John Huppenthal: I am not a racist -- I grew up in south Tucson

The judge’s Tucson Unified School District’s opinion that I have racial animus towards Mexican-Americans is just silly.

I grew up immersed in Hispanic culture in south Tucson, I was one of the few whites in a classroom of Hispanics, they came to my sleepovers and birthday parties, I went to their quinceañeras; I ran track and played football with Hispanics, a Hispanic fireman was our volunteer basketball coach. Ed Sotelo, a wrestler from Pueblo coached me to an undefeated season at Saint John’s elementary school in Tucson. The hundreds of hours I spent wrestling and weightlifting with the great Hispanics of Sunnyside High School trained me for my undefeated season and my college scholarship.

A Hispanic human resource manager gave me a huge break coming out of college — hiring me into a great job that allowed me to serve on City Council, state Senate, state House and as superintendent.

All of my buddies and I escaped poverty and went on to graduate from college and success. Marcelino Lucero went from teaching me fractions in third grade to being a pharmacist. Richard Sanchez, an athletic director. Luis Rodriguez, an avionics engineer and, in retirement, a science teacher. Jesus Castro went from all-star halfback to architect. Jimmy Ortega, another wrestler, a vocational ed teacher. The odds against that success are astronomical for even such a small group of kids. In my view, it is entirely values driven, and not the values of welfare and dependency.

I have nothing but love for my brown brothers and sisters. I express that love in retirement by having volunteered every day for the last three years in south Phoenix teaching mathematics to highly at-risk students using my engineering degree. My three classes and after-school program are half Latino and half African-American.

Where I do have animus and the fire in my belly, the source of the blog comments, is toward the teaching coming of our universities — the poison driving TUSD’s Mexican American Studies program.

Critical race theory uses a Marx framework of oppression to teach young Hispanic children to hate whites. It is a skinhead philosophy.

Leaders of the TUSD MAS were blunt about it, writing in a research journal their intent to “racimize” TUSD MAS classes. They put up posters glorifying Che Guevera and taught that Benjamin Franklin was a racist (right while I was in the classroom no less).

Benjamin Franklin helped build the first schools for African-Americans in the U.S., used his science skills to observe that black children were every bit as capable of learning as white kids; associated with, encouraged and published every major abolitionist in the 18th century; was the most influential voice leading Pennsylvania to be the first state to outlaw slavery; and led the first US Congress to outlaw slavery in the Northwest territories. His role was so well respected that he was elected president of Pennsylvania’s Abolitionist Society.

Not a word about these facts to the students — just reasons to hate a founder and leading designer of our nation.

By comparison, Che Guevara had 14,000 Hispanics shot in the back of the head in Cuba for expressing their first amendment rights and designed a country with a legal maximum monthly income for Hispanics of $20. What a role model!

The gloss of this judicial opinion is irresponsible and will likely trap TUSD in another decade of dysfunction. Over the last 17 years, TUSD has lost 14,000 students and is still shrinking by over 600 students per year — the equivalent of an entire school. Fewer than 30 percent of TUSD parents rate the quality of their child’s education excellent, and in seven short years, they have burned through three superintendents — at least two of them superstars. The ethnic achievement gap between whites and Hispanics within TUSD grows every single year from third grade to graduation. And, no, MAS did not reduce that gap even slightly.