sterwood:

As part of the state-mandated termination of its ethnic studies program, the Tucson Unified School District released an initial list of books to be banned from its schools today. According to district spokeperson Cara Rene, the books “will be cleared from all classrooms, boxed up and sent to the Textbook Depository for storage.”

Facing a multimillion-dollar penalty in state funds, the governing board of Tucson’s largest school district officially ended the 13-year-old program on Tuesday in an attempt to come into compliance with the controversial state ban on the teaching of ethnic studies…

Another notable text removed from Tucson’s classrooms is Shakespeare’s play “The Tempest.” In a meeting this week, administrators informed Mexican-American studies teachers to stay away from any units where “race, ethnicity and oppression are central themes,” including the teaching of Shakespeare’s classic in Mexican-American literature courses.

Other banned books include “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” by famed Brazilian educator Paolo Freire and “Occupied America: A History of Chicanos” by Rodolfo Acuña, two books often singled out by Arizona state superintendent of public instruction John Huppenthal, who campaigned in 2010 on the promise to “stop la raza.” Huppenthal, who once lectured state educators that he based his own school principles for children on corporate management schemes of the Fortune 500, compared Mexican-American studies to Hitler Jugend indoctrination last fall.

What the fuck? Pedagogy of the Oppressed is the single most important book I have ever read. It’s a masterpiece, and it’s not being allowed because it talks about racial oppression?! This angers me far more than I can even articulate.

(Also, that fucking bolded part. I didn’t bold it, but I probably would have anyway, because that’s just so horrible.)

This is the same state that outlawed ethnic studies classes and at one point considered making it illegal for “anyone with an accent” to teach English. It must suck to be a university professor or a graduate student in a state so opposed to freedom of academic inquiry.

(via ghoulmann)