#OnThisDay Arizona passes an un-Constitutional law banning ethnic studies in their classrooms. This is also a reminder Minority Leader McConnell wants to stop the "1619 Project."

Yet another reason why I will never stop my #OnThisDay history mini-lessons.

This law was signed by AZ Republican Governor Jan Brewer, who once dressed down President Obama on the tarmac of an airport.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2012/01/26/145889330/arizona-gov-brewer-says-she-was-not-hostile-in-meeting-with-obama

Brewer signed into law HB 2281, a legislative act designed to end Ethnic Studies classes in the state. This law banned schools from engaging with certain books written by authors of color and temporarily eliminated the Mexican American Studies program in Tucson schools.

This prevented hundreds of students from engaging with their history and culture within a school setting for almost a decade. Oh, she JUST signed AZ's immigration law that was then among the nation's strictest + which opponents criticized as encouraging racial profiling.

Though less publicized, HB2281 also had far-reaching consequences for people of color in Arizona and any students interested in studying their history.

It banned ALL classes = “promote the overthrow of the US gov't” or “promote resentment toward a race or class of people” + classes “designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group” which “advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals.”

In January 2012, after the state superintendent's office threatened to withhold 10% of the district’s annual funding, the Tucson School District voted to cut the Mexican American Studies program in compliance with the new law.

Beginning in the 1990s, Mexican-American educators in Tucson, Arizona came together to build a program to narrow the achievement gap b/n Latinx students and white students by widening the scope of traditional curriculum, including introducing books written by authors of color.

Students who engaged in the program, which was open to all, saw great success with reportedly increased test scores and higher graduation rates. Proponents of HB2281, however, accused Ethnic Studies courses of segregating students and impeding assimilation.

Tom Horne said those radical teachers had to be stopped, overlooking decades of our nation’s long history of racially segregated public education. https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona/2017/07/18/former-az-school-chief-tom-horne-testify-mexican-american-studies-trial/486558001/

Referring to those who supported the Mexican American Studies program, Horne dismissively said, “They are the ‘Bull Connors.’ They are resegregating.”

John Huppenthal, a state Senator who helped pass the law = these programs designed to increase representation w/in the classroom were = to the KKK in making that comparison, Huppenthal trivialized a long and deadly history of white supremacist racial violence in America.

Huppenthal also fervently declared on social media that Spanish-English media should be shut down, and later referred to people receiving public assistance as "lazy pigs."

The bill not only forced the Tucson School District to eliminate its Mexican American Studies course but it had to remove several books from its classrooms, including Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, + The Tempest by Shakespeare.

In a meeting with Mexican American Studies teachers, administrators ultimately advised them to avoid any units that included “race, ethnicity, and oppression as central themes.”

After courts repeatedly refused to strike down the law for several years, a federal court held that HB 2281 was passed with the specific intention “to advance a political agenda by capitalizing on race-based fear.”

HB 2281 was formally invalidated as unconstitutional in 2017, nearly a decade following its passage, and after the law had already denied hundreds of students the opportunity to study within a culturally diverse setting.

Local, county and state elections ARE IMPORTANT. This state law was decided almost a decade before the reign of error known as #Komrade45. If you want to know how to save Democracy right now, here's a few steps. https://twitter.com/JamesMWilliam18/status/1390656871816642565?s=20

FIN/ Sources:

https://calendar.eji.org/racial-injustice/may/11

https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona/2017/07/18/former-az-school-chief-tom-horne-testify-mexican-american-studies-trial/486558001/ https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2012/01/26/145889330/arizona-gov-brewer-says-she-was-not-hostile-in-meeting-with-obama