shut the Mexican American Studies program down or lose 10 percent of its state funding -- some $14 million over the fiscal year.

Tucson Unified School District complied in January of 2012. School administrators plucked seven titles -- all but one by Latino authors -- from the city’s classrooms and prohibited them from instruction. The books remained off limits until the school board voted 3 to 2 to un-ban them last month.

Former teachers of the suspended classes challenged the constitutionality of Arizona’s ethnic studies law in court, saying it was overly broad, vague and discriminatory. But federal judge Wallace Tashima upheld the law in a March ruling, striking down only the provision that classes cannot be designed for students of a particular ethnicity.

“I was really surprised at the decision,” Jose Gonzalez, a former teacher of Tucson's suspended Mexican-American Studies classes, told The Huffington Post in March. “But as a student and teacher of history, I know in civil rights cases like this there’s always setbacks.”

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Before You Go

Latino Books Once Banned In Arizona
Occupied America: A History of Chicanos, by Rodolfo Acuña(01 of07)
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The most successful book written by professor Rodolfo Acuña, "Occupied America" represents all that Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne opposed in the Mexican-American Studies program when he launched the attack against it. Horne viewed the curriculum as separatist and ethnically divisive. HB 2281, the law used to ban TUSD's Mexican American Studies program, prohibits courses that "promote the overthrow of the United States government" or "are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group." "These people think you're a separatist if you want to teach and include people," Acuña told the Los Angeles Times in 2011. "I don't want to be part of Mexico ... That's a stupid thing to argue." (credit:Pearson)
500 Years of Chicano History in Pictures, compiled by Elizabeth Martinez(02 of07)
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This compilation tells the story of Chicano history from before the European conquest of North America, through colonization and into the present day. The book describes the Southwest as "Occupied America" -- a term that Arizona conservatives often view as unjust and disparaging. Actor Edward James Olmos felt differently: "If young people read this book, they will be strong and proud in new ways," he said on the dust jacket to the 1990 edition. "It's a real education, in the true sense of that word." (credit:Southwest Community Resources)
Pedagogy of the Oppressed, by Paulo Freire(03 of07)
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This seminal work by Brazilian education professor Paulo Freire argued that students learn best when treated as equals and engaged on their own terms. Freire argues against the "banking model" of education, in which teachers treat students as passive recipients of knowledge. His work is studied by education specialists throughout the hemisphere.In a 2012 interview, Arizona Superintendent of Education John Huppenthal explained why he viewed the book as problematic:
The title of Paulo Freire's book is 'Pedagogy of the Oppressed,' and so the question is, who is the oppressed? And as we looked at what was going on in the classroom and looked at what was in the materials, we saw they were putting together a Marxian model in the classroom in which the oppressed are the Hispanic students and the oppressors are the white Caucasian power structure. We came to the conclusion that it wasn't O.K. to be preaching that model in the classroom.
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Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years, by Bill Bigelow(04 of07)
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A collection of essays, interviews, lesson plans and other materials, Rethinking Columbus aims to change the way students understand the first interactions between the indigenous peoples of the Americas and the Europeans. One contributing author, Tucson's own Leslie Silko, boasts a Native Writers' Circle of the Americas Lifetime Achievement Award and a MacArthur Foundation genius grant. (credit:Rethinking Schools Ltd.)
Critical Race Theory, by Richard Delgado(05 of07)
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The academic field of critical race theory challenges traditional ways of looking at race and racism. The field's theoreticians argue that supposedly neutral concepts and institutions, like meritocracy or the legal system, mask systemic inequality and institutionalized racism. Richard Delgado's books is one of the discipline's classics. Some conservatives view critical race theory as "dangerous" because some of its proponents view the Constitution and the fabric of American democracy as imbued with racism. During the course of several interviews in 2012, Julio Cammarota, a professor of Mexican American Studies at the University of Arizona, "You can see the problem, can't you? One side doesn't want to talk about race, the other side wants to talk about race all the time." (credit:NYU Press)
Message to Aztlán: Selected Writings of Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzalez(06 of07)
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The term "Aztlán" refers to the mythic homeland of the Nahua of Central Mexico. Intellectuals of the Chicano movement adopted the term to describe the southwestern United States. Mexican-American Studies teachers at Tucson Unified School District taught those concepts with books like this one, by Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzalez, a writer and political activist who helped found the Chicano Movement in the 1960s. (credit:Arte Publico Press)
Chicano! The History of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement, by Arturo Rosales(07 of07)
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This well-regarded study of the Chicano movement serves as a companion to the 1996 PBS documentary of the same name. (credit:Arte Publico Press)
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