{"id":6021,"date":"2012-03-26T09:15:09","date_gmt":"2012-03-26T16:15:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/slisgroups.sjsu.edu\/alasc\/wp-descriptor\/?p=676"},"modified":"2012-03-26T09:15:09","modified_gmt":"2012-03-26T16:15:09","slug":"the-arizona-ban-on-ethnic-studies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ischoolgroups.sjsu.edu\/alasc\/wp-students\/the-arizona-ban-on-ethnic-studies\/","title":{"rendered":"The Arizona Ban on Ethnic Studies"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Mira<\/a>by Mira Geffner<\/em><\/p>\n

At the beginning of January, the Tucson Unified School District bowed to a state ban on ethnic studies education, effectively censoring a list of more than 50 books that were part of the city\u2019s Mexican American Studies curriculum. A few weeks later, I learned about the ban when a classmate posted news about it to our open discussion forum in LIBR 210.<\/p>\n

The class topic for that week was \u2018Introduction to Reference,\u2019 so we were learning about the obligation \u201cto provide services where people are: physically, culturally, linguistically, educationally, and in many other senses\u201d (Press & Diggs-Hobson, 2005). In this context, it was jarring to read about officials walking into high school classrooms, boxing up books in front of students and teachers, and moving the books to a storage facility. The district has also moved students out of Mexican American Studies electives in Literature, U.S. Government, and American History, and told teachers to cleanse their syllabi and lesson plans of ethnic studies content.<\/p>\n

How did this happen?<\/h3>\n

Banning ethnic education in Arizona was a pet project for former State Superintendent of Education Tom Horne. Horne argued that ethnic studies classes used \u201can anti-white curriculum to foster social activism\u201d (Winerip, 2012). He championed an end to ethnic studies instruction in Arizona K-12 schools, advocating a change to the state code to outlawing classes that:<\/p>\n