Arizona to Ban Ethnic Studies College Courses?
- Posted on April 2, 2012 at 9:30pm by
Mytheos Holt
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Arizona has been on the bleeding edge of multiple political fights that have endeared them to conservatives and infuriated liberals – and now, they may be joining yet another such fight at an unprecedented level. Specifically, Arizona is considering banning the teaching of some ethnic studies courses in its state university system. The proposed policy follows a similar policy two years ago which banned “Mexican-American“ and ”Chicano” studies courses from secondary schools, and has liberal outfits like the Center for American Progress up in arms just as much now as it did then.
Fox News Latino reports the rationale:
Arizona’s superintendent of schools, John Huppenthal, says Tucson’s suspended Mexican American studies curricula teaches students to resent Anglos, and that the university program that educated the public school teachers is to blame.
“I think that’s where this toxic thing starts from, the universities,” Arizona Superintendent of Schools John Huppenthal said in an interview with Fox News Latino.
“To me, the pervasive problem was the lack of balance going on in these classes,” Huppenthal said.
Of course, the proposed move has drawn criticism, and not just from the Center for American Progress. Latino groups see it as an attack on the free speech of teachers, with one analyst even going so far as to compare it to McCarthyism, with “the browns” replacing “the reds.” There is no indicator yet as to whether the policy will pass, though critics of Arizona‘s existing education regime suggest that the restrictions already instituted go too far by banning classic literature like Shakespeare’s “The Tempest.” Moreover, the ban on ethnic studies courses in secondary schools has, according to some reports, created “underground libraries” devoted to propagating books that have been banned under the policy.
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Comments (87)
gotoneon
Posted on April 2, 2012 at 11:39pmThank you Arizona! Now for the rest of the country.
Report Post »fireyogi
Posted on April 3, 2012 at 12:54amHow about teaching US history
Report Post »THXll38
Posted on April 3, 2012 at 7:55amSpoken like a true statist or shall I say modern day liberal?
Report Post »HKS
Posted on April 3, 2012 at 7:59amGovernment schools, the root of all social problems.
Report Post »THXll38
Posted on April 3, 2012 at 8:13amIn your mind. Just as many think that home schooling and/or private schools causes social issues. Everyone has preferences and that is the beauty of a free country. Banning things is extreme and statist and has no room for liberty loving people.
Report Post »AzCowboy
Posted on April 3, 2012 at 9:03amI wonder? If I’m a mexican american or african american and I moved back, would I be a american mexican or american african?
Report Post »lordjosh
Posted on April 3, 2012 at 9:24am@ THXLl38
“Just as many think that home schooling and/or private schools causes social issues”
Yes, but some thoughts are rational and should be given preference.
Report Post »AZRACISTBIGOT
Posted on April 3, 2012 at 2:55pmThank you John Huppenthal for “having a pair”
Report Post »Aerocog
Posted on April 2, 2012 at 11:19pmThe difference from McCarthyism is not only the name change but the fact that these classes, teachers, and materials actually teach Mexican American to hate their fellow Americans. Unlike in the 1950s where the Senator interrupted and made-up proof this, not of the people explicated taught it like the class text book that calls the Mexician-American War a “cultural genocide” or the other constant texts that appear that aim to enrage and separate Americans from other Americans.
Report Post »jzs
Posted on April 2, 2012 at 11:16pmAs Arizona goes, so goes the country. The kind of legislation that Republicans are pushing in Arizona are the last gasps of a group – white, old conservative people – that is drowning. I don’t know why they bother. They may have the money but they don’t have the numbers. Their demographic, in proportion to Hispanics, is shrinking ever day.
Moderates and liberals in Arizona – based to be sure on the few I know – think elected officials have lost their minds and are becoming increasingly embarrassed about the state’s reputation.
Sorry Arizona, sorry Texas, in the not too distant future the majority of your states are going to be legal Mexican citizens.
Report Post »Dougral Supports Israel
Posted on April 2, 2012 at 11:38pmThe complaint against ethnic studies courses are that they are anti-American in nature. Immigrants legal and illegal come to America because we are America. You may love Mexican immigrants but they are going to be really disappointed to find a future America that looks just like Mexico. That is the future the ethnic studies people have in mind for us.
