At the Saturday, Jan. 14 community forum, Tucson attorney Richard Martinez gave an update on the federal court proceedings in the lawsuit he filed against the state in 2010. Martinez first filed the lawsuit in 2010 with 11 Mexican American Studies teachers signed on as plaintiffs and eventually added two students to the lawsuit.
Maritnez will be on All Things Political with Steve Leal today at 12 Noon, on 1330 AM The Jolt. Give a listen, or even call in at 520-529-3508.
After the jump is part of the legal update from the Jan. 14 forum on U.S. District Court Judge A. Wallace Tashima’s recent ruling from Martinez.
“First the Acosta lawsuit, which is the teachers’ and students’ lawsuit is alive and well, going forward. Judge ruled the students have standing. That’s the first hurdle — he said yes,” Martinez said.
But what most people didn’t realized is that last fall he filed for a motion for summary judgment on three of the constitutional claims. Huppenthal’s attorneys at the state Attorney General’s office, have to respond by Monday, Jan. 16 and Martinez then has to reply by end of month.
“We are hoping he will hear that motion in February,” he said, adding that a decision could come forward by March.
“If we do, then 2281 is gone and what the state has done is completely stopped. Even though there is a perception that legal cases go on for years, this one is poised right now to get a very quick result.”Martinez introduced a new plaintiff in the lawsuit, Tucson High Magnet School senior Nicolas Dominguez, who is (was) currently enrolled in three Mexican American studies classes offered at the high school. If Tashima approves Dominguez, the student will be added to the lawsuit as part of a “motion for intervention.”
The goal is to file a motion for a temporary restraining order stopping TUSD and a restraining order stopping Huppenthal. If Tashima issues a ruling one expectation would be that the TUSD school board meets to reverse its decision. If that doesn’t happen, then “TUSD could find themselves the defendant in a lawsuit very quickly,” Martinez said.
While the TUSD board made its decision to not appeal and the federal lawsuit proceedings continue, in the background is the district’s ongoing desegregation court order and a Post Unitary Status Plan the district passed in 2009. Frustrated, plaintiffs in that case went back to court and the district judge ordered a special master be appointed by the court to keep an eye on the district and report to the court.
Those plaintiffs, in a case that goes back almost 30 years, are represented by attorneys from the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund and Martinez said the organization is planning to do a community forum soon to provide a fuller update on the case. However, this week the organization is expected to file a contempt motion against TUSD due to the district’s vote dismantling MAS and violation of a federal court order that required the district to expand the program, not diminish or end it.
“From a lawyers’ perspective that’s a pretty serious thing. Then it will be up to (the judge) that he will deal with it or send it to the special master,” Martinez said, describing the 18-page special master order as “a very rare and significant order. It puts the school district under supervision of the special master and has given him extraordinary powers. … At the TUSD level they believe they can do whatever they want … and yet they’ve had our community and some legal cases that have said, ‘Oh no you can’t.’”
Martinez said the two lawsuits are close in timing, but that right now his lawsuit is the cleanest shot to stop the law and the state from fining the district. Adding Dominguez to the lawsuit will help Martinez show the loss of the classes and that nothing can replace them.
“And the significant part is the crazy book banning going on,” Martinez said.
Martinez said to keep in mind that the Hicks resolution is a farce because its language says it has kept MAS. “No they didn’t, no they didn’t. In fact they talked about coming back with something in August that includes Latinos … in curriculum and social studies that includes Latinos, whatever that means no one knows. If you look at the resolution carefully they have banned all the other classes. We will no longer have any English Latino literature classes — none. They are off the books forever according to that resolution. Our art classes are gone and our middle school classes are gone and our elementary school programs are gone,” Martinez said.
“Then they have the fallacy that we really care about Latino students being successful and closing the achievement gap and we are going to do something about it,” said Martinez, referring to comments made by TUSD deputy superintendent Lupita Garcia to a group of students who marched from Cholla High School in a walk-out on Wednesday, Jan. 11. Garcia told the students that she has $82,000 for tutoring. “As if tutoring were the magic bullet.” If it were then “we’d all be going to Harvard.”
This article appears in Jan 26 – Feb 1, 2012.
No Irish history studies, no Mexican history studies, fair is fair.
The people who need Mexican studies are Anglo. Mexicans would benefit more from US studies – used to be called American History and it should include all ethnicities of Americans.
TUSD can’t afford to lose any more money. Every year the buget gets cut. I agree that they have to consider ALL students and that it could be incorparated into Social Studies. Losing money would affect many other programs. When I went to school and also my children we didn’t have Mexican Studies. I learned about my race, traditions and values through my parents. My children learned about their hertiage by me and their grand parents. When my daughter went to the U of A she had the options to take Mexican Studies. We have other serious issue that we have to worry about.
While I think it’s admirable that Hispanic families are proud of their
culture & are interested in studying their heritage, it should not be part
of a tax-payer funded school program. It’s totally discriminatory.
Specific culture & history should be taught at home. I’m Irish; why not
Irish ethnic studies? Why not German, Polish, Japanese, Native American,
Viet Namese, Italian, Chinese, etc.? Aren’t these cultures part of the American
“melting pot”. Why should the numerous other cultures that make up America
& pay taxes to fund our schools be discriminated against by funding an
ethnic studies course that addresses only one culture. This is America, not Mexico. It’s not right that one culture should be placed above all others. Totally discriminatory to exclude all but one culture.
If an event occurs on American soil, wouldn’t that be considered to be a part of American history? Maybe we are not fond of the histroy regarding Mexican/ American’s, but never- the- less it is a part of our histroy. As far as who pays the tax dollars for the program, well, I guess the people of the district make a contribution, unless of course they happen to be tax exempt.
I say bring back the classes as electives. Students need to learn american history and state history. As far as Hornes theory on how devisive and ideological they are sobeit. Every student can’t be a conservative. Heck I wanted to be a comunist until I understood that I work harder than a plurality of others therefore I earn more.