Local Kerfluffle

Protesting students disrupted a Tucson Unified
School District board meeting in May, 2011

Administrative Judge Lewis Kowal ruled yesterday in favor of State Superintendent of Education John Huppenthal's long-standing quarrel that Tucson Unified School District's "Mexican American Studies" program violates a state law against studies aimed a specific ethnicity. It is expected that the district will file a counter-suit costing taxpayers even more money (when one government entity sues another, it's the taxpayer that loses!). At stake are about $15 million in funds which TUSD will lose unless some court of appeal will overthrow Judge Kowal's decision.

This has been an ugly and vituperative fight, and it's not over yet. There is so much sin on each side that one  hardly knows where to begin.

It is true that:
          Generations of white Americans have exploited and mistreated Mexicans and Mexican-Americans, in spite of the fact that they were here long before the whites.

However,
          Even though many of those most protesting the Arizona law are here illegally, Tucson High School endorsed a hard core activist to speak at an assembly last year, leading the (mostly Hispanic) students in chanting, "We didn't cross the border; the border crossed us!"

In addition,
          Students who chained themselves to desks in the school board meeting last spring were more concerned about whether their "right" to study the history of political oppression against Mexicans was being infringed on, than whether or not they might be breaking a law.

It should be noted here that:
           The Mexican-American studies course can substitute as a graduation requirement in place of courses on U.S. history and government.

It's all sin, and none of it is education. It's all political, and none of it is redemptive in any form. Nothing will improve through raw exhibitions of political power, either judicial or legislative. Nothing will improve as long as each side is pointing and saying, "Your sins are worse than mine!"  Somebody has to repent of something, some time, somewhere. Somebody has to fear God, and love his own ego less. Somebody has to obey God's revealed will.

Who would like to go first?