Report Post »End The Fed
Posted on April 3, 2012 at 2:59amJZS, I’ve been reading your crap for quite a while now. You seem to have a faint spark of an intellectual, but you are very intellectually dishonest. You have the same MO: cynicism – which is weak mindedness, ignore the substance or point of a story, and push your agenda. The truth does not aspire to anyone, we aspire to the truth.
Report Post »therealconservative
Posted on April 3, 2012 at 4:52am@JZS
“Moderates and liberals in Arizona – based to be sure on the few I know”
That‘s because there aren’t many that live here
Report Post »junior1971
Posted on April 3, 2012 at 9:23amDon’t you mean “White-Hispanics”? I would have thought we were passed all this. After all, we have a “White-African” in the white house.
Report Post »Blackhawk1
Posted on April 3, 2012 at 10:05amJZS
“Moderates and liberals in Arizona – based to be sure on the few I know”.
You know why that is? Because Liberals have a tendency to kill (abort) their young. Once Conservatives kick the head liberal out of our White House and the crack down begins on the illegals by cutting benefits they are not eligible for, No more anchor babies, punishing employers for hiring them, and requiring photo I.D to vote, and no more drivers licenses at least half of them will find it very uncomfortable to stay in the U.S. Maybe we should have the same immigration laws as Mexico.
Report Post »gingerbread
Posted on April 2, 2012 at 11:01pmOkay, let’s assume that you have a masters degree in ETHNIC STUDIES, where will you go for a job? This is like that stupid lady that get her masters degree in LESBIAN STUDIES. She owed $80,000 for those studies. Now where is she going to find a job?
Report Post »Jan Conroy
Posted on April 3, 2012 at 6:37pmThose who can, do; those who can’t, teach… That is where “ethnic” and other “grievance” majors go after getting their degrees — into the teaching profession at public schools or Democrat Party politics.
“We call things racism just to get attention. We reduce complicated problems to racism, not because it is racism, but because it works.” — Alfredo Gutierrez, Democrat political consultant
Report Post »blackyb
Posted on April 2, 2012 at 10:53pmChalk one up for the schools for a change. People could get assignments to bring in telling about their forefather and heros and some could be of different ethnics.
Report Post »cassandra
Posted on April 2, 2012 at 10:32pmof course the Center for American Progress dosen’t like it , can you say george soros
Report Post »BarbWire
Posted on April 2, 2012 at 10:30pmI have said for a long time that our biggest political, moral, and ethical problems come from colleges, which are funded usually by the government. I’ve been waiting for someone else to say it, too. Colleges are the biggest cities without churches. 70% of college students quit the religious beliefs of their parents, yet parents continue to pay for it. In what other way to people pay to ruin themselves. It takes most 20 somethings and 30 somethings until age 40 to go back to church. Why do we keep it up?
Report Post »Anse
Posted on April 2, 2012 at 10:42pm“I have said for a long time that our biggest political, moral, and ethical problems come from colleges”
holy shіt
is this really the state of the GOP? is anybody else as embarrassed for their party as i am?
Report Post »fr0thing
Posted on April 3, 2012 at 2:14amIs anyone else as embarrassed as I am with people who start their posts with childish expletives like “holy ****”?
Report Post »Anyway, colleges and universities have little to be proud of. For over 30 years they have been graduating students with no job skills and a lifetime of debt. And now the total student debt has reached a shocking 1 TRILLION$. This is a national disgrace. Are American colleges and universities really preparing our students to compete against China and India in a global economy? I don’t think so.
TheBurningTruth
Posted on April 3, 2012 at 4:54amANSE: If you want to complain about slavery, go right back to Africa where the stronger black tribes sold their weaker brothers into slavery in the first place. The stronger black tribes captured the weaker ones and brought them to the coast for sale to the slave ships. It seems that we got the stupid and lazy ones here which explains a lot.
