By Jaweed Kaleem | Los Angeles Times
A federal judge in Arizona ruled Tuesday that the state’s controversial ban on ethnic studies was motivated by racial discrimination.
The decision from Judge A. Wallace Tashima, a federal appeals court judge sitting in the district court in Arizona, came in a lawsuit brought by students against the state’s top education official. It is a major blow to a state law that resulted in the closure of a Mexican American studies program in Tucson.
Proponents of the program have argued that the 2010 law, which in part banned courses designed primarily for students of a particular ethnic group, was effectively racist and targeted Mexican Americans and other minority groups.
Tucson dropped its Mexican American studies program in 2012 under threat of losing state funding.
