Horne’s summer horror blockbuster: “THE RETURN OF M. A. S.!!!”

by David Safier

The election season is upon us, and it's never too soon to try and win votes by ginning up fear of brown people. Also, it's just possible one or more judicial decisions could come down in favor of the dismantled Mexican American Studies program.

Time for Tom Horne to unveil his latest campaign against MAS.

TUSD still has to address the issue of integrating more Mexican American history and literature into its standard curriculum or even recreate the MAS program in a different form. Some pending judicial rulings could force the district's hand. Horne's response is to file two motions. Their gist is: "You'll have to pry HB2281 out of my cold, dead hands." Or, as it's put in the Star article:

Horne said it cannot be left up to TUSD or its superintendent to represent the state's interest in ensuring the new courses would not be in violation being that the district initially defended the classes and fought to retain them.

Horne said his intervention is necessary to avoid the creation of a new program that would be in violation of the law that eliminated the Mexican American Studies courses to begin with – a law that Horne helped draft.

"The state of Arizona has the limited right to appear and protect its interests against federal interference with its educational policy," Horne wrote in his complaint.

Mark Stegeman, in his most recent newsletter, says Horne's move in "unexpected." The TUSD Board President's "Golly! Gosh!" reaction to every politically motivated move by Horne and Huppenthal would be a charming bit of naivete if he weren't in such an important position. But every time he trusts in the good intentions of the Atty Gen and the Ed Supe, he allows TUSD to be further steamrolled.

 You can read Horne's two filings here and here.