On January 29, 2025, President Trump issued an Executive Order 14190 on Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling prohibiting federal funds going to K-12 public schools that teach critical race or critical theories and radical gender ideology. The order is premised on the belief that schools in recent years have indoctrinated or compelled students to believe and accept radical ideologies “without question or critical examination,” that “erode critical thinking,” and sow division and confusion. These radical ideologies are identified by terminology including “demanding acquiescence to ‘White Privilege,’” “unconscious bias” and “gender ideology,” among others. President Trump’s “indoctrination” order followed others targeting critical race theory, gender and ideology, and “DEI” (diversity, equity and inclusion) initiatives of any type. Nolan Cabrera and Robert Chang in Banned: The Fight for Mexican American Studies in the Streets and in the Courts tell the story of the leading precursor state initiative to the onslaught of federal executive orders launched by the second Trump administration’s attacking racial and gender conscious education – the enactment and enforcement in 2010 of Arizona’s legislative ban on the Mexican American studies program (MAS) in the Tucson school district.Footnote ¹ Banned’s release is timely and the work promises to inspire and provoke reflection as communities strategize about how best to respond to current efforts to ban gender or race conscious education.

Banned is a fascinating narrative of the development of the MAS program and its dismantling at the hands of state actors willing to ignore its success in improving the performance and graduation rates of Chicana/o and other students who participated in the program, because those state leaders viewed the program as “racist” and “anti-American” (Cabrera and Chang, 10). Rather than follow a strict chronological narrative of the events that led to the demise of the program, Cabrera and Chang opt for an approach that pierces the traditional barrier between author and reader, continually questioning the narrative itself and the narrators, allowing the reader to experience the journey of community activists, teachers, and students who originated and participated in the program and the political battle that ensued as the state’s elected educational leaders reacted by shutting the program down. The narrators played a role, themselves, in the litigation that resisted the program shut-down, so it is an insider telling the tale, at least to some degree. The authors’ style of narration reflects a critical race theory perspective, emphasizing critical thinking, questioning, and endeavoring to ensure that the narrative is inclusive and genuine.

Cabrera and Chang are interested in the power of community and throughout the narrative they explain to the reader that the journey of the MAS program from its development to its demise is one that frequently resulted in divisions in the community itself. Community activism drove the program and came to its defense when the state of Arizona, through state political leaders, targeted the program as racist, divisive, and teaching the students to view themselves as “oppressed” (notwithstanding that the programs were open to all students, not only Chicana/os, and that White students participated in the classes). Politicians targeted the MAS program by persuading the state legislature to enact a statute that banned a course or class that “promote[d] resentment toward a race or class of people, are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group, or advocate ethnic solidarity instead of treatment of pupils as individuals” (A.R.S. §15–112). They then used the statute to challenge the program, ignoring other ethnic programs in the school district for African Americans and Native Americans, which prompted local, regional, and national communities, including artists, authors, journalists, attorneys, and educators to rally to the program’s defense. But when the MAS community in pursuit of financial and political support for the targeted program through a documentary of the program, Precious Knowledge, faced an allegation of rape at the film’s premiere by one of the MAS students against the film’s director, that community splintered (Cabrera and Chang, 41–45). The authors acknowledge the challenges of engaging the film, the community’s response, and the allegations that surfaced subsequently about the extent to which the MAS program reflected sexist or gendered hierarchical constructs. The authors opt not to tell that story themselves but to give readers the option of pursuing additional information through other narratives. Readers may feel somewhat let down by this choice, which left this reader grappling with a conflict insufficiently addressed.

The authors engage the litigation that challenged the constitutionality of the Arizona statute and its implementation through the MAS program. Initially led by a local attorney, the plaintiffs’ team grew to include Robert Chang, one of the authors, Erwin Chemerinsky, one of the nation’s most prominent constitutional lawyers, and the New York law firm of Weil, Gotshal & Manges. The plaintiffs’ team was able to establish how racial and ethnic animus drove the targeting of the MAS program, and how educational political leaders used dog whistle politics to successfully dismantle the MAS program. Undoubtedly, the addition of the more nationally prominent lawyers strengthened the plaintiffs’ team but the authors’ narrative makes plain the tensions that arose in that representation. The authors missed an opportunity, perhaps, to explore more fully the dynamic that frequently plays out when local and national counsel join in representation of a party in a high-profile case creating tensions that impact the litigation. The authors, however, write a stellar account of the day by day trial and the challenges faced by the team in establishing an equal protection discrimination claim that is invaluable to lawyers, law professors and law students.

Ultimately, Banned is a story about resistance: resistance to segregation and the dominant culture’s telling of history in the post-Brown era; the movement to develop and offer race and gender conscious historical narratives and courses that sought to recognize the contributions of ethnic or racial groups and women, in a culture that had long ignored or masked them. The backlash that followed almost immediately was to the meaningful integration of inner city public schools and to the recognition that much in American culture reflected entrenched racist and gendered structures designed to frustrate substantive equality on the basis of gender and race or ethnicity. This backlash also produced resistance from community activists, teachers, and, in particular, student activism and protest. The outcome of that story was mixed: the plaintiffs won the litigation and parts of the Arizona statute were declared unconstitutional but the MAS program itself was abandoned. Banned is a compelling read and a window through which to strategize formal legal resistance to similar efforts playing out in public and private education today. The struggle for MAS is the struggle faced today – continuing the demand for a creative reimagining of education while battling aggressive misinformation, mischaracterization, and disinformation. The authors remind us resistance means we each do what we can.