Senator John McCain, who issued a statement praising Huppenthal as a "straight shooter" and a "friend of the taxpayer".
[11][12][13] The bill targeted the TUSD Mexican-American studies program, based on claims that it was politicizing students and breeding resentment against whites.
[13] A subsequent report commissioned by Huppenthal was released in May 2011 finding no evidence of the ethnic studies program being in violation of the law.
[14]" Huppenthal was defeated in his race for reelection in the Republican Party primary in 2014 by Diane Douglas, who subsequently won the general election, and succeeded him in office in January 2015.
[15] On his last day in office, Huppenthal issued a letter warning the Tucson Unified School District that they were illegally promoting ethnic solidarity and the overthrow of the U.S. government by teaching Mexican history and hip hop.
The letter also stated that a culturally relevant U.S. history course taught from the African-American perspective violates the law because it includes "An Introduction to Hip Hop Presented by Master Teacher, KRS-One.
"[16] The Tucson Unified School District offers these culturally relevant courses pursuant to a federal court order, arising from a decades-long desegregation lawsuit.
[13][17] In 2017, HB 2281 was criticized for showing "discriminatory intent" and violating the constitutional rights of the students of Arizona from Federal Judge A. Wallace Tashima.
Comments labeled critics as "evil scum", called recipients of public assistance "lazy pigs", and compared the work of Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger to the actions of the Nazis.
[25][26] On June 16, 2014, Phoenix television station KPNX broke the story, claiming that not only was Huppenthal responsible for the comments, but that he had posted many of them from his office at the Arizona Department of Education.