A new report from the Goldwater Institute alleges that Arizona’s public universities are not complying with state requirements to provide students with instruction in American civics, history, and economics. The findings follow previous Goldwater reports examining the integration of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion content into both honors and American civics courses.
The policy requires universities to incorporate coursework covering key areas of American civics, explicitly stating:
“The study of American Institutions will include at minimum (I) how the history of the United States continues to shape the present; (II) the basic principles of American constitutional democracy and how they are applied under a republican form of government; (III) the United States Constitution and major American constitutional debates and developments; (IV) the essential founding documents and how they have shaped the nature and functions of American Institutions of self-governance; (V) landmark Supreme Court cases that have shaped law and society; (VI) the civic actions necessary for effective citizenship and civic participation in a self-governing society – for example civil dialog and civil disagreement; and (VII) basic economic knowledge to critically assess public policy options and to inform professional and personal decisions.”
The report asserts that some universities are allowing courses outside of traditional civics instruction to satisfy those requirements.
At @ASU, students can satisfy civics requirements with courses like:
• “Theatre and U.S. Democracy” • “Social Welfare, Work, and Justice in the US”
At @NAU: • “Indigenizing Museums” • “Sociology of Chicanx Communities”
This isn’t what the law requires.
— Goldwater Institute (@GoldwaterInst) April 9, 2026
Timothy Minella, director of higher education policy at the Goldwater Institute and the report’s author, said universities are not meeting the intent of the requirement.
“Arizona’s public universities are failing students by allowing niche courses steeped in DEI to satisfy the state’s robust history and civics requirements,” Minella said in a statement released with the report.
At Arizona State University, Minella states that courses such as “Anthropology of American Democracy,” “Social Welfare, Work, and Justice in the US,” and “Theatre and U.S. Democracy” are being used to meet civics requirements.
He argues that the first course, “ ‘Anthropology of American Democracy,’ fails to meet AMIT requirements and instead centers on the claim that American society oppresses certain groups.”
“The syllabus states that the course ‘emphasizes the relationship between personal narratives and broader historical forces, highlighting how belonging, rights, and obligations are experienced differently across diverse social, racial, and cultural contexts.’ … In the list of required readings for the course, there are only two that could plausibly be considered ‘founding documents’: the U.S. Constitution (which appears in only one section of the course) and the Declaration of Sentiments from the Seneca Falls Women’s Rights Convention.
Almost every other reading comes from specialized anthropological studies, including ‘I’m American, not Japanese!: The Struggle for Racial Citizenship among Later-Generation Japanese Americans’ and ‘Replicate, Facilitate, Disseminate: The Micropolitics of U.S. Democracy Promotion in Bolivia.’ Revealing the course’s leftist orientation, one module covers ‘anthropology’s role in American Empire Building,’ requiring students to read excerpts from Base Nation: How U.S. Military Bases Abroad Harm America and the World.”
At Northern Arizona University, Minella’s report identifies courses such as “Sociology of Chicanx and Latinx Communities” and “Indigenizing Museums and the Art World” as qualifying for civics and history requirements.
The report also alleges that the University of Arizona has failed to implement the American Institutions policy.
Minella wrote, “In utter defiance of ABOR’s directive, the University of Arizona (UA) has so far failed to implement AMIT at all. UA’s plan to integrate AMIT into general education has been mired in delays and troubling protocols.”
In December 2025, Mark Stegeman, an associate professor of economics at the University of Arizona, warned the university was failing to implement a civics program in accordance with the ABOR mandate, describing the U of A proposal for a single 3-unit course as “a car crash in the making.”
The report recommends that state lawmakers take action if universities do not fully comply with the policy.
Arizona’s honors colleges have been HIJACKED by activist faculty.
Our new report shows how bad it has gotten. Honors students are being required to take courses like: – “Eating the Globe: The Diverse, Weird, and Queer Food Politics” – Readings on “Compulsory Heterosexuality and…
The findings follow a separate March report from the Goldwater Institute examining honors colleges at Arizona public universities, including Barrett, The Honors College at Arizona State University, and the W.A. Franke Honors College at the University of Arizona, and the integration of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion into honors programs and American civics courses.
The Civic Decline report is available on the Goldwater Institute’s website.
An Arizona State University (ASU) professor is making the case that Americans are wrong to view Islamic terrorists abroad as terrorists.
