[5] Jennifer Domino Rudolph, author of Embodying Latino Masculinities: Producing Masculatinidad wrote that the school "is strongly associated with Puerto Rican cultural nationalism".

[11] Circa 1988, Clemente High established a new curriculum that was centered around students and involved participation from parents and multiculturalism.

[5] Parents and area community activists shaped the school's curriculum in a manner of the traditional American education system.

[5] Circa 1995, Chicago area local and Illinois state officials accused the school of using an Illinois aid program to send students to Puerto Rico to attend a radical political campus, fund flights for performers and speakers favoring Puerto Rico being politically independent from the United States, and to provide money for a pro-Puerto Rican independence fundraiser.

[5] In November 1996, a CPS evaluation of Clemente stated, "the political climate and divisiveness thwart academic progress at a level so significant that the education of the students is being ignored.

"[14] On January 31, 1997, Jerry Anderson, an administrator at Homewood-Flossmoor High School and potential candidate for principal at Clemente, decided to decline the position at Clemente after receiving a letter asking her to call "your boss" for the FALN and telephone calls asking her to meet leaders of the area Puerto Rican community; she stated that, "I didn't think politics should have any part in education.

[5] It quoted a CPS report stating that school funds were used to promote the release of the terrorist and for Puerto Rican independence movements, and that the American flag was banned from some classrooms.

[17] An area political strategist and businessperson, Larry Ligas, a person not of Puerto Rican origin, claimed credit for spearheading the story.

He said he got information, much of it from former Puerto Rican independence movement propagandist, Rafael Marrero, and gave it to Sun-Times journalist Michelle Campbell.

He had been trying to sabotage the Juan Antonio Corretjer Puerto Rican Cultural Center,[19] which had a working relationship with Clemente.

"[18] On February 12, 1997, a group of Puerto Ricans and other Hispanics and Latinos protested at the Sun-Times offices, accusing the newspaper of anti-Latino bias and racism.

[21] On February 18, CPS head Vallas stated that Illinois lawmakers needed to be more stringent with rules regarding spending of funds intended for poor children.

[20] Even though there is no concrete evidence stating that the school had associations with the Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional Puertorriqueña (FALN), at one time the FBI accused it of doing so.

Oscar López Rivera wrote that Marrero "wreaked havoc on the hard community work the Center had carried out at Clemente High School for years.

[1] Clemente competes in the Chicago Public League (CPL) and is a member of the Illinois High School Association (IHSA).