TUSD’s “banned” books rally labeled a farce

Opinion

The Arizona Republic offered an honest assessment of the fictional “book ban” by the Tucson Unified School District.

‘Banned’ books rally a farce
The Republic | azcentral.com

Activists remain intent on keeping alive the debate over the intensely politicized ethnic-studies courses at Tucson Unified School District, which have been suspended by the district’s governing board.

But by protesting the “banning” of books that are not in any sense of the word banned?

Supporters of the controversial program have organized a rally at Wesley Bolin Memorial Plaza at the state Capitol for Wednesday. There, they intend to take turns reading from the books, which they claim have been banned by the district board. Also as part of their demonstration, the activists say they have “pledged to deliver copies of the banned books to students in the Tucson area as part of the creation of a series of ‘underground libraries.’ ”

They need not bother. There are plenty of copies of all the supposedly banned books available in every one of the Tucson district’s high-school libraries.

The texts used in the district’s Mexican-American-studies classes never were the real problem with the classes.

Even the program’s most incendiary political literature, such as Rodolfo Acuna’s “Occupied America,” can offer instructive value when presented by teachers who approach the subject matter with open-minded academic integrity. Unfortunately, TUSD’s political activist-educators don’t. Or didn’t.

They never have grasped the irony of their explicit activism. Had their school district allowed, say, limited-government activist Grover Norquist to construct a curriculum promoting states rights and the free market, these very same educators would be howling in protest. And rightly so.

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