[News] Arizona Ethnic Studies Law Signed By Governor

[Anti-Imperialist News]

<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/12/arizona-ethnic-studies-la_n_572864.html>Arizona 
Ethnic Studies Law Signed By Governor Brewer, 
Condemned By UN Human Rights Experts

<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/12/arizona-ethnic-studies-la_n_572864.html?view=print#>JONATHAN 
J. COOPER | 05/11/10 11:50 PM |
AP

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/12/arizona-ethnic-studies-la_n_572864.html?ref=fb&src=sp

PHOENIX ­ Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed a bill 
targeting a school district's ethnic studies 
program on Tuesday, hours after a report by 
United Nations human rights experts condemned the measure.

State schools chief Tom Horne, who has pushed the 
measure for years, said a Tucson school district 
program promotes "ethnic chauvinism" and racial 
resentment toward whites while segregating students by race.

"It's just like the old South, and it's long past 
time that we prohibited it," Horne said.

The measure prohibits classes that advocate 
ethnic solidarity, that are designed primarily 
for students of a particular race or that promote 
resentment toward a certain ethnic group. It also 
prohibits classes that promote the overthrow of the U.S. government.

The Tucson Unified School District program offers 
specialized courses in African-American, 
Mexican-American and Native-American studies that 
focus on history and literature and include 
information about the influence of a particular ethnic group.

For example, in the Mexican-American Studies 
program, an American history course explores the 
role of Hispanics in the Vietnam War, and a 
literature course emphasizes Latino authors.

Horne said he believes the Mexican-American 
studies program teaches Latino students that they 
are oppressed by white people. Public schools 
should not be encouraging students to resent a particular race, he said.

Brewer's signature on the bill comes less than a 
month after she signed the nation's toughest 
crackdown on illegal immigration – a move that 
ignited international backlash amid charges the 
measure would encourage racial profiling of Hispanics.

A Republican running for attorney general, Horne 
has been trying to restrict the program ever 
since he learned that Hispanic civil rights 
activist Dolores Huerta in 2006 told students that "Republicans hate Latinos."

District officials said the program doesn't 
promote resentment, and they believe it would comply with the new law.

About 1,500 students at six high schools in the 
district are enrolled in the program. Elementary 
and middle school students also are exposed to 
the ethnic studies curriculum. The district is 56 
percent Hispanic, with nearly 31,000 Latino students.

Sean Arce, director of the district's 
Mexican-American Studies program, said last month 
that students perform better in school if they 
see in the curriculum people who look like them.

"It's a highly engaging program that we have, and 
it's unfortunate that the state Legislature would 
go so far as to censor these classes," he said.

Six UN human rights experts released a statement 
earlier Tuesday expressing concern about the 
measure. All people have the right to learn about 
their own cultural and linguistic heritage, they said.

Brewer spokesman Paul Senseman didn't directly 
address the UN criticism, but said Brewer supports the bill's goal.

"The governor believes ... public school students 
should be taught to treat and value each other as 
individuals and not be taught to resent or hate 
other races or classes of people," Senseman said.

The law doesn't prohibit classes that teach about 
the history of a particular ethnic group, as long 
as the course is open to all students and doesn't 
promote ethnic solidarity or resentment.

Arce could not immediately be reached after 
Brewer signed the bill late Tuesday.




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