Inside Higher Ed posted this text of her speech:
........”The new Arizona law generally known as SB 1070 is considered the strictest anti-immigrant legislation in the country and is explicitly intended to drive undocumented immigrants out of the state. One reason it has instigated a boycott is because to a whole lot of people, myself included, it appears to not only invite but require the police to engage in racial profiling. Before we had a chance to fully get our heads around the implications of either 1070 or of the subsequent boycott, our governor signed HB 2281, which is intended to eliminate any Ethnic Studies classes from public and charter schools in Arizona.
As I held hands with Middle and High School students who formed a human chain around TUSD headquarters this past Wednesday to protest this law, the children tirelessly chanted:
“Our education is under attack, what do we do? Fight Back.”
As a professor, someone who has committed her life to teaching, I was moved beyond words to see those children peacefully—in fact, beautifully—asking only for a chance to see themselves reflected in the lessons they are taught, the lectures that they hear, the textbooks that they read.
I was there with those children for two reasons:
First, Chicano studies, the field under attack in this legislation, is my own field of research and teaching. The law suggests that it is knowledge about marginalized histories and cultures that will divide us. That is, this law tries to shoot the messenger. As the young students told reporters repeatedly Wednesday, they have a right to learn about all sorts of diverse histories and cultural expressions. The second reason I stood with those children is because their education, like your education, matters to me. If I have been saying anything to you so far, it is that education has a public value. That is, your education will not only bring you a bigger paycheck. It will enable you to be a better fellow citizen, more productive, better able to participate in solving the challenges I and my peers have not been able to conquer. So the ongoing cutbacks in public funding of education, as well as the recent devastating cuts to our own university among others, are deeply worrying to me in that they strike at both the quantity and quality of education that this state provides to its people. I do hope that you will, like the youth I stood with on Wednesday, fight for public education. Now that you have completed your own education, please remember to leave the door open behind you so that other students may enter.
On behalf of the faculty of the School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, and of the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies, I wish you the very best. “
Based on the students' reaction, I have two pieces of advice:
To the proffessor - look for a new job, and
To the Alumni Association - make sure the professor is looking for a new job.
Thanks.
She is obviously either an idiot or a liar.
Go to MEXICO & study CHICANO studies, maam. Get the F&&& out of the USA.
The is another reason why this country is losing it’s own identity.
We won’t miss you.
Maybe you can get SOME education into the heads of the illegal intruders & get them to stay in their own country & clean it up there.
WTF???
What rocket scientist thought it would be a GOOD idea to have this twit as a commencement speaker?