Associate history professor Alexander “Alex” Avina also qualified violence as a moral and natural right to resisting tyranny and oppression in the “Psychic Militancy” podcast.
“The Iranian propaganda is helping us, too,” said Avina. “You can critique Zionism, you can critique the genocide in Gaza, but can you make that next leap forward and say, these people do have an actual right to resist tyranny via armed struggle, because that’s the only way to get rid of colonialism[.]”
🚨 “Iranian propaganda is really helping us,” Sinwar’s “political theory,” and no condemnation of terrorist groups — Inside an "anti-imperialist" discussion featuring an @ASU professor
On Lara Sheehi’s Psychic Militancy podcast, Sheehi, a former GWU professor, spoke with former… pic.twitter.com/Nqw7pxIQVW
“Psychic militancy” refers to an unyielding form of resistance against political systems perceived as violent. Most adherents of this school of thought focus on resisting that which they perceive to be imperialism, settler colonialism, and capitalism.
Avina described America as a “genocidal, Epstein empire,” accusing the Trump administration of “waging mass death, and using mass amounts of violence against civilian populations” as remedies to contradictions of policy.
Avina said the present day is defined as a “socialism vs. barbarism struggle” to avoid genocide, ecological collapse, and environmental degradation.
“It feels like we’re forced into a murder-suicide pact,” said Avina.
Avina argued those in the Middle East acting on Islamic beliefs weren’t terrorists, but defenders against an existential threat against humanity.
“What we’re witnessing right now is a lot of revolutionary cunning from people who we’ve been socialized in this country to continuously misidentify as dangerous terrorists, as barbarians, as somehow antithetical to our ‘civilizational values’,” said Avina.
Avina also joined in the praise of the late Hamas terrorist leader Yahya Sinwar.
On the topic of those allegedly mislabeled as terrorists, Avina challenged the American narrative on South American drug cartels, calling it “bullshit.” Avina said the proper perspective was to understand U.S. drug demand as to blame for cartel violence in Mexico.
“If there wasn’t the world’s largest market for licit and illicit drugs north of the Mexican border, if that didn’t exist, then we wouldn’t see the type of violence we would see today,” said Avina. “[Media reporters] don’t get at the structural and historical reasons of this type of violence, and it’s because we are the world’s largest narco-state.”
Avina argued Americans need to understand “basic and historical education” that America is based on violence, torture, suffering, disappearances, and systematic murder of migrants. Avina also said the lack of support for Palestinians was rooted in racism.
“This is a history of [American] sovereignty,” said Avina. “Can you provide the historical and political coordinates for a nation that has been so thoroughly indoctrinated in racism and Islamophobia and other types of ideological edifices that prevent them from seeing that the struggle of Palestinians for self-determination is a very human one?”
Avina has previously extolled the virtues of violence within political discourse.
Last fall Avina advocated for physical attacks on the right in the “Millennials Are Killing Capitalism” podcast responding to Charlie Kirk’s assassination.
“Today I read a quote by the writer Roberto Bolano where he says there’s a time for reciting poetry and there’s a time for fists, and this is definitely a time for fists,” said Avina.
Avina is the brother-in-law of Rep. Juan Ciscomani (R-AZ-06).
A Northern Arizona University (NAU) fraternity leader faces a felony for the hazing death of a pledge.
The Coconino County Attorney’s Office announced the indictment of Carter Thomas Eslick, 20, last Friday. Eslick was the “new member educator” (or, “pledge master”) for Theta Omega chapter of their fraternity, Delta Tau Delta (DTD), at NAU. Eslick faces a class four felony for hazing, which carries a prison term between one and nearly four years for a first offense.
In January, 18-year-old freshman Colin Daniel Martinez died from alcohol poisoning under the watch of NAU DTD leaders. Martinez was a pledge candidate attending an exclusive “Spring Rush ‘26” party at an off-campus DTD house. “Rush” refers to the recruitment process for sororities and fraternities. Martinez was one of four pledges to attend the party.
Eslick was arrested on suspicion of hazing following Martinez’s death along with two other executive DTD members: vice president Ryan Wiley Creech, 20, and treasurer Riley Michael Cass, 20. Neither Creech or Cass currently face charges.
