Judge blocks Arizona's 'racist' ban on Mexican-American studies

Culmination of a years-long fight over a controversial ban

High school students gather in front of the Arizona Capitol in Phoenix to protest the election of Donald Trump

A judge has barred Arizona officials from enforcing a law banning Mexican-American studies programmes, a measure that spurred an outcry in a state that is both conservative and home to a substantial Latino population.

The decision from Judge A Wallace Tashima blocked a law that prohibited charter schools or school districts from courses that “are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group” and “advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals”.

In his ruling, Ms Tashima ruled the prohibition was passed “not for a legitimate educational purpose” but for “an invidious discriminatory racial purpose” and “a politically partisan purpose”. He had declared the measure unconstitutional earlier this year.

The Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction's office did not respond to The Independent's request for comment.

The ethnic studies prohibition drew a legal challenge from students and parents who said their rights were violated by the Tucson Unified School District seeking to eliminate Mexican-American studies classes. According to court documents, a majority of the district’s students were Latino.

Tensions over the program burst into public view when students protested a speech by a state education official at Tucson High School. In response, the state’s then-Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne penned a letter warning the demonstrators had created “a hostile atmosphere in the school for the other students, who were not born into their ‘race’” and denouncing ethnic studies classes as “destructive ethnic chauvinism”.

A few years later, with Mr Horne in support, the Arizona Legislature passed a law effectively banning ethnic studies — and Mr Horne ordered the Tucson school district to dissolve its Mexican-American studies program or lose 10 per cent of its funding.

His successor also lambasted the program and wrote racially charged blog comments that, among other things, claimed “the Mexican-American Studies classes use the exact same technique that Hitler used in his rise to power” and proclaimed “No Spanish radio stations, no Spanish billboards, no Spanish TV stations, no Spanish newspapers. This is America, speak English,” according to court documents.

Saying “racial animus infected the decision” to advance the new law, Judge Tashima wrote in August that the measure was discriminatory and violated the 14th Amendment. He wrote that the law impeded free speech and “was in fact enacted and enforced for narrowly political, partisan, and racist reasons”.