Federal judge says Arizona's ban on Mexican American studies is racially discriminatory

The L.A. Times reports:

A federal judge in Arizona ruled Tuesday that the state’s controversial ban on ethnic studies was motivated by racial discrimination.

The decision from Judge A. Wallace Tashima, a federal appeals court judge sitting in the district court in Arizona, came in a lawsuit brought by students against the state's top education official. It is a major blow to a state law that resulted in the closure of a Mexican American studies program in Tucson.


Proponents of the program have argued that the 2010 law, which in part banned courses designed primarily for students of a particular ethnic group, was effectively racist and targeted Mexican Americans and other minority groups.

Tucson dropped its Mexican American studies program in 2012 under threat of losing state funding.

“Both enactment and enforcement were motivated by racial animus,” Tashima wrote in his decision Tuesday. He said that the law violated the equal protection clause of the Constitution by discriminating against Latinos. He also said the law violated students’ 1st Amendment “right to receive information and ideas.”

Arizona’s law in general banned classes promoting “resentment toward a race or class of people.”

It was all the more controversial because it was passed the same year the state passed the widely protested SB 1070 law, which required police to determine the immigration status of someone arrested or detained when there was “reasonable suspicion” they were not in the U.S. legally.

In his decision, Tashima railed against former Arizona state superintendents of public instruction who pushed to pass the ban, John Huppenthal and Tom Horne.

A left-wing judge decides he doesn't like Arizona voters. No wonder why many people don't vote. The ever expanding 14th amendment gets used again by an un-elected federal judge.