Report Post »Jan Conroy
Posted on April 3, 2012 at 6:52pm@ ANSE Perhaps you missed Allan Bloom’s “The Closing of the American Mind” from the mid-1980′s. It explains much and things have not improved since the book was first published. So, it is time you enlightened yourself by reading the book. And, you can do so for free!
http://archive.org/details/ClosingOfTheAmericanMind
Report Post »Melvin Spittle
Posted on April 2, 2012 at 10:26pmThis is the end outcome of failed affirmative action programs in our universities. When you lower the bar for admission into STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) degree programs for preference groups to include not only race, economic, and gender, but legacy preferences as well, you set them up for failure and ultimate migration to courses that match the students abilities. Of these courses, there is an over representation of ethnic studies programs that churn out graduates of these programs in relative numbers. So where will these new graduates of ethnic studies end up? In our K-12 public ed system of course! Our educational system is creating and artificial demand for these worthless degree program graduates.
For a great commentary regarding affirmative action I refer you to a guest contributor of the Volokh Conspiracy blog:
http://volokh.com/2012/04/01/rational-discourse-and-affirmative-action/
The comments to the article are very interesting as well.
Report Post »blackyb
Posted on April 2, 2012 at 10:56pmThe outcome of all of this ethnic studies pitting one against the other are the confused hanging around “Occupy.”
Report Post »marybethelizabeth
Posted on April 2, 2012 at 10:25pmResentment doesn’t come from the course, it comes from learning the truth.
You don’t stop teaching a biology course because it teaches too much about biology and not enough of the other sciences.
Report Post »Melvin Spittle
Posted on April 2, 2012 at 10:57pmI think you are missing the point regarding what is motivating this. Here is an example:
“The University of North Carolina, Wilmington, [will] lump together two
serious academic departments (because of a shortage of funding) while
once again expanding the campus diversity bureaucracy (for which no
funding shortage ever seems to appear).”
What we see happening is driven by the demand for diversity related studies. I have an EE degree and spent over sixty hours of study time a week in addition to my classes while the other non-hard science students specifically enrolled in the many ethnic, gender, sexuality study programs work off hangovers from the never-ending party scene or receiving credit for protesting _________ (fill in the blank). They are the ones making statements at OWS: ” I have a masters degree and I can‘t find a job because I’m _______ (fill in the protected class)”. Well, the only job you will get with a degree in ethnic studies is in one of the many that are created to meet the demand of these overly represented degree programs. I find it laughable that you would compare ethnic studies to biology. Don’t even try to compare them. You only have to look as far as the curriculum as a comparison to shoot holes in your statement. Academia has become a bizarre spectacle of political correctness and multicultural champions that will protect a lie and launch rabid attacks on the truth:
http://volokh.com/2012/04/01/rational-discourse-and-affirmative-act
Report Post »possom
Posted on April 2, 2012 at 11:24pmMelvin too many word‘s violate the basic law’s of language, here watch. “academia, bureaucracy, ethnic studies pppppfffffttttt” see neat huh.
Report Post »Jan Conroy
Posted on April 3, 2012 at 7:19pmThey don’t teach “the truth” in ethnic grievance classes — they teach Marxist propaganda and/or hatred for America and Americans. Public schools were instituted for the purpose of creating the next generation of Americans and for assimilating immigrants into American culture. Taxpayers are not morally responsible for doing anything but that.
If ethnics and other self-aggrieved types want to study something other than how best to be Americans, then they should do it on their own time and on their own dime. If Mexican students, for example, want to study their FORMER country’s language, culture and history — let them do what Jewish kids have done for as far back as I can remember (at least for half a century) and spend their time after school hours studying at Hebrew School on their own dime.
No one is preventing Mexican ethnics, for example, from going to the Mexican equivalent of Hebrew School after school hours at a private venue, just don’t expect the taxpayers to pay for it — we didn’t do it for the Jewish kids, why should we do it for the Mexican kids?
Report Post »AZMax
Posted on April 2, 2012 at 10:20pmThe Underground Library is a joke! All of the “banned”books are available at the school libraries, but these liberals from out of state have made a bid to do about bringing in the “banned” books and placing them in the Underground Library. Of course, the Underground Library has a published address. Pretty funny. Yes it is hot in Arizona, but it truly is beautiful!
