CLEAR | Bob Chang and Nolan Cabrera - Banned: The Fight for Mexican American Studies in the Streets and in the Courts

The UC Irvine Law Center on Law, Equality, and Race (CLEAR) welcomes Professor Bob Chang and Nolan Cabrera to discuss Banned: The Fight for Mexican American Studies in the Streets and in the Courts (Cambridge University Press, 2025).

Publisher's Description

In Banned, readers are taken on a journey through the intense racial politics surrounding the banning of Mexican American Studies in Tucson, Arizona. This book details the state-sponsored racism that led to the elimination of this highly successful program, and the grassroots and legal resistance that followed. Through extensive research and firsthand narratives, readers will gain a deep understanding of the controversy surrounding this historic case. The legal challenge successfully overturned the Arizona law and became a central symbol in the modern-day Ethnic Studies renaissance. This work is a must-read for anyone interested in understanding the power of community activism, the importance of fighting for educational equity, and why the example of Tucson created an alternative blueprint for how we can challenge states that are currently banning critical race theory.

About Bob Chang
Professor Robert S. Chang joins UC Irvine School of Law as the executive director of the UC Irvine School of Law Fred T. Korematsu Center for Law and Equality. Professor Chang is the inaugural chair holder of the Sylvia Mendez Presidential Chair for Civil Rights.

Prof. Chang founded the center — named for pioneering civil rights hero Fred T. Korematsu — in 2009 at the Seattle University School of Law. The center leads numerous initiatives and projects focused on research, advocacy, and clinical education. Learn more about Prof. Chang and the Korematsu Center's move to its new home in Irvine. 

Prof. Chang is one of the nation’s leading scholars on issues of race and interethnic relations, and one of the most recognized voices on Asian Americans and the law. He is the author of “Disoriented: Asian Americans, Law and the Nation-State” (NYU Press 1999) and co-editor of “Minority Relations: Intergroup Conflict and Cooperation” (University Press of Mississippi 2017). His most recent book, “Banned: The Fight for Mexican American Studies in the Streets and in the Courts” (with Nolan Cabrera), was published at the beginning of this year by Cambridge University Press.

About Nolan Cabrera
Professor Nolan Cabrera is a nationally recognized expert in the areas of racism/anti-racism on college campuses, Whiteness, and ethnic studies. He is currently a Full Professor in the Center for the Study of Higher Education at the University of Arizona, and was the only academic featured in the MTV documentary White People. His book, White Guys on Campus, is a deep exploration of White male racism, and occasional anti-racism, on college campuses – a text Jeff Chang (author of We Gon’ Be Alright) described as “A timely, provocative, even hopeful book.” Additionally, Dr. Cabrera was an expert witness in the Tucson Unified School District’s Mexican American Studies case (Gonzalez v. Douglas), which is the highest-profile ethnic studies case in the country’s history.  He has given hundreds of lectures, keynote addresses, and trainings, throughout the country on challenging racism/Whiteness, working through unconscious bias, creating inclusive college campuses, and the expansion of ethnic studies programs. Dr. Cabrera is an award-winning scholar whose numerous publications have appeared in some of the most prestigious journals in the fields of education and racial studies. 

Reception and book signing to follow.

A limited number of books are available for free to law students--please select the additional registration option if you are a law student and would like a free book.

To request reasonable accommodations for a disability, please email centers@law.uci.edu.
 

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