Arizona Superintendent Uses 'I Have a Dream' Speech To Justify Ethnic Studies Ban; Students Fight Back

Less than a month after Arizona's so-called "Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act" made racial profiling the law of the land, Governor Jan Brewer signed a new law this week that targets Latinos and other minorities, not on the streets but in the classroom. HB 2281 bans ethnic studies in the state's public and charter schools, an attempt to dissolve the Mexican American Studies Department in the Tuscon Unified School District (TUSD), and a move that puts African American studies, Pan-Asian studies, and Native American studies in the crosshairs. Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne, a former lawyer who is running for state attorney general, has been waging war against the ethnic studies department for years, describing it as "promoting ethnic chauvinism."

"It's just like the old South, and it's long past time that we prohibited it," Horne said this week, even as media outlets reported that Arizona schools are being directed by his office to purge English teachers who speak with an accent.

Sean Arce, Director of the Mexican American Studies Department in Tuscon told AlterNet that the new law is all part of a political agenda that is creating a "toxic environment in Arizona, specifically geared at Latinos."

"I think [supporters of the law] have really been emboldened by the other anti-Latino, anti-immigrant legislation," he says, "and, also, I believe Tom Horne is using this as an anti-Latino platform to get elected to the attorney general's office."

Arizona's law, which was partly written by Superintendent Horne, makes it illegal for a school district to provide any classes that "promote the overthrow of the United States government," "promote resentment toward a race or class of people," "advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals," and which "are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group." Arce and his ethnic studies colleagues argue that this is a complete distortion of their program -- a program Arce vows will not going away anytime soon.

"We're going to continue to do what we have been doing, because we know that those four major provisions in the bill are absurd," he says. "For example, promoting the overthrow of the American government -- that's ridiculous, we don't do any of those things." (Indeed, as noted by Politico this week, "neither the governor nor the bill's supporters have identified examples where a Chicano studies class has advocated the 'overthrow' of the federal government.")

Instead, Arce says, the 12-year-old program has bolstered academic achievement by Latino students, lowered the dropout rate, and enhanced the college matriculation rate.

"Unfortunately, some fear an educated Latino population," Arce says, because it "translates to a more participatory demographic; a more involved, informed demographic. That translates to possible votes -- and a possible shift if power relations that exist here in the state of Arizona."

Rather than shut down all ethnic studies courses immediately, HB 2281 directs either the Arizona Board of Education or the office of the superintendent to first conduct an investigation to determine whether the curriculum is in violation of the law. "It is a process that the state has to go through," says Arce. Given the political climate, however, he and his allies are wasting no time. A lawsuit against the measure is in the works "on behalf of parents, students, teaching staff and the community," he says. In the meantime, students have taken to the streets to raise their voices in opposition to the new law. On Wednesday, 15 people, including four minors, were arrested protesting in front of state offices. "That doesn't happen very much," says Arce. "You don't see kids fighting for their education."