Skip to main content icon/video/no-internet
icon backReturn to Entries

Lau v. Nichols

Generally considered to be the most consequential U.S. Supreme Court decision regarding language, Lau v. Nichols (1974) helped to establish a new civil rights principle of particular import to English-language learners: to provide an equal educational opportunity, it may be necessary to accommodate different needs. The case, credited with spurring modern bilingual education policy and leading to significant reforms in the education of English-language learners, captures the critical role of grass-roots dissent in the transformation of state and national education policy. This entry highlights the context of the case, provides an overview of the decision, and considers current evaluations of the legacy of Lau.

Background

Until the Lau decision, the majority of students with minimal English skills, labeled as Limited English Proficient (LEP), learned in classrooms where English was the only language of instruction. The San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD), like many other school districts across the United States in the 1960s and 1970s, offered supplemental English-language classes to children on a limited basis. The increasing number of language-minority students in California public schools, in part a result of 1965 immigration reform, expanded the scope and severity of this problem with each passing year. In San Francisco, the supplemental language provisions for the approximately 2,800 children from Chinese-speaking families were restricted to 1,000 students, leaving 1,800 pupils without any extra instruction. Chinese parents attempted to address these inadequate services with administrators from the San Francisco school board, but their efforts were met with resistance; requests for bilingual education were denied.

In 1970, Kinney Lau and a dozen Chinese-speaking children filed a class-action lawsuit against the San Francisco Unified School District on behalf of the thousands of Chinese-speaking students who received no specialized English assistance. The plaintiffs charged that the San Francisco schools had violated their Fourteenth Amendment rights to an equal educational opportunity. The defendant argued that schools were not responsible for students who lacked requisite English-language skills. Furthermore, the district maintained, in using English as the medium of instruction for all students within the system, it was treating every student equally, not discriminating against the Chinese-speaking pupils. The Federal District Court and the Court of Appeals rejected the students' claim and found the SFUSD not responsible for providing special language services to language-minority students. The problem, according to the district court, rested with the children: “[e]very student brings to the starting line of his educational career different advantages and disadvantages caused in part by social, economic and cultural background, created and continued completely apart from any contribution by the school system.” The case advanced to the U.S. Supreme Court and was argued in December 1973.

The Decision

In a unanimous 1974 decision, the Supreme Court reversed the decision of the lower court and ruled in favor of the plaintiffs. The Court found that the San Francisco school system in failing to provide bilingual language instruction, or any other adequate instructional procedures, to the 1,800 Chinese-speaking students had violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of national origin, color, and race in institutions receiving federal financial assistance. The Court's decision rested specifically on the 1970 regulations issued by the Office for Civil Rights requiring affirmative efforts to provide special training for non-English-speaking pupils as a condition for receiving federal aid. In this case, language discrimination was an expression of national-origin discrimination. The Court further highlighted the SFUSD's failure to fulfill the education codes and policies of the state of California, which called for a student's mastery of English and allowed for bilingual instruction. The Supreme Court found the SFUSD's violations and curricular inadequacies denied students “a meaningful opportunity to participate in the public educational program.” In delivering the opinion of the Court, Judge William O. Douglas reasoned, “there is no equality of treatment merely by providing students with the same facilities, textbooks, teachers, and curriculum, for students who do not understand English are effectively foreclosed from any meaningful education.”

...

  • Loading...
locked icon

Sign in to access this content

Get a 30 day FREE TRIAL

  • Watch videos from a variety of sources bringing classroom topics to life
  • Read modern, diverse business cases
  • Explore hundreds of books and reference titles

Read next

More like this

Sage Recommends

We found other relevant content for you on other Sage platforms.

close

Have you created a personal profile? Login or create a profile so that you can save clips, playlists and searches

close
close
close Signed In to profile You are signed in as:
close
Logged in Institution Institution