When Arizona State Superintendent of Public Education Tom Horne appeared yesterday on the Jim Parisi Show, 790 Newstalk, to speak to Tucsonans regarding the need to end “Raza” Studies at TUSD, he was speaking to some of the choir.

It turns out that a local activist group, Arizonans for Immigration Control, was a major motivating force behind Horne and Jonathon Paton’s Bill SB 1069 which, if passed, will altogether end TUSD’s entire Ethnic Studies Department.

Horne, a civil rights veteran and participant in Martin Luther King’s March on Washington in the sixties, says TUSD’s Ethnic Studies Program teaches “ethnic chauvinism.”

Arizona State Senator Russell Pearce puts it more bluntly: “It’s garbage,” he said.

“Now it’s time for the rest of the story,” says Tucson Activist Roy Warden.  

Two and a half years ago a small group of activists, including Wes Bramhal, Laura Leighton, Lee Ewing and Clyde Phillips, began looking at the books and researching the curriculum followed by TUSD’s Ethnic Studies Program.

What they found was appalling. One textbook read: “Kill the Gringo! All white people should go back to Plymouth Rock! Kill every white male over 16!”

Convinced that blatant racism and notions of racial or cultural victimization were being taught as history in TUSD, the group took their concerns to then Superintendent Roger Pfeifer, who stalled, equivocated and largely ignored them.

The group renewed their effort with new TUSD Superintendent Celania Fagan; however, with the deftness of a matador (or politician) Fagan smooth talked them, stonewalled,  and otherwise deflected their inquiry.  

So last August the group forwarded the information they’d gathered to Tom Horne. They followed up with a videotaped interview with John Ward, a former TUSD Ethnic Studies teacher (and Hispanic) who exposed what he called the “ugly underbelly” of TUSD’s “Raza” studies in an article published last year in the Tucson Citizen.

According to Ward, TUSD’s “Ethnic Studies” was never about education. It was always about preaching racial hatred and division, and promoting the political interests of left wing Hispanic hate groups like La Raza and MEChA.

Convinced they would never solve the problem at the local level, the group stepped up their efforts in January 2009, working with Horne and the Arizona Legislature—calling, faxing, emailing, writing letters, twisting arms, etc.—resulting in the present proposed legislation which will bring an end to TUSD’s Ethnic Studies Program.

“Arizona Public Officials like Tom Horne and Jonathon Paton weren’t sitting up on Mt. Olympus in Phoenix one day looking down and wondering: what’s wrong at TUSD,” said Warden.

“Two years ago a group of Tucson Activists rolled up their sleeves, researched the problem, and brought it to their attention.” 

 “The public owes Arizonans for Immigration Control a large measure of gratitude for the services they’ve performed. They have shown us just what a determined group of activists can do.”

Are you getting tired of the politics of racism and ethnic division? Then stop complaining! DO something about it!!

Contact Kirk Adams, Speaker of the Arizona House, and tell him you want him to assign SB 1175 to Government Committee!!!

 Phone:          (602) 926-5495 

FAX:              (602) 417-3019 

Next Up: How the Pima County Media Protects and Encourages the Politics of Racism and Open Borders