“The loss of a young person is always a tragedy,” said Coconino County Attorney Ammon Barker. “Our hearts are with Colin Martinez’s family, and we will diligently pursue this case toward a just resolution.”
Per court documents, the pledges were ordered to bring warm clothing, pillow cases, and phone chargers to the party. The pledges were transported to the party blindfolded using pillowcases over their heads. In order to complete their initiation, DTD ordered the pledges to drink the entirety of two handles of vodka together: that’s about a gallon of vodka, or around 80 shots.
Records reflect DTD members observed Martinez as unresponsive on an air mattress, but waited hours to contact police.
When police responded the morning after the party, they discovered Martinez had a blood alcohol content of .425 percent: over five times the legal limit. Paramedics arrived after, but Martinez died at the scene. The Coconino County Medical Examiner’s Office attributed Martinez’s death to alcohol poisoning.
DTD International issued a statement condemning the hazing incident. The organization placed the local chapter on indefinite suspension, then voted to close the chapter.
“Our position on hazing is clear: it is the antithesis of brotherhood and a violation of the values of Delta Tau Delta,” said DTD International.
Arizona lawmakers made it a felony crime to haze under Jack’s Law passed in 2022. In their statement, DTD International voiced support for the law.
State Sen. John Kavanaugh (R-LD3) sponsored Jack’s Law, named after Jack Culolias, a 19-year-old Arizona State University (ASU) freshman who died by drowning following an off-campus party with the ASU chapter of Sigma Alpha Epsilon (SAE) in 2012.
ASU expelled SAE following Culolias’ death and another incident several months later involving the abandonment of an intoxicated underaged member, Aidan Mohr, at a hospital. Mohr had nearly five times the legal limit in his system.
In 2019, ASU allowed SAE to recharter following the petitions of SAE-Phoenix Alumni. SAE-Phoenix Alumni’s reintroduction to campus around August 2018 coincided with the opening of the Greek Leadership Village, an on-campus enclave dedicated to housing several dozen of the fraternities and sororities.
It didn’t take long for ASU SAE to be removed again. The chapter was suspended last October over another hazing incident concerning the nonconsensual recording and distribution of video featuring a nude female student in 2023.
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The honor colleges at all three of the state’s universities are mandating courses educating students on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI).
The Goldwater Institute detailed two of the three colleges in a newly released investigatory report, “Desert Brain Drain.”
The three honors colleges in Arizona are Barrett Honors College at Arizona State University (ASU), which has about 7,500 students enrolled; the Honors College at Northern Arizona University (NAU), which has about 1,500 students enrolled; and the W.A. Franke Honors College at University of Arizona (U of A), which has about 4,500 students enrolled.
The Goldwater Institute found through public records that one of ASU Barrett Honors College’s required courses, The Human Event, hid a majority (85 percent) of its syllabi from the online catalog. ASU waited nearly a year to respond to Goldwater’s records requests on the hidden spring 2025 syllabi, and in its response, it redacted the names of the professors associated with the courses with the hidden syllabi.
Those records did reveal that 70 percent of the hidden syllabi from the spring 2025 catalog contained DEI content focusing on the alleged systemic oppression of certain identities related to race, gender, and sexual orientation.
Among the topics advanced by these hidden syllabi were the critical race theory concept of anti-racism, land acknowledgements, explorations of sexuality, decolonization, secularization, globalization, and transgenderism — with some content being graphic.
The W.A. Franke Honors College at U of A requires students to choose among the courses offered within its Honors Seminar, many which focus on DEI subjects similar to those presented by ASU Barrett Honors College required courses. Several courses focused on deconstruction of personal identity within the context of social justice, breaking down the idea of the self through the recognition of personal identities — race, gender, religion, class, and “social violence” — and recontextualizing the fractured and rebuilt self on political activism.
Although NAU Honors College was not included within the Goldwater Institute’s report, their primary required course (HON 190: Honors Colloquium) contained similar explorations of identity-based systemic oppression.
The spring 2026 semester came with two class options for the mandatory course, taught by professors Perry Davidson and Dina Yordy.
Davidson’s class requires students to read three novels challenging religion and embracing secularism: the classic work, “The Great Gatsby,” “Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit,” in which a lesbian leaves the Pentecostal community she grew up in, and “So Far From God,” in which characters serve to display criticisms of Catholicism and patriarchal structures while exploring decolonization and political activism.
