Title: Federal Judge Finds Racism Behind Arizona Law Banning Ethnic Studies : NPR Ed : NPR
Headings: Federal Judge Finds Racism Behind Arizona Law Banning Ethnic Studies
npr Ed
K-12
Federal Judge Finds Racism Behind Arizona Law Banning Ethnic Studies
Law
Arizona's Ethnic Studies Ban In Public Schools Goes To Trial
Ethnic Studies: A Movement Born Of A Ban
Movements and Counter-Movements
Myths and Truths
Impact
Waiting on a Verdict

Content: In 2010, Horne and Huppenthal passed HB 2281, prohibiting classes and materials that "promote the overthrow of the U.S. government," "resentment toward a race or class or people," or "ethnic solidarity." ( This happened soon after the passage of SB 1070, which gave local police the authority to question a person's citizenship.) There were other ethnic studies courses in Tucson that were not touched by the bill, Huppenthal says. He mentions African-American studies, for one. But the teachers of Mexican-American studies classes at Tucson High, Huppenthal says, were "indoctrinating students." "They were doing a very simplistic application of Karl Marx's dictum: All of history is the struggle between the 'oppressor' and the 'oppressed,' " Huppenthal says. " And they were going to identify whites as oppressors and Hispanics as the oppressed." Myths and Truths
"One of the things you would hear was that our classes were hateful. That we were teaching resentment," says Curtis Acosta, who piloted one of the Mexican-American studies classes that sparked the controversy in Arizona. "