the classroom

Arizona Finally Cracking Down on School Teachers Who Add Extra ‘S’ to ‘Vacations’

In addition to granting police officers the right to harass Mexicans crossing the street, Arizona now wants to keep any non-whites out of the classroom. The state’s Arizona Department of Education is ousting teachers with, ahem, thick accents. Oh, and the Arizona House yesterday passed HB 2281, which would criminalize any classes that, the Daily Star reports, “promote the overthrow of the U.S. government, are designed primarily for students of a particular ethnic group or advocate ethnic solidarity ‘instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals.'” This is, apparently, different from teaching Arizona students that only white men contributed anything worthwhile to society. In Tucson, “the program in the district’s Mexican-American studies department simply provides historical information, which conflicts with state School Superintendent Tom Horne’s assessment the program is promoting racial hatred and ‘ethnic chauvinism.'” Why should gay people care about this, even if they don’t live in Arizona? Or are pasty-skinned? Because of Martin Niemöller’s “First they came” adage, which notes that if officials can get away with this crap, banning the teaching of anything LGBT related isn’t far behind. [ThinkProgress, WSJ, AZ Daily Star]

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