Ethnic Studies Week, October 1-7

College of Ethnic Studies Statement re. Arizona Bill HB 2281 The College of Ethnic Studies provides a safe environment and resources for students and faculty to study people of color and indigenous peoples’ histories, experiences and cultural productions. We teach critical thinking and critical social justice-focused community engagement. Our primary aim is to actively implement a vision of social justice that exists on the basis of race and ethnicity. We as a college, reject Arizona HB 2281 bill, and all that it stands for. This bill grossly misrepresents Ethnic Studies, our history, goals, and pedagogical methods. The passage of HB 2281 is a symptom of larger national anxieties about a demographic shifts and a rejection of what “America looks like.” Since its founding in 1968-69, Ethnic Studies classes have been open to everyone: we teach all people to respect and value our histories and our diverse struggles, and thus to become informed citizens well-equipped to function in a diverse and globalized society. HB 2281, crafted and passed by people who have never taken an ethnic studies course, erroneously defines Ethnic Studies as a discipline which 1. PROMOTES THE OVERTHROW OF THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT; 2. PROMOTES RESENTMENT TOWARD A RACE OR CLASS OF PEOPLE; 3. IS DESIGNED PRIMARILY FOR PUPILS OF A PARTICULAR ETHNIC GROUP; and 4. ADVOCATES ETHNIC SOLIDARITY INSTEAD OF THE TREATMENT OF PUPILS AS INDIVIDUALS. We believe that the ignorance demonstrated by this bill shows how relevant Ethnic Studies is today, in primary, secondary, and post-secondary education. In an era when history books are being re-written to further erase those aspects of national history in which our country failed to live up to its ideals, Ethnic Studies matters more than ever.