User:Isaacschley/sandbox

Ethnic Studies Sandbox Research

The Mexican American Studies course was first brought under attack after the Deputy Superintendent of Public education gave trying to tell the students that Republicans don't hate Latinos after an allegation was made that they did. The students walked out of the speech, and Tom Horne, the Superintendent, blamed the rudeness of the students on the teachers from their Mexican American Studies courses. He called for removal of the courses. When his call was not answered, he made an effort for a bill to be put into law banning Mexican American Studies courses.

House Bill 2281 was approved in December of 2010, and prohibited the course. In an effort to enforce the bill, the district court gave the Superintendent of the school district the opportunity to withhold funding to schools that continue to teach the ethnic studies course. Judge Kowal ruled the course “biased, political, and emotionally charged,” and upheld the bill and the withholding of funding from schools. 

An appeal was filed in October of 2010. The initial appeal was challenging House Bill 2281 for violation of First Amendment (for viewpoint discrimination) and Fourteenth Amendment (for void-for-vagueness) rights. This initial appeal was filed by 10 teachers, the director of the Mexican American Studies program, and 3 students and their parents. Once the students graduated, 2 dropped their appeals, and the teachers and program director were dismissed for want of standing in January of 2012. This left one student and her father on the appeal.

In March 2013, the appeals court ruled only in favor of the plaintiffs on the grounds that there was a First Amendment overbreadth violation to House Bill 2281. The plaintiffs decided to further appeal the case.

On July 7, 2015, the appeal on the ban of the Mexican American Studies, "Maya Arce vs Huppenthal", reached a federal appeals court. Overseen by Judge Rakoff, the court reversed part of what the district court had ruled on banning the course. Judge Rakoff looked at 4 characteristics of what constitutes a class to be prohibited. A class can be prohibited if the course:

1) promotes overthrow of the US government,

2) promotes resentment toward a race of class of people,

3) Is designed specifically for a particular ethnic group,

4) advocate ethnic solidarity instead of individuality.

Rakoff's statement said that House Bill 2281 was created with the Mexican American Studies course in mind. Since the Mexican American studies course was the only course in Arizona to be banned, it became clear that the bill had targeted the one course. This lead the court to find the bill to be partially unconstitutional as it did not require similar Mexican American Studies courses outside of the Tucson Unified School District to cease teaching the courses. The bill also did not ban African American Studies courses that were being taught.

Rakoff's final ruling affirmed part of the bill to be unconstitutional regarding the plaintiff's First Amendment right. However, Rakoff uphelp the district court's ruling that the bill is not overbroad. Rakoff sent part of the appeal back to the district court to review the claim that the bill is discriminatory.