Laurie Roberts

opinion columnist





"All I'm saying is simply this, that all life is interrelated, that somehow we're caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason, I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. You can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality."

-- Martin Luther King, letter from Birmingham Jail

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was all about justice, that notion that we are all equal, that we all deserve opportunities.

He lived by that Old Testament command from God that we should not only be charitable but work for justice.

Social justice, he called it.

Just don’t dare talk about such things in Arizona’s schools.

Rep. Bob Thorpe has proposed legislation that would bar Arizona’s publicly funded schools, community colleges and universities from teaching about or discussing anything that promotes "social justice toward a race, gender, religion, political affiliation, social class or other class of people.”

Thorpe, R-Flagstaff, didn’t return a call to explain his concern, nor did House Bill 2120's sole co-sponsor, Rep. Mark Finchem, R-Oro Valley.

In an interview with the Daily Caller, a conservative news website, Thorpe said taxpayers shouldn’t have to subsidize courses that, in his view, promote discrimination or racial isolation.

“It seems like racially insensitive agendas are occurring in higher education,” he told the website. “The trend is very troubling.”

He pointed to an Arizona State University course last year that sent Fox News commentators and white nationalists over the edge: U.S. Race Theory and the Problem of Whiteness. According to ASU, the upper-division course "uses literature and rhetoric to look at how stories shape people's understandings and experiences of race."

MORE: ASU denounces 'whiteness' fueled hate speech

Thorpe also cited University of Arizona’s “privilege walk,” an event in which students stand shoulder to shoulder then step forward or backward depending upon their answers to a series of questions based on their experiences: Things like whether you had more than 50 books in your house growing up or whether you can go shopping without fear of being followed or harassed.

“The purpose of this activity is to demonstrate how social identifiers that are out of participants’ control have affected their privilege and the rights of members of their community,” wrote UA’s Department of Residence Life, which sponsors the event.

Who determines 'accurate' history?

Thorpe said such activities “don’t represent the values of Arizonans. They certainly don’t represent my values.”

“The way these classes are set up,” he explained, “is that people are judged not because of the content of their character.”

Which I think maybe, still too often in America, is the point.

Luckily, students still would be able to learn about “the accurate history of any ethnic group” should Thorpe’s bill pass, though Thorpe doesn’t specify who gets to decide what’s accurate.

VALDEZ: What SB 1070 rhetoric did to Arizona kids

I’m thinking … Thorpe? Fox News? (Surely, not the white nationalists…)

They also could learn about “the historical oppression of a particular group” though it’s unclear whether teachers could talk about oppression as being a bad thing, given that that might “promote division, resentment or social justice’’ – all things outlawed by the bill.

People who believe that such topics are ripe for discussion and exploration on college campuses are dismayed, to put it nicely, by Thorpe’s attempt at squashing academic freedom.

Sen. Martin Quezada, D-Phoenix, called it “a disgusting slap in the face to justice, culture, pursuit of a higher level of thinking and improvement of society as a whole.”

Would this outlaw feeding the homeless?

Brendan Mahoney, who sits on the Phoenix Human Relations Commission, wondered when social justice – the idea that people should work for the good of one another – became such a horrifying threat.

He says a high-school program to feed the homeless or a first-grade class project to send care packages to victims of natural disaster are examples of attempts to provide “social justice” toward “a class of people” – the very thing Thorpe’s bill outlaws.

“One could wonder how an elected official could sponsor something profoundly un-American,” he said. “But reading between the lines, it’s obvious the bill is targeting groups that our Legislature would rather not exist: Black Lives Matter, LGBT, undocumented, Dreamers.”

MORE: Inside a school's Black Lives Matter walkout

Thorpe told the Daily Caller there’s nothing in his bill that stops universities or community colleges from offering such classes and events.

But if they do, they would lose up to 10 percent of their state funding.

Never mind that such a move -- prompted by a legislator who I'm guessing has never attended a single one of the events or classes he criticizes -- would be guaranteed to promote division and resentment of a class of people:

Arizona legislators.