Judge in Trump University Case Tied to Radical La Raza Organization

U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who is presiding over a class-action suit against Trump University, has long been associated with the San Diego La Raza Lawyers’ Association, which in turn is a member of the La Raza Lawyers of California. Though the California organization is not officially affiliated with National Council of La Raza (NCLR), which has a long history of radicalism and which has organized protests at Trump rallies, an indication that the California group does regard NCLR favorably is indicated by the fact that it has a link to NCLR on its webpage.

The “Endorsements” page of the San Diego La Raza Lawyers’ Association website (under the heading “Community”) also provides a link to the to NCLR website.

A blog posted on the NCLR website on June 4 is headlined: “Trump Needs to Apologize to Judge Curiel.”

Comments made by the presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump questioning Curiel’s impartiality in the case have generated national news headlines. A political campaign ad run by the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton claimed that Trump’s questioning of Judge Curiel’s impartiality was “the definition of racism.”

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The controversy began when Trump spoke about Curiel during interviews with national TV news hosts such as CNN’s Jake Tapper and CBS’s John Dickerson (host of Face the Nation). When Tapper quoted Hillary Clinton’s statement that Trump’s assertion that Curiel’s Mexican heritage was “a conflict of interest” in the Trump University case was “a racist attack on a federal judge,” Trump replied that because of Curiel’s Mexican heritage, he would hold Trump’s commitment to build a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico against Trump, and consequently has rendered multiple “unfair” rulings in the case.

In another interview with Tapper on Face the Nation, Trump said: “[Judge Curiel] is a member of a club or society, very strongly pro-Mexican, which is all fine. But I say he’s got bias.”

The club Trump was referring to was the La Raza Lawyers’ Association of California, which has the stated mission: “to promote the interests of the Latino communities throughout the state.”

In an interview with the New York Times last week, Trump made it clear that he considered Curiel’s heritage an issue: “I’m building the wall, I’m building the wall. I have a Mexican judge. He’s of Mexican heritage. He should have recused himself, not only for that, for other things.”

Trump’s statements about Curiel received criticism not only from the Clinton camp but also from some Republicans. During an interview on Fox News Sunday, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, whom some believe is on Trump’s vice presidential shortlist, said: “This is one of the worst mistakes Trump has made. I think it’s inexcusable.”

Another man said to be on Trump’s veep shortlist, Senator Bob Corke (R-Tenn.) appearing on ABC News’ This Week on June 5, said to host George Stephanopolous, “I think that [Trump is] going to have to change. I’m not talking about him necessarily changing his views, but I think that he’s moving into a different phase, he’s talking to the right people.”

Corker also said that he does not “condone” Trump’s comments about Curiel.

Neither Republican attributed Trump’s statements about Curiel to racism, their objections appearing to suggest that the comments were ill-advised and potentially harmful to Trump’s campaign.

With his comments generating so much controversy, Trump issued a statement on June 7 that his remarks had been “misconstrued.” That statement read, in part:

It is unfortunate that my comments have been misconstrued as a categorical attack against people of Mexican heritage. I am friends with and employ thousands of people of Mexican and Hispanic descent. The American justice system relies on fair and impartial judges. All judges should be held to that standard. I do not feel that one’s heritage makes them incapable of being impartial, but, based on the rulings that I have received in the Trump University civil case, I feel justified in questioning whether I am receiving a fair trial….

Normally, legal issues in a civil case would be heard in a neutral environment. However, given my unique circumstances as nominee of the Republican Party and the core issues of my campaign that focus on illegal immigration, jobs and unfair trade, I have concerns as to my ability to receive a fair trial….

Due to what I believe are unfair and mistaken rulings in this case and the Judge’s reported associations with certain professional organizations, questions were raised regarding the Obama appointed Judge’s impartiality. It is a fair question. I hope it is not the case.

The wording of that statement seemed more moderate than what Trump said in live interviews, and instead of casting Curiel’s perceived bias as a foregone conclusion, moved it into the realm of possibilities about which one could reasonably raise questions.

Considering Curiel’s membership in a lawyers’ association that has expressed at least philosophical solidarity with National Council of La Raza, it is worth taking a good look at La Raza, whose name means “The Race” in Spanish.

National Council of La Raza had its beginnings when the Ford Foundation sent three men, Herman Gallegos, Julian Samora (a teacher and community activist), and Ernesto Galarza (a Mexican-American labor activist who was active among farm workers in California) to the Southwest to make a recommendation on how the foundation could financially support Mexican-American activism. The three men founded what was then called the Southwest Council of La Raza (SWCLR) in Phoenix, Arizona, in 1968. SWCLR was started with financial support from the Ford Foundation, the National Council of Churches, and the United Auto Workers union.

The Ford Foundation’s role as a key supporter of La Raza was noted in an article posted by The New American last September:

Or take, for example, the militant Chicano/open borders movement, into which the Ford Foundation has poured many millions of dollars since the 1960s. Consider just one Ford grant (of $630,000), in July 1968, to the violent revolutionaries at the Southwest Council of La Raza, headed by Maclovio Barraza, a “former” agitator for the Communist Party. According to Henry Santiestevan, former head of the Southwest Council of La Raza: “It can be said that without the Ford Foundation’s commitment to a strategy of national and local institution-building, the Chicano movement would have withered away in many areas.”

A very thorough exposé of La Raza was published by the respected conservative journal Human Events on April 7, 2006. We will cite just a few key portions of that article here, but the entire article is worth reading to gain an appreciation of the connection between the agenda of La Raza and even more radical movements (such as MEChA) that seek to extinguish our border with Mexico and establish a new communist-style nation called Aztlan in the American Southwest:

To most of the mainstream media, most members of Congress, and even many of their own members, the National Council of La Raza is no more than a Hispanic Rotary Club.

But the National Council of La Raza succeeded in raking in over $15.2 million in federal grants last year alone, of which $7.9 million was in U.S. Department of Education grants for Charter Schools, and undisclosed amounts were for get-out-the-vote efforts supporting La Raza political positions….

Behind the respectable front of the National Council of La Raza lies the real agenda of the La Raza movement, the agenda that led to those thousands of illegal immigrants in the streets of American cities, waving Mexican flags, brazenly defying our laws, and demanding concessions.

Key among the secondary organizations is the radical racist group Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan, or Chicano Student Movement of Aztlan (MEChA), one of the most anti-American groups in the country, which has permeated U.S. campuses since the 1960s, and continues its push to carve a racist nation out of the American West….

MEChA and the La Raza movement teach that Colorado, California, Arizona, Texas, Utah, New Mexico, Oregon and parts of Washington State make up an area known as “Aztlan” — a fictional ancestral homeland of the Aztecs before Europeans arrived in North America. As such, it belongs to the followers of MEChA. These are all areas America should surrender to “La Raza” once enough immigrants, legal or illegal, enter to claim a majority, as in Los Angeles. The current borders of the United States will simply be extinguished.

This plan is what is referred to as the “Reconquista” or reconquest, of the Western U.S.

Obviously, if Trump’s plan to build a wall across the U.S.-Mexico border were ever fulfilled, this would throw a monkey wrench into the plans of the followers of MEChA to achieve their “Reconquista.”

Is every member of the San Diego La Raza Lawyers’ Association, or the La Raza Lawyers of California, or even the National Council of La Raza an advocate of such plans? It is highly unlikely. However, it is worth considering the company an individual keeps when discerning his motives.