Today, Fox News reported that during a debate on controversial immigration legislation in Arizona, Republican state Sen. Lori Klein read a letter alleging that Hispanic students “do not want to be educated but rather be gang members and gangsters.” As Fox News reported, after Klein read the letter, the legislation went down to defeat. Fox News responded to the controversy by giving airtime to Klein to spew outrageous comments, including the claim that the National Council of La Raza “is a far-leftist, racist organization that is inciting young Hispanics to ... spit on America.”

Klein also claimed that the letter-writer is “not a racist” because he is “married to a Hispanic.”

Here's the backstory:

On March 15, an Arizonan emailed a letter to state Senate President Russell Pearce (R) in which he recounted what he claimed was his experience teaching eighth-grade students in a Glendale public school. The letter-writer, who was later outed as Tony Hill, claimed in the letter that the mostly Latino children in his class “refused” to stand and recite the Pledge of Allegiance because, they allegedly said, “we are Mexicans and Americans stole our land.”

Hill went on to write:

I have found that substitute teaching in these areas most of the Hispanic students do not want to be educated but rather be gang members and gangsters. They hate America and are determined to reclaim this area for Mexico. If we are able to remove the illegals out of our schools, the class sizes would be reduced and the students who wanted to learn would have a better chance to do so and become productive citizens.

Hill also claimed that during a writing exercise, most of the students “stated they were in the country illegally, White Americans are racist, and that they came here for a better life.” When Hill stated that he asked the children to stop speaking Spanish in class, "[t]heir response was that Americans better learn Spanish and their customs because they are taking their land back from us."

Two days later, Klein read this letter aloud on the Senate floor as the chamber debated one of five bills on illegal immigration. The bill, which would have required Arizona school districts to check the legal status of each student, was defeated along with the other four, which would have stripped American citizenship from the children of undocumented immigrants; banned undocumented immigrants from state universities; made it a crime for them to drive a vehicle in Arizona; and required hospitals to check patients' legal status.

ABC News reported of Klein's speech:

The presentation drew an impassioned rebuke from Democratic State Sen. Steve Gallardo, who questioned the authenticity of the anonymous letter, and called the reading of it into the public record deplorable.

“I don't think I've ever heard any floor speech similar to the one that was given out right now,” Gallardo said. These students “do not have dreams to be gang members, they do not want to be thugs or whatever we want to phrase it as. These are good kids.”

ABC also reported:

While immigrant advocates and civil rights groups have protested the bill itself, the most outrage was sparked by the reading of the letter.

“I've seen a lot of things like this, it's not that out of the ordinary,” Anti-Defamation League regional director Bill Straus said in an interview about the letter with local ABC affiliate KNXV. “What is out of the orginary is that it gets the credibility of a state senator reading it word for word on the floor of the senate. It's a disgrace.”

Klein said the letter does not reflect her personal view and was not intended to offend. She said she wanted to use it to illustrate one example of conditions inside Phoenix schools.

“Not one of us on the Senate floor is racist or has anything other than the hope that people who are here in this country will appreciate what they are getting in terms of their education to get ahead in life,” she told KNXV.

KVOA.com further reported that “Gallardo said he believes Pearce distributed the letter in hopes of winning votes for the bills.”

It is amid this controversy that Fox News invited Klein to appear on one of its shows this afternoon. Teasing the interview, America Live host Megyn Kelly reported that Klein is “being accused of racism for repeating the contents of the letter” and that “some are demanding that [Klein] apologize for reading this in a public forum and questioning whether the substitute teacher really exists.”

During the interview, Klein stated:

KLEIN: There is no apology necessary. This is something that's happening, unfortunately, today in our classrooms here in Arizona and California. I've had letters from all over the country, as well as other teachers here in Arizona applauding that I had the courage to read the letter, because we do have a problem. You know, we're educating and spending billions of others in our state and if this is where our money is going, the taxpayers have a right to know that this kind of behavior, which is not acceptable from any race, is happening in our schools.

[...]

KLEIN: I mean, as a mother, as a taxpayer, I think it's important, if my kids were acting out like this in school, they'd be grounded for a year. And I think it's important that we address problems instead of hiding them under the carpet.

When Kelly pointed out that many were questioning the veracity of the letter and whether the teacher was real, Klein replied:

KLEIN: The gentleman does exist. He's spoken with our Senate president. He is a substitute teacher. He's on record as such. He's married to a Hispanic, by the way, so he's not a racist. But he identified a problem that we face.

We have an organization here called La Raza, which is a far-leftist racist organization that is inciting young Hispanics to act out, not say the pledge, spit on America, and say it's our right to take America back. And this is really creating a problem here.

The local ABC News affiliate in Arizona reported that "[a]ccording to the Glendale Elementary School District, Tony Hill worked nine days as a substitute teacher in the district. He was not one of GESD's regular substitute teachers, but worked for Teachers On Call, a substitute teacher placement service, according to spokesman Jim Cummings." It further reported:

District officials say Hill taught eighth grade writing and social studies at Harold W. Smith Elementary School on March 8.

In an e-mailed statement, the district said it believes that the statements made by Mr. Hill in regard to our students and school were not accurate. Students who were interviewed did not recall making or hearing any of the inflammatory statements attributed to them by Mr. Hill, and students also said they stood for the daily recital of the Pledge of Allegiance.

The district said it will continue to investigate the matter but does not believe Hill's letter accurately reflects the conduct of the students and staff at the school.

It is notable that Arizona state Senate President Pearce is the lawmaker who sponsored one of the state's previous controversial immigration laws, which directs police to check the immigration status of people they stop for traffic violations and other offenses if they suspect the person is in the country illegally. For months, Fox repeatedly defended the law, denying the possibility that it would lead to racial profiling. In fact, Fox Newsers embraced the law's potential for racial profiling; for example, contributor Steven Crowder commented: “I don't think there's really anything wrong as far as racial profiling, stopping people who are coming in illegally. I mean, you're not looking for a blond haired, blue eyed Swede most of the time.”

Fox figures also attacked critics of the law by invoking the idea of a civil war, and they even went so far as to promote the law's legal defense fund on the air. And during one particularly memorable segment, Fox & Friends continued the network's pushback against the immigration law's detractors by hosting a columnist of anti-immigration website VDARE.com. VDARE.com, as we noted, is on the Southern Poverty Law Center's list of hate groups because of its practice of publishing columns by white supremacists, supporters of eugenics, and anti-Semites.

Moreover, Fox used racially charged rhetoric to defend the law. At one point, Brian Kilmeade asked: “Can you blame the people of Arizona for giving the cops this power? ... You know how many surgeons we find in those tunnels by the border?” Indeed, as we've documented, there is ample evidence showing that Fox News' coverage of immigration issues is reliably hostile to immigrants.