Mexican American Studies Books Un-Banned In Arizona
By Roque Planas, Huffington Post Latino Voices
The school board voted 3 to 2 to approve the seven once-prohibited books as supplementary class materials, the Arizona Daily Star reports. The vote doesn’t mean teachers will use the books for classes, but they now have the option.
The books, all but one penned by Latino authors, were once used in classes that some Arizona conservatives accused of politicizing Mexican American students. The former teachers of the forbidden classes deny the allegations, and point to independent research showing the courses improved student achievement and a state-commissioned audit that recommended expanding the classes.
The state legislature outlawed classes in 2010 that promote the overthrow of the United States, foster ethnic resentment or treat students as members of an ethnicity rather than as individuals. The law resulted from a campaign against the Tucson classes by then-Superintendent of Schools Tom Horne and then-State Sen. John Huppenthal, both Republicans. Horne has since been elected state Attorney General and Huppenthal now serves as Superintendent of Schools.
Facing the loss of 10 percent of their budget if they failed to comply — some $14 million over the fiscal year — Tucson’s school board voted to shut the classes down in January of 2011.
Administrators plucked the seven books from the district’s classes days later, noting that they had been named in a lawsuit against the district. The books included the classic Chicano history “Occupied America” by Rudolfo Acuña and Brazilian educator Paulo Freire’s “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” — both texts routinely taught in universities across the country.
TUSD argued that removing the books from classes and forbidding their instruction did not amount to a ban because they made the books available in libraries. When pressed to explain what Latino literature was available to teachers for classroom use in the wake of the …
This article was originally published in Huffington Post Latino Voices.
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