London, Jan. 22: Alas, poor Shakespeare. The education authorities in Tucson, Arizona, have decided to ban discussion of The Tempest in class and remove the play from school libraries.
The ban, the latest in a line of politically motivated American assaults on the Bard, is part of a battle over Arizona’s treatment of its fast-growing Mexican-immigrant population, and the extent to which cultural and racial differences should be examined in class.
Long hailed as one of Shakespeare’s most subtle and provocative plays, The Tempest is studied in many US schools for its insights into racism and colonialism. One of its protagonists is Caliban, a black slave on an island ruled by Prospero, the exiled Duke of Milan.
Yet, the play has fallen foul of conservative Arizonans disgusted that state schools offer classes in what they regard as increasingly radicalised Mexican-American studies. Critics complained that so-called ethnic studies courses were encouraging racial conflict and promoting extreme causes, notably a redrawing of America’s southern border to return disputed land to Mexico.
Threatened with financial penalties if it failed to adopt a state ban on ethnic studies, the Tucson school district caved in to a two-year-old law prohibiting courses that “promote the overthrow of the US government, promote resentment towards a race or class of people, are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group, or advocate ethnic solidarity”.
The law was primarily aimed at texts such as Pedagogy of the Oppressed and Occupied America, which critics complained were politically motivated manifestos aimed at turning Latino youths into anti-American activists. One senior state official denounced the ethnic studies courses as “propagandising and brainwashing”.
Curtis Acosta, one of the teachers involved in the Tucson programme, then asked whether he could teach The Tempest instead. He said: “I was told no, because of the themes that are present and (because) the likelihood of avoiding discussions of colonisation, enslavement and racism were remote.”
The Tempest was added to the list of banned books, enhancing Shakespeare’s record of US cultural upsets. In 1996, schools in Merrimack, New Hampshire, banned Twelfth Night because of sexual suggestiveness; in 1980, Midland, Michigan banned The Merchant of Venice because of its “anti-semitic” depiction of Shylock.
The Tucson ban also continues a run of rough treatment for The Tempest in America. In 1956, MGM turned it into Forbidden Planet, a science-fiction thriller loosely based on Shakespeare’s characters. Nor could the star power of Helen Mirren save the 2010 film of The Tempest from a critical drubbing — it was condemned as full of “incomprehensible shouting and pointless shenanigans”.
This may also describe the debate over Arizona’s ethnic studies programme, which first erupted in 2007. Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the United Farm Workers union, which represents many migrant labourers, told a high school audience that Republicans hated Latinos.
The state’s Republican attorney-general, Tom Horne, the then in charge of education, sent an aide to deliver a riposte.