Report Post »hynzerelli
Posted on April 2, 2012 at 10:17pmKudos to Arizona a state that gave us Barry Goldwater a true American who believed in freedom, liberty & self reliance.
Report Post »toto
Posted on April 2, 2012 at 10:10pmGo Arizona, please lead the way for us all. Come to this country and want to be an American, not a Mexican with an American privileges. If you do not want to be wholly American, do not come and do not complain.
Report Post »Stoic one
Posted on April 2, 2012 at 10:21pmBlocking the free speech of teachers? I do not think so. when you teach a class there is a course plan and you teach it. If you want to practice free speech… hold a seminar and pay the rent for the space.
Report Post »out of many one
Posted on April 2, 2012 at 10:06pmWe ARE NOT “Anglos”. We are Americans. I refuse to accept a foreign term to define people who were born on this soil. If they are in Spain and speaking Spanish that is one thing. Here we speak English and “Anglo” is not an English word.
Report Post »Jan Conroy
Posted on April 3, 2012 at 7:49pmAnglo is the term foisted upon Americans by those who wish to divide and conquer (Progressives). Mexicans, on the other hand, call Americans “Gabachos” — a derogatory slur roughly translated as “Frenchy.”
Report Post »tiredofprogressives
Posted on April 2, 2012 at 10:04pmTeach American History. Screw Diversity and Ethnic Courses. Diversity is a failure and always have been. You cannot force people to get along with certain people. It results in murders and then the same people who enact this crap then want to solve the problem by taking away Guns.
Report Post »bjornskis
Posted on April 2, 2012 at 9:58pmcould you imagine the outrage having a class white culture
or a white group calling themselves La Raza the race?
Report Post »Anse
Posted on April 2, 2012 at 10:47pmi guess it’d be nice to have a class where students are reminded of the centuries of racially-fueled subjugation, violence, slavery and institutional discrimination perpetrated by whites on this continent from the 1400s to the present day, culminating in a system where minorities are still socially and economically marginalized and disenfranchised, yeah
maybe then there’d be fewer people like you
Report Post »Xpressed
Posted on April 3, 2012 at 12:41amANSE, if you want to cry about slavery go to England. They brought it here and we ended it. You may forget that Spain was once the major power in the southern half of the wester hemisphere. If you feel angry about that, learn Mayan and wear alpaca hair clothing. If you aren’t upset about that but feel that we should be part of Mexico, do you not know that the whole country of Mexico revolted against the tyrannical dictator Santa Ana and only the far reaches of the norhtern part were able to break away. Nobody stole anything from Mexico, the people had a revolt and broke away leaving a broken society to better themselves.
Report Post »yonah
Posted on April 3, 2012 at 12:26pmWhen I was in elementary school and in high school we were taught American history and all we learned about the history of Blacks in America was that Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves. Is that the American history you believe we should teach our children today?
Report Post »dmerwin
Posted on April 3, 2012 at 2:48pmAnse states “culminating in a system where minorities are still socially and economically marginalized and disenfranchised, yeah”
Report Post »By themselves and the democratic great society programs. There is plenty of opportunity IF a person were to avail themselves of it. One example just might be the President. I fully disagree with just about EVERY policy stance he has, but he rose from very modest beginnings and USED the system to become wildly successful. Why? Because he had family involvement. Many poor people; black, white, hispanic and native american have used the military as a springboard to college and success. I know that doesn’t fit the narrative but it is the truth. Keys to success: Complete high school, avoid a criminal record and don’t have children before YOU can afford them. There is nothing ethnic there at all.
Jan Conroy
Posted on April 3, 2012 at 8:17pm@ ANSE if you want to look at true bigots, you need look no further than Mexico. Mexican culture is the most bigoted culture in the Western hemisphere. The lighter-skinned a Mexican is the higher he can aspire to go in life and vice versa (the darker, the lower).
Mexicans like to brag about ending black slavery before the US did, but they conveniently forget to mention the fact they did not end the slavery of “Indios” — along with the blacks. It was the Mexican governor of California that stole the Indian trading grounds of Los Angeles — and sold the land to a German immigrant.
