TUSD’s MEChA comes under scrutiny

by Loretta Hunnicutt on Aug. 28, 2011
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TUSD’s schools have MEChA chapters and not even the district’s Superintendent knows if they are sanctioned by the district. If you don’t know what MEChA is, you are among hundreds of thousands of Tucsonans, including this author, who didn’t know and didn’t care.

The group Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán came under scrutiny as a result of the Tucson Unified School District’s appeal of the finding by Superintendent of Public Instruction (SOPI) that TUSD’s Mexican American Studies classes violate state law. In violation of state law, the classes are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group, promote resentment towards a race or class of people, and advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals.

Not until the district’s superintendent testified at the hearing as to an email he received from Assistant Superintendent Dr. Lupita Cavazos-Garcia was much attention paid to the TUSD group in and out of the district. In the email, Dr. Garcia expressed her concerns regarding MEChA’s efforts to recruit students for an “occupied peoplesâ€