Tucson, Arizona’s 13-year-old Mexican-American studies program has been deemed illegal by an administrative law judge who ruled that it violated a new state law designed to eliminate ethnic studies in public schools.

 

In issuing his decision, Judge Lewis D. Kowal found that the Tucson program promoted “social or political activism against the white people.” Specifically it included at least one class that 1) promoted “racial resentment” 2) was “designed primarily for one ethnic group” and 3) advocated “ethnic solidarity instead of treating pupils as individuals.”

 

Kowal’s ruling called particular attention to one high school teacher, Curtis Acosta, who taught Latino Leterature. Witness Mark Stegeman, president of the school district’s governing board, testified that “Mr. Acosta engaged in a ‘hard sell’ to encourage students to attend a Cesar Chavez march.” Stegeman described the class as “a cult, “pure political proselytizing” and “a political rally.” Acosta, who is half-Swedish and does not speak Spanish, has said, “I pick the literature to be provocative and it has to be beautiful”

 

The ruling represented a victory for former Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne, now state attorney general, who campaigned to do away with all educational classes emphasizing ethnic identity.

 

Tucson’s school district must now decide whether to shut down the program or risk losing millions of dollars in state aid for education.

-David Wallechinsky, Noel Brinkerhoff

 

Latino Studies Program Is Too Divisive for Ariz. (by Tim Hull, Courthouse News Service)

TUSD's Ethnic Studies Found in Violation Anew (by Alexis Huicochea, Arizona Daily Star)

Ethnic Studies Now Banned in Arizona (by Noel Brinkerhoff and David Wallechinsky, AllGov)