Something good has happened since the outcry after a speech given by a co-founder of the United Farm Workers Union at a Tucson public high school, says a teacher who sponsors the school’s Teenage Republican Club.
More students are now aware of the small club and its membership has grown from three to seven, said John Moritz, who teaches classes on entrepreneurs and technology at Tucson High Magnet School.
“Seven students for here is a really good number,” he said. “If you look at Tucson’s high school district, it’s not a very Republican district.”
Tensions started when Dolores Huerta, who helped form the United Farm Workers Union together with civil rights icon Cesar Chavez, told students on April 3 that “Republicans hate Latinos.”
She also included messages of support for Venezuela’s controversial socialist president Hugo Chavez and said Arizona’s status as a right-to-work status punishes workers by weakening labor unions.
The event received national media attention, including that of conservative commentator Bill O’Reilly on the Fox Network.
Lawmakers take notice
Several startled Arizona Republican legislators also took notice and called an April 19 meeting of the House Select Committee on Government Operations, Performance and Waste to question school and district officials about the appropriateness of Ms. Huerta’s remarks.
The speech created a “mixed reaction” among faculty, but also promoted dialogue about free speech and the process for establishing education assemblies on campus among teachers and students, said Mr. Moritz.
“Teachers are starting to talk about how events are handled,” said Mr. Moritz, adding that he only touches on politics in his classes to address how they affect business.
“If it doesn’t have an effect I just don’t talk about it,” he said.
Earlier in the year, school officials forced the club to take down posters that read: “Be a Good American, Join the Teenage Republican Club,” he said.
“It says be an American, and that offends some people on campus,” he said.
A number of the posters were also vandalized, but Mr. Moritz did not feel the damage was carried out as a political vendetta.
“I think at this school everybody’s signs are vandalized.”
The club has not received any negative attention resulting from Ms. Huerta’s speech and the attention it gathered.
At the April 19 meeting, the club’s president Mon-Yee Fung, told Arizona Capitol Times that Ms. Huerta’s remarks about Republicans “surprised her” and when she asked to leave, she was told by a teacher to sit down.
Republican legislators also questioned Abel Morado, the school’s principal, about a possible previous assembly reserved solely for black students to commemorate civil rights figure Rosa Parks.
Rep. Jonathan Paton, R-30, asked whether a speaker at that assembly allegedly used profanity to bemoan the state’s administration of the AIMS test for high school students.
“It was my understanding that the teacher used the F-bomb,” said Mr. Morado.