Yordy’s class requires students to read three works as well: “The Piano Lesson,” a play about a Black family’s history with slavery and systemic racism, “We Have Always Lived in the Castle,” a novel about the persecution of a family by the intolerant religious townspeople, and “Home,” a novel advocating for the social justice understanding of homes through discussions of homelessness and immigration.
Timothy Minella, Goldwater Institute’s Director of Higher Education, argued in a press release that DEI shouldn’t be a requirement for Honors degrees at public universities.
“This isn’t just an Arizona problem,” he said. “Taxpayers and lawmakers across the country should pay attention to what’s happening in their universities and not sit idly by while activist professors indoctrinate our next generation of leaders on the public dime.”
Although the Arizona legislature has not been successful in its attempts to ban DEI in higher education, President Donald Trump did issue a series of executive orders last spring to cut off federal funding for entities advancing DEI. Those orders have been challenged and even struck down in court.
In an effort to circumvent these judicial challenges, the General Services Administration recently announced a proposed rule change blocking federal funding for schools implementing DEI.
Arizona State University (ASU) professor Dr. Owen Anderson has asked the Arizona Supreme Court to hear his case challenging mandatory diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) training after a lower court dismissed his lawsuit, according to a petition filed this week by the Goldwater Institute.
Anderson, a philosophy and religious studies professor at ASU, originally filed the lawsuit in 2024 against the Arizona Board of Regents. He argued that the university’s required “Inclusive Communities” DEI training violated an Arizona statute that prohibits public agencies from making employees participate in training that “presents any form of blame or judgment on the basis of race, ethnicity, or sex.” Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen (R-LD14) and then-House Speaker Ben Toma (R-LD27) filed an amicus brief in support of Dr. Anderson’s lawsuit.
According to the Goldwater Institute’s petition, Anderson objects to the DEI training materials, saying they include concepts about race and identity that he believes are unlawful under state statute.
“No one should be forced to participate in divisive DEI training or endorse race-based ideology as a condition for holding a government job. That’s exactly why Arizona lawmakers banned mandatory trainings that teach discriminatory ideas about race, ethnicity, or sex. But a law without enforcement is no law at all,” Goldwater attorney Stacy Skankey explained. “We’re asking the Arizona Supreme Court to correct the lower court’s error and restore Arizonans’ right to hold government agencies accountable when they violate the law.”
ASU forced a professor to take DEI training as a condition of employment.
Goldwater stated in a press release, “There’s no way around it—a law is meaningless if it can’t be enforced. If allowed to stand, the error by the Arizona Court of Appeals would eliminate an essential civil-rights safeguard for public employees and taxpayers. The ruling changes how Arizona laws are enforced by removing the ability of an ordinary Arizonan to ensure government officials obey the law.”
In its February filing, Goldwater said the Arizona Court of Appeals ruled that Anderson could not sue because it concluded the relevant law does not expressly provide an avenue for individuals to challenge such training in court.
The petition filed by the Goldwater Institute argues that allowing the Court of Appeals’ decision to stand would leave public employees without a means to enforce the statute and hold government employers accountable. It asks the Arizona Supreme Court to recognize an implied private right of action under the law, allowing employees to challenge alleged unlawful training mandates.
The case highlights a broader debate over DEI programs at public institutions. The previous lawsuit filed by the Goldwater Institute in March 2024 similarly challenged ASU’s DEI training and sought a court order preventing the Board of Regents from imposing or using public funds for the training, citing the same Arizona statute.
ASU has previously contested the Goldwater Institute’s claims, with university officials stating that its training reflects its commitment to inclusiveness and does not violate state law. However, as AZ Free News has previously covered, ASU lost 27 grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF) in 2025, worth approximately $28.5 million, in line with the NSF policy that ensures grants don’t prioritize certain groups or individuals.
Speaking of the ongoing lawsuit, Professor Anderson said in a statement, “Arizona State leaders broke the law when they forced me and every other employee to take part in an ideological training that taught that it’s okay to judge people on their race, ethnicity, religion, and sex. I simply refuse to do that. Ultimately, the question before the Arizona Supreme Court isn’t a left or right issue—it’s about whether a state employee has the right to hold their employer accountable when it violates the law.”
There is currently no set timeline for the Arizona Supreme Court to decide whether it will grant review of Anderson’s petition.
