The 9th Circuit ruled the MAS ban to be constitutional, but with a twist. They kicked it back to Judge Tashima giving more explicit direction about potential constitutional violations that state representatives may have engaged in while creating the legislation and banning the program. At this point in time, there was a huge change in the legal team as Wallstreet firm Weil, Gotshal & Magnes LLP agreed to take the case pro bono. It was the first time that MAS supporters would have more legal resources than the state.

In addition to discussing the testimony of “bit” players as well as “missing” witnesses – witnesses the state planned to call but didn’t – this chapter examines closely the testimony of two witnesses for the state, Kathryn Hrabluk and Elliott Hibbs, who were instrumental in showing that the superintendent’s finding of violation was prejudged and predetermined, revealing that the reasons offered by Horne and Huppenthal were pretextual. While there were not as many fireworks as the testimonies of Horne and Huppenthal, these were critically important in establishing the factual basis, which eventually led to the final ruling.

UNIDOS was the center of the youth movement in support of MAS, and their takeover of the TUSD school board meeting (4/26/11) made national headlines. The students engaged in civil disobedience because the state found TUSD out of compliance and the school board was going to take the first steps toward eliminating the program without substantive public input. This chapter details those events from a firsthand account, the massive militarization of subsequent school board meetings (e.g., 150 armed officers, many in riot gear, at a meeting of 500 people), and the subsequent conspiracy theories that rose to prominence (e.g., that former Ethnic Studies professor Ward Churchill orchestrated the whole thing).

The MAS court case moved to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, and one of the premier First Amendment scholars in the country, Erwin Chemerinsky (Dean, Bolt Hall, UC Berkeley), agreed to do the oral arguments. Meanwhile, back in Tucson, co-founders of the MAS program Sean Arce and Auggie Romero got into a public fight that almost came to blows at the annual NAME (National Association of Multicultural Education) conference with multiple MAS teachers in attendance. Finally, John Huppenthal again found TUSD out of compliance with state law even after the elimination of MAS citing hip-hop legend KRS-One’s lyrics as evidence.

This chapter details the ways that core anti-MAS leaders in Arizona and throughout the country helped foment attacks on the program through a massive, loosely coordinated misinformation campaign involving official public statements from elected officials, legislation, television appearances, op-eds, and rightwing radio shows. The rhetoric is directly compared to that used to currently attack and sometimes ban Critical Race Theory throughout the country.

In response to the civil disobedience detailed in Chapter 4, TUSD decided to appeal the ruling that they were out of compliance with state law. However, the administrative law hearing detailed in this chapter – including a board member testifying that MAS represented “cult-like behavior” – was more of a kangaroo court because the state superintendent of public instruction was not required to abide by the ruling. Regardless, it was an important point in the movement as it became clear where the key actors stood in relation to MAS.

The epilogue brings the fight over MAS forward to today’s culture wars and the struggles over the way this country’s history will be taught.

Three Stanford-educated Chicanos took the stand in support of MAS, and these witnesses were central in Judge Tashima’s final ruling. Specifically, they detailed in a scholarly way the academic integrity of the department, the efficacy of taking the classes, and also demonstrated how state representatives used racist “code words” in cementing their opposition to the program. We detail their times testifying, how the state desperately tried to trip them up.

Tom Horne and John Huppenthal, the former state superintendents of public instruction, were central in the elimination of MAS and keepingpressure on TUSD to eliminate any type of race-conscious educational offerings. This chapter details their time on the stand in the federal trial, where each of them unapologetically doubled down on their racist rhetoric, sometimes even diving into moments of absurdity.

This chapter details the formation of the MAS movement from the local teachers, students, artists, and activists to the national-level support (e.g., professional/scholarly organizations, hip hop/funk group Ozomatli, and cartoonist Lalo Alcaraz). Of particular importance was the formation of the “Tucson 11” – a group of MAS educators who filed a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the state law on First and Fourteenth Amendment grounds. Additionally, in this chapter, we explore both the importance of the documentary Precious Knowledge in supporting this movement and how the director’s alleged rape of one of the former MAS students was the beginning of lasting community wounds that ran throughout the movement.

This chapter links the creation of MAS to the historical creation of Ethnic Studies – setting the record straight on the nature of this type of education amidst massive amounts of local and national misinformation. It details what MAS was, the effects of the program on student academic success, while examining how critically engaged, educated Mexican American students came to be seen as such a “threat” to the state.

HB2281 (2010) was a state law meant to eliminate the TUSD MAS program. This is not conjecture but rather a direct statement from the law’s chief architect, former state superintendent of public instruction Tom Horne. This brief chapter provides a broad overview of the history and key figures in this protracted, painful, community-oriented drama of resistance, while also considering the difficulties of telling this story honestly. It draws a direct line between the current banning of Critical Race Theory nationally and this piece of Arizona legislation.

On August 22, 2017, Judge Tashima issued a blistering ruling finding that state representatives created the law and banned MAS based upon racial animus and partisan political gain in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendment rights of Mexican American students in TUSD. There was a massive local and national uproar, celebrating the end of this racist law. Though different Tucson factions claimed shared victory due to the ruling, persistent community divisions remained. This chapter details the post-ruling celebrations, the continued community divisions, a summary of where the key actors in this drama ended up, the current state of MAS in TUSD, and the national Ethnic Studies renaissance that the Tucson struggle spawned. Of equal importance, this chapter details how the lessons of the MAS controversy can help inform the work of those challenging Critical Race Theory bans throughout the country.

The administrative law judge ruled against the district and the new state superintendent of public instruction, John Huppenthal, found TUSD out of compliance with state law. As one of TUSD’s staunchest MAS supporters passed away and in the wake of the multiple rulings against the district, the board voted to eliminate the program spawning walkouts that looked strikingly similar to the blowouts of the 1960s. This led UNIDOS to create the “School of Ethnic Studies,” a daylong youth-led space where students who were walking out could learn from the “forbidden curriculum.”

The “Tuscon 11’s” federal lawsuit continued, but the teachers lost the first round as Judge Tashima ruled in favor of the state. He was assigned to the case because the original judge in the trial was killed in the event where Arizona State Representative Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head. Judge Tashima’s ruling led to an appeal to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Meanwhile, the National Association of Chicana/Chicano Studies (NACCS) demanded a formal investigation into the rape allegations against the Precious Knowledge director.

The trial begins and despite the community divisions, everyone showed up – not necessarily in support of the MAS teachers, but in opposition to the state banning. Two important witnesses were former MAS teacher Curtis Acosta who detailed his classroom approach, and the state tried to paint him as biased due to some spoken word lyrics he wrote (e.g., calling Horne and Huppenthal “Neanderthals in need of Geritol”). The second was Maya Arce, daughter of Sean Arce and prior student plaintiff in the case, testified about the critical importance of MAS for students like her.