(Via CNN) — The top proponent of the new Arizona law targeting the state’s ethnic studies programs defends the controversial measure, which bans ethnic studies classes that “promote resentment” of other racial groups. State Schools Superintendent Tom Horne told CNN’s “American Morning” on Thursday that the legislation is “designed to get schools to teach kids to treat each other as individuals and not on the basis of what race they were born into.” Horne said he believes that the “fundamental American value is that we are individuals” and “not exemplars of the race we happen to be born into. What’s important is what we know, what we can do, what is our character.”
The superintendent has been targeting an ethnic studies curriculum in Tucson that he says “divided the kids into different races” — African studies for African-Americans, “Raza” studies for Latino youths and Asian studies for Asians. “In the Raza studies, they were teaching kids that the United States is oppressive, they were making them angry. They used a Marxist book, the ‘Pedagogy of the Oppressed,’ ” he said.
Signed into law on Tuesday, the new legislation forbids classes “designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group” that advocate “the overthrow of the United States government” or “resentment toward a race or class of people.” It also forbids classes that “advocate ethnic solidarity” instead of treating pupils as individuals. The measure has drawn criticism from educators and citizens who say the classes don’t promote resentment. U.N. human rights experts criticized the legislation, saying “everyone has the right to seek and develop cultural knowledge and to know and understand his or her own culture and that of others through education and information.”
Kyrsten Sinema, a Democratic state legislator who appeared on “American Morning” with Horne, disagreed with the superintendent’s contention that students were divided according to race or ethnicity. “The fact is very clear that these courses are open to all students. Any student of any race and ethnicity can take an African-American class. Similarly, they can take an Asian-American studies class and learn about the history of Japanese internment camps. That’s an important part of the American education system,” she said.
