High court to hear English-only case

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear what could become a landmark
case for English-only advocates.

The high court decided Tuesday to hear an appeal of a lower court’s
1998 repeal of an Alabama law mandating English as the state’s official
language.

In 1990, Alabama voters adopted a constitutional amendment declaring
English the official language of their state, by a 9 to 1 margin. Soon
thereafter, officials changed the state driver’s license test procedures
to require drivers to take the test in English.

However, in 1996 Martha Sandoval, a permanent resident alien from
Mexico, filed a class-action challenge to Alabama’s driver’s test
policy, claiming that the English policy was discriminatory against her
and any others who could not speak English.

Initially, U.S. District Judge Ira DeMent dismissed Sandoval’s claim
that the law was intentionally aimed at personally discriminating
against her.

“The remaining question was whether Ms. Sandoval could sue under a
claim of ‘disparate impact,'” says

English First executive director Jim Boulet, Jr. said. “This is a difficult argument to sustain, as it has no firm statutory basis.”

English First is one of several national groups that promotes English as the official language for the United States.

Finding no support for her position in congressional law — “the Civil Rights Act is silent on language issues,” Boulet said — Sandoval “managed to come up with an ‘implied’ right to sue, lurking in the Department of Justice’s regulations adopted under Title VI.”

Consequently, in June 1998, DeMent issued a 187-page decision in Sandoval’s favor, finding that Alabama’s English-language policy discriminated on the basis of national origin. The state appealed, but a U.S. appeals court upheld DeMent’s ruling.

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case “on an expedited basis,” which, says Boulet, is “a clear indication of its importance.”

“A judge in Alabama decided that people had the right to receive government services in any language of their choice,” Boulet said. “This ludicrous ruling even applied to driver license exams” in a state where all highway signs are written in English.

“The Supreme Court’s decision in this case could also be on a collision course with President Clinton’s

Executive Order 13166, he noted.

That order, signed Aug. 11, mandates that federal agencies provide “programs and activities normally provided in English” to non-English-speaking residents. This, said Boulet, will effectively elevate the inability to speak English to “a protected civil right.”

Titled, “Improving Access to Services For Persons With Limited English Proficiency,” the order calls on the federal government “to improve access to federally conducted and federally assisted programs and activities for persons who, as a result of national origin, are limited in their English proficiency (LEP).”

The order requires the federal government to provide and fund “an array of services that can be made accessible to otherwise eligible persons who are not proficient in the English language.

“To this end, each Federal agency shall examine the services it provides and develop and implement a system by which LEP persons can meaningfully access those services consistent with, and without unduly burdening, the fundamental mission of the agency,” the order said.

Any agency not complying with the order would be found in violation of title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 — that is, of discriminating on the “basis of national origin,” said the order.

The president’s order, “like the lower court’s ruling in the Sandoval case, equates the failure to provide services in any person’s choice of language with ‘national origin’ discrimination,” Boulet said.

Federal agencies have four months to develop their own “agency specific” guidelines, which must then be submitted to the Justice Department for approval.

Elements of the order have been in effect since 1998 at the Department of Health and Human Services.

According to a Health and Human Services

press release dated July 17, the department contracted with the

Maine Medical Center in Portland “regarding the hospital’s provision of interpreters and other language assistance for limited English-speaking patients and their families.

Critics have said that, based on a precedent set by

an earlier
order written by then-President Jimmy Carter on Nov. 2, 1980, the new order would also apply to private businesses and organizations that receive any federal funding.

Boulet said his group filed a joint amicus brief (“friend of the court”) July 14 in advance of the upcoming Supreme Court case with another English-only group,

English Language Advocates.