Board members spar over elective
Decision to rename ethnic studies class decried as ‘bigotry’
AUSTIN — Tension continued to mount Friday even after State Board of Education members gave final approval to going forward with a new Mexican-American studies high school elective but refused to keep the class’ original name.
“Discrimination.” “Cloaking bigotry.” “Bull.” Those are words Marisa Perez-Diaz of the Texas Board of Education used in a statement to describe the board’s decision to rename a long-sought-after “Mexican-American Studies” elective course “Ethnic Studies.”
While members of the board voted unanimously to create a high school elective that delves into Mexican-American studies Friday, nine Republicans on the board insisted on renaming the course “Ethnic Studies: An Overview of Americans of Mexican Descent” after David Bradley, a member from Beaumont, said he rejects “hyphenated Americanism.”
“Today was not a victory but a slap in the face,” said Perez Diaz, a Democrat from Converse who is Mexican-American, said in a statement Friday. “The time has finally come to call this what it is … DISCRIMINATION!”
In a long news release she posted on Facebook, Perez-Diaz said the board’s vote told her and the state’s Mexican-American students to identify themselves as “Americans of Mexican Descent.”
“The time for cloaking bigotry and/or fear of diversity under the guise of ‘patriotism’ and ‘Americanism’ is over,” she said. “My experience is as American as apple pie, because guess what, my ancestors were on this land well before it was conquered and named America.”
She went on to call Bradley’s opposition to the hyphenated “Mexican-American” term,
“BULL! Again, what does that even mean?”
Bradley said Perez-Diaz is taking the name-change personally, and said Republicans on the board wouldn’t have approved the class if it couldn’t change the official name.
“We’re all Americans. I don’t go around saying I’m an Irish American or an East Texas Moonshining American or anything else. It’s a melting pot and most of the board agreed with that,” Bradley said when reached by phone late Friday.
“They got what they wanted,” Bradley said. “They got 99 percent of what they wanted.”
“If they want to continue antagonizing the board in dealing with this, it could have repercussions,” he said, adding that the fight over the course could turn off school districts from taking up the class.
“Do you think, honestly, there’s going to be a single school district that wants to propose this and deal with this issue because it’s become so weaponized? This course isn’t going to be used in a single school district after they poison it as they’re trying to do now,” Bradley said. “I don’t think they realize that.”
He added, “They just can’t figure out how to say thank you.”
In Texas, 52 percent of the state’s 5.4 million school-aged children come from Mexican or Latino backgrounds. Advocates expect those numbers to climb to nearly 70 percent of the school-age population by 2050.
More than 30 professors, teachers, and students testified before the state board Wednesday, urging members to approve the official adoption of a Mexican-American Studies elective four years after the board originally refused to accept the class. Other advocates for the course said they saw the adoption as a victory but were frustrated the board changed the name.
The course already is taught as a special course in dozens of schools, including in Houston Independent School District. Advocates say the class offers Mexican-American students a deeper connection with their history and helps all students understand the Mexican-Americans’ contributions to U.S. culture. Research shows students who take such courses have higher graduation rates and perform better academically, advocates said.
State education staff next will review state standards for the course, which the public is invited to comment on over the summer. The board is expected to take a final vote on the standards in September, where members can propose a name change.
While schools already can teach the class, the approval gives schools the state’s official endorsement of the course and allows students to take it as an elective beginning in the 201920 school year.