Fact Sheet on Arizona House Bill 2281 Arizona bill 2281, signed into law May 11 2010, cannot be understood without considering the history of its evolution, and current anti-immigrant sentiment in Arizona. The law http://www.azleg.gov/legtext/49leg/2r/bills/hb2281s.pdf reads: “Public school pupils should be taught to treat and value each other as individuals and not be taught to resent other races or classes of people”It prohibits courses that “promote the overthrow of the U.S. government; promote resentment toward a race or class of people; are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group; advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals” Courses provided for Native Americans (required by federal law) are exempted as are courses that deal with “the holocaust or any other instance of genocide, or the historical oppression of a particular group of people based on ethnicity, race, or class”. To read these words, without taking into account their political context, one might be led to believe it is an innocuous, if unnecessary law. In fact, HB 2281 was penned specifically to outlaw a particular program, one that is closing the opportunity gap between white students and students of color. This law was crafted at a historical moment to take advantage of anti-immigrant and anti-Latino sentiment and aid the political ambitions of its promoters at the expense of students. On June 11 2007, Tom Horne, Arizona Superintendant of Public Instruction, wrote an open letter to the citizens of Tucson http://www.ade.state.az.us/pio/press-releases/2008/pr06-11-08-openltr.pdfthat begins “ The TUSD Ethnic Studies Program Should be Terminated”The letter targets high school Mexican American Studies programs involving 3% of Tucson’s 56,000 students (50% Latino), who read college texts and set their sights on college enrollment. Horne relates his experiences with particular students, and identifies the group MECHA as an organization that should not be available to Tucson students. He also specifies the learning material he finds objectionable, singling out Rodolfo Acuña’s, college Chicano Studies text Occupied America and the classic Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Brazilian educator Paolo Friere, of which he writes: “Those students should be taught that this is the land of opportunity, and that if they work hard they can achieve their goals. They should not be taught that they are oppressed.”
In June, 2009, Horne introduced state legislation to ban ethnic-studies courses, specifying 22 courses offered at four Tucson high schools. Senate bill 1069 did not pass. In the spring of 2010, a few weeks after passage of immigration law SB 1070, Horne, (now candidate for Arizona Attorney General) pushed through HB 2281 and Governor Jan Brewer signed it into law on May 11. The law is scheduled to go into effect in January 2011. Those schools found in violation will lose 10% of their state funds. For more see Articles. Click on HB 2281 on the sidebar.
