Judge Rules Arizona Ethnic Studies Ban is Unconstitutional | Democracy Now!

Judge Rules Arizona Ethnic Studies Ban is Unconstitutional | Democracy Now!

In a victory for educators and ethnic studies advocates, a federal judge has ruled the state of Arizona violated students’ First and Fourteenth Amendment rights by eliminating a Mexican-American studies program from Tucson public schools. In 2010, Arizona passed a controversial law banning the teaching of any class designed for a particular ethnic group that would "promote resentment toward a race or class of people." The law ended up eliminating Tucson’s ethnic studies program and banning seven books from public school classrooms, including "Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years"; Shakespeare’s play "The Tempest"; "Pedagogy of the Oppressed" by Paulo Freire and "Chicano!: The History of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement."