So the state law recently used to put down the Mexican-American studies program in Tucson made it on the Daily Show the other day. One of the board members of TUSD was made to look a bit silly. Bit of a dubious achievement, and maybe I'd have known about this earlier in the week if I didn't sack out so early, but this morning I heard about it on the local NPR station.
Apparently, this law used to destroy the Mexican American studies program here in the old pueblo could also apply to all kinds of other courses designed for ethnic groups. I guess it won't be, well...so long as the other ethnic studies courses mind their manners, so to speak.
The AZ Daily Star covered the story when Michael Hicks, a member of the TUSD Governing Board, went on the Daily Show apparently unaware that it was a satirical program. Granted, probably busy watching Leno or sleeping to know any better but he doesn't even know what this show is like? Doesn't even express basic curiosity about some TV show soliciting his opinion before going on it, just hey cool, cameras!
On the nationally broadcast show, Hicks told Madrigal that he chose not to attend any of the classes and that he based his thoughts on "hearsay from others."
Hicks now claims that he did visit a class and did not rely on hearsay, but damn. Why would you say that? Why would you say "I chose not to go to any of their classes. Why even go?" I hope he understands why his after the fact claims seem a bit dubious.
It would take the Daily Show to notice that only the Mexican American program was dismantled. There is also an African-American studies program that might seem to qualify under this new state law; not that I think they should go looking for more targets. But Hicks defended that program, most likely because he doesn't know much about that portion of American history either.
"The African American Studies program is still there," Hicks said. "It's not teaching the resentment of a race or class of people."
Hicks appeared to stumble when trying to answer a question about how black students should be taught about slavery without them feeling resentful toward white people. At one point, he said Africans were brought to America to perform "slavery jobs."
"We now have a black man as a president. You know, Rosa Clark did not take a gun and go onto a bus and hold up everybody," he said, referring to civil rights activist Rosa Parks.
I can almost sympathize with the fellow - almost. It's the sort of thing I don't know much about either, although that's something I'm trying to work on.
On a more serious note, on the state level this issue has been acknowledged and they're not exactly ruling out the dismantlement of all kinds of ethnic studies programs in the state.
Tom Horne, Arizona’s attorney general crafted this law when he was the state’s school superintendent. He says classes in various African American Studies programs and Pan-Asian Studies programs violate this law.
“Technically they’re in violation because we think those courses are designed for students of a particular ethnic group, but you can see that even the overwhelming amount of evidence we have against the Mexican American Studies program, still we have fights in court about it,” Horne says. “We have evidence that the course was presented in a racist manner and violated the other prohibitions pushing ethnic solidarity versus treatment of kids as individuals.”
The claim the judge made was about a
"biased, political, and emotionally charged manner". But Tom Horne admits that the law was written so broadly, there was no way the Mexican-American studies would last. And somehow I find this other bit of info from the AZPM article more pertinent to why a bunch of Republicans would decide that
just this one program had to go.
The classes had been taught at TUSD for years and Horne says it wasn’t until a visit from Latino activist Dolores Huerta in 2006 that he saw them as a problem. Huerta told a group of Tucson Magnet High School students at an assembly that “Republicans hate Latinos.”
Huerta, and the school, took some heat for that remark. For that matter,
so did Tom Horne, for some of his responses. Unfortunately, among those responses is the law that could be applied broadly to high schools and colleges across the state, to programs dealing with
any ethnic group, but out of the goodness of their hearts they'll leave well enough alone. As long as it suits them. I suppose having a budgetary sword of Damocles to dangle over people's heads also suits them fine.
I wonder when someone will get the bright idea that the typical American history class represents White-American Studies.
Anyway, I'm probably the last person on the site to finally see the Daily Show clip but here it is, just in case.