One tends to forget (or was never taught) that Californios revolted many times against corrupt Mexican rule. There was a revolt nearly every other year for such time as Mexico City controlled California. Mexicans were not loved by either the indigenous people or the Spanish colonists who worked together to create a prosperous colony — only to have it physically stolen from them by Mexico City’s invading army. The rapacious Mexican government was finally kicked out of California with a little help from better armed Americans — and thank God for that!
Now that the bigoted Mexican invaders are returning, they have been ethnically cleansing black Americans out of Los Angeles. But, of course, you have never heard of Cheryl Green or Jamiel Shaw Jr. because brown-on-black hate-crimes and Mexican bigotry are not PC to report.
Report Post »spirited
Posted on April 2, 2012 at 9:57pmResent Anglos is the mission. Oh, what will become of America?
>The latinos and blacks might have a field day –and not a trip to a museum.
Report Post »Mr.Fitnah
Posted on April 2, 2012 at 9:55pmMakes sense with so few qualified to instruct the class.
Report Post »Mr.Fitnah
Posted on April 2, 2012 at 10:07pmMy bad, its been a long day I thought it said “ethics”
Report Post »DUH
bjornskis
Posted on April 2, 2012 at 9:55pmtoxic is an understatement
teaching the land belongs to them they were here firs is pure BS
unless their Inca or Mayan they should just go back to Spain right?
Report Post »HorseCrazy
Posted on April 2, 2012 at 9:46pmtell me how an ethnic studies class prepares anyone for the labor force? nope it prepares for racial division thats it.
Report Post »mattintexas
Posted on April 2, 2012 at 9:45pmRemember the Alamo !!!!!
Report Post »Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra
Posted on April 2, 2012 at 11:00pmForget the Alamo, remember to pick up eggs and milk.
Report Post »Rightsofman
Posted on April 2, 2012 at 9:44pmWow! Is reason entering into some of “academia”?
Report Post »sooner12
Posted on April 2, 2012 at 9:41pmIf I had the money I’d buy land in Arizona. They seem to know what they’re doing.
Report Post »HorseCrazy
Posted on April 2, 2012 at 9:47pmexcept its hot as heck
Report Post »Zukov_Tooker
Posted on April 2, 2012 at 11:18pm.
Report Post »Horsecrazy, eight months out of the year we have the best weather around relative to anywhere else in the country, including southern California. Now the summers….yeah, they’re kind of miserable.
HorseCrazy
Posted on April 3, 2012 at 12:22amzukov I am a WA state resident if it hits 70 degrees I’m done. I am one cold weather snow loving rainy day enjoying fool! Arizona is gorgeous though and you don’t have to deal with the liberal loons like I get on the west coast.
Report Post »Tri-ox
Posted on April 2, 2012 at 9:37pmGood idea.
Report Post »blanco5
Posted on April 2, 2012 at 9:34pmEthnic studies = all ethnicities EXCEPT whites
Report Post »Laus Deo
Posted on April 2, 2012 at 9:33pmPush far left, pull far right.. WTF are we doing?
Report Post »Rightsofman
Posted on April 2, 2012 at 9:46pmPushing far left usually.
Report Post »HorseCrazy
Posted on April 2, 2012 at 9:48pmwhy would a state finance this? thats the issue. how does this prepare anyone for a job which after all is the purpose of college.
Report Post »copatriots
Posted on April 2, 2012 at 9:53pmDo you have any compelling reason, LAUS, that taxpayers should be subsidizing ANY ethnic studies? They should learn factual American history and skills to prepare them for a job. If they are interested in learning more about any particular culture or ethnicity beyond that, they can do their own studies on their own time and dime.
Report Post »Laus Deo
Posted on April 2, 2012 at 10:31pmBanning ethnic studies is just asinine. If the study is garbage, throw it out; that doesn’t mean a ban on all studies is required. I personally think ethnic studies are crap and I wouldn’t waste a second of my time on it, but as I stated, that’s just my opinion.
Report Post »dmerwin
Posted on April 3, 2012 at 2:51pmcopatriots
Report Post »That is the issue, subsidization, It should be a totally self funded endeavor that when completed renders the graduate fully qualified to work a drive through window.