Arizona legislature seeks to ban “race-based” clubs from campuses

Brooklynite’s new blog is live (Congratulations!). Check it out at studentactivism.net.

The entry that leapt out at me:

“Arizona Law Would Ban “Race-Based” Clubs”

A bill passed by a committee of the Arizona state legislature would prohibit groups “based in whole or in part on race-based criteria” from operating at the the state’s public colleges and universities. The bill would also ban courses and “school sponsored activities” that, taken “as a whole,” serve to “denigrate, disparage, or overtly encourage dissent from the values of American democracy and western civilization,” and would be binding on high schools as well as colleges.

“This bill basically says, ‘You’re here. Adopt American values,’” one state legislator told a reporter. “If you want a different culture, then fine, go back to that culture.”

Instructing the descendants of enslaved and Indigenous people to blend in or go home? Uh, really? “Home” where?

It looks like this bill would ban groups like the University of Arizona Black Alumni and African American Student Affairs, the Northern Arizona Black Student Union, and the Arizona State chapter of the Student African American Brotherhood. The African American Men of Arizona State University would have to cease its college prep and mentoring outreach programmes. The Black Business Students Association at ASU would be out on its ear. Native Americans United would be evicted from NAU, along with the Chinese Students Association, the Hispanic Honor Society, the Hopi Senom Club, and the Thai Student Association.

I wonder if Arizona State would be made to discontinue its African and African American Studies Program too?

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Tagged as: bigotry