If this feels like deja vu all over again, you’re not mistaken, except now Arizona’s right-wing legislature is taking its hatred of minority studies to the collegiate level. Back in 2011, the Arizona legislature passed a controversial law that prohibits public and charter schools from teaching courses that promote “resentment toward a race or class of people.” The language of the bill is so vague and discriminatory that it’s still on hold, pending a court challenge.
It was a number of courses in Tucson Unified School District that got the legislators’ panties all knotted up, since the courses, offered in a district that is majority-minority, were intended to foster pride in Hispanic, indigenous and other ethnic cultures. This “empowerment” is what Republicans view as promoting resentment of the white race, says ASU professor Randy Perez:
"Where they say 'division and exclusion,' we say 'empowerment,' " he said. "So many different minority communities who feel marginalized take the classes that are being targeted here — African-American studies, justice studies — to learn more about the sides of history we usually don't see, to learn about their identities and to build equity in society."
And when students do learn ethnic history, it’s sort’ve impossible not to bring up white people’s discriminatory and genocidal policies—hence the “resentment” that Republicans fear. So now Rep. Bob Thorpe, a tea party legislator from Flagstaff, thinks the same ban should extend to community colleges and universities:
Thorpe's expansion would prohibit classes, events and activities that "promote division, resentment or social justice toward a race, gender, religion, political affiliation, social class or other class" at both the K-12 and college level, in addition to those "designed primarily for students of a particular ethnic group."
Got that? You can’t cover “social justice” in college. If a teacher dares, say, to offer a class on Thoreau’s civil disobedience or Cesar Chavez’s activism, the state can withhold 10 percent of the school’s funding. It’s okay for Rep. Thorpe to visit Cliven Bundy’s compound and lend his support to the poor put-upon whites up there—just don’t go promoting social justice for brown people!
When asked to name a class he would ban, the only example Rep. Thorpe mentioned was a 2014 course at Arizona State University called “US Race Theory and the Problem of Whiteness.” The class drew criticism nationwide from Fox News and conservatives, who clearly never examined the course content, which asked students to view developments in social, religious and scientific thought through different racial lenses—a practice the right is obviously afraid of.
Rep. Thorpe did say it was okay to learn about “the accurate history of any ethnic group,” although he never explained who gets to say what’s “accurate.” No doubt he’d side with the ninnies in Texas, whose revised history texts promote gods and guns, transform Joe McCarthy into a patriotic hero and brand MLK a communist womanizer. Rep. Thorpe would approve because there’s no dumping on white people: Jim Crow never happened, the KKK did not exist and slavery was just a “side issue.”