Decisions regarding the MAS program were motivated by a desire to advance a political agenda by capitalizing on race-based fears
On Tuesday, Federal Judge Wallace Tashima found that the State of Arizona “acted contrary to the Constitution of the United States and violated Plaintiff students’ rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution.
Judge Tashima ruled that when the State Superintendent of Public Instruction “found the Tucson Unified School District (“TUSD”) in violation of Arizona Revised Statute § 15-112 and caused the TUSD to shut down the Mexican American Studies (“MAS”) Program by assessing a penalty of 10 percent of TUSD’s state funding if the MAS Program were not eliminated.”
“The State of Arizona acted contrary to the Constitution of the United States in enacting Arizona Revised Statute §§ 15-112 and 15-111. Since neither the Governor, the Legislature, nor the State itself is a party, the court doubts whether there is any defendant against whom this finding can be enforced,” read the Judge’s ruling.
The Judge has not yet determined the “appropriate remedy” as yet.
Judge Tashima concluded:
Students have a First Amendment right to receive information and ideas, a right that applies in the context of school curriculum design, see Arce, 793 F.3d at 983. The right is infringed if the state “remove[s] materials otherwise available in a local classroom unless [that] action [is] reasonably related to legitimate pedagogical concerns.
A plaintiff may establish a First Amendment violation by proving that the reasons offered by the state, though pedagogically legitimate on their face, in fact serve to mask other illicit motivations.
The Court concludes that plaintiffs have proven their First Amendment claim because both enactment and enforcement were motivated by racial animus. The same evidence supporting the conclusion that defendants violated plaintiffs’ Fourteenth Amendment rights also supports the conclusion that defendants enacted and enforced A.R.S. § 15-112 for illicit reasons, rather than out of pedagogical concern.
“Finally Huppenthal’s comments describing his “eternal” “war” against the MAS program, expose his lack of interest in the welfare of TUSD students, who would be the focus of legitimate pedagogical concern if one existed. Those comments reveal instead a fixation on winning a political battle against a school district. Having thus ruled out any pedagogical motivation, the Court is convinced that decisions regarding the MAS program were motivated by a desire to advance a political agenda by capitalizing on race-based fears.”