Bill to prohibit cultural groups
Sasha Solomonov - May 1st, 2008In an effort to create a “melting pot,” a new bill would cut funding from public school programs and classes that dissuade students from adopting American values.
Senate Bill 1108, spearheaded by Rep. Russell Pearce, would disallow elementary level through in-state university schools from providing classes that exclusively focus on race, religion or culture to ensure taxpayer dollars are not being used to encourage dissent from Western civilization.
In addition, the bill would bar partially or fully race-based groups from operating on university grounds, which, on the NAU campus, would include the Black Student Union, M.E.Ch.A., African Students Association, HAPA Hawaiian Club and others.
SB 1108 is vague on what constitutes encouraging denigration or dissent; however, Pearce drafted the bill partially in response to an ethnic studies program in the Tucson Unified School District that has been criticized as being unpatriotic, according to The Arizona Republic.
“This section does not prohibit the inclusion of diverse political, religious, ideological or cultural beliefs or values if the course, class or school sponsored activity as a whole does not denigrate, disparage or overtly encourage dissent from the values of American democracy and Western civilization,” the bill states.
David Camacho, special assistant to NAU President John D. Haeger, said the bill is unclear in its wording and, from what it states, takes away from an educated citizenry.
“We have to start by asking what do we mean by ‘American.’ What are we melting into?” Camacho said. “My view is that all of us are American already and are bound together by a common history. We are a very diverse society but we are one society.”
Along with individual groups focused on a specific race, the bill would also eliminate the Multicultural Student Center.
Tadzia Dennis-Jackson, program coordinator senior for the Multicultural Student Center, said the purpose of these groups is not to separate students based on race and call for a revolution against white America, but to educate students on their differences and similarities.
“A lot of the students that go here to NAU all have programs that they are involved with, and all of those are places that all students can go to and learn about those different cultures and with this bill all of those would be eliminated,” Dennis-Jackson said.
Dennis-Jackson is also a member of the commission on ethnic diversity, which ensures the campus is a welcoming environment for students of all ethnicities, a commission whose continuance would be under question if the bill were to be enacted.
“We know that NAU is a predominately caucasian school, a white school,” Dennis-Jackson said. “Sometimes our students need a little bit of help just being comfortable in this environment. It’s so important just to have those places for students to be comfortable to talk about who they are and be accepted for who they are; this bill is going to destroy that.”
Dennis-Jackson said the bill would further isolate students who are already at a disadvantage. She said recruitment and retention for students of color, students from different socio-economic backgrounds and students who are first generation would decline rapidly as well.
Already, students on race-based scholarships are questioning whether their tuition will continue to be waived.
“I am on a tribal scholarship, and if it gets taken away it would affect me going to school here,” said Molly Aday, a senior nursing major.
Aday also said the bill would have a drastic negative effect on younger students studying on Native American reservations and the type of degraded education they would receive in public schools.
“They are trying to make everyone one when it really isn’t, instead of recognizing everyone as an individual,” Aday said. “It takes away from culture, from diversity.”
Although Pearce said the bill does not aim to target diversity, opponents of the bill say its goals are just that.
“If anything, these cultural groups support and celebrate what America should stand for, freedom. Freedom to believe what you want, say what you want and act as you wish, especially with in cultural groups,” said Whitney Roberts, a senior health and human services major. “America once prided itself on being a great mixing pot of cultures. This bill does nothing but disgust me as it tries to deny American citizens the right to celebrate their diversity.”
In an interview with The Arizona Republic, Rep. John Kavanagh said he hopes the bill would transform cultural studies in the school system back into the old “melting pot” model.
“This bill basically says, ‘You’re here. Adopt American values,’” Kavanagh said “If you want a different culture, then fine, go back to that culture.”
Director of the Ethnic Studies Department Sara Aleman said the people who support the bill are ignorant.
“The person who is spearheading this bill [Pearce] is basically a racist and probably undereducated himself,” Aleman said. “It would lessen our ability to educate students who have not had the same opportunities. There’s a lot of thinking in the United States that everyone has access to the same education—and that’s not true.”
While ethnic studies would not be supported under the proposal, the department is not actively addressing the bill. Aleman said that is the duty of administrators higher up, such as the Arizona Board of Regents.
She said they are not worried about the proposal being implemented because, innately, the bill is un-American.
“In anytime of economic downturn we see a scapegoating of immigrants and this is just a repetition of that cycle,” Aleman said.
The bill may be clear evidence of the backward thinking in Arizona and America as a whole. Nationally, Arizona would be considered the most underdeveloped state, Dennis-Jackson said.
Globally, the image of the nation would dimished as diversity education seeps through the cracks.
“When I first heard the bill I thought back to when Arizona did not have a Martin Luther King holiday and I was thinking to myself how backwards we were as a state. If this is something that should happen to pass it is going to set us back so far,” Dennis-Jackson said. “The U.S. is considered the powerhouse and for us to not know who we are, we are eliminating our history, we are eliminating the power that we have.”
Ultimately, Aleman said this bill was written out of fear of people who are different.
“Many kinds of this bill historically are based on fear—fear of people that are not conforming to mainstream America,” Aleman said. “It’s xenophobia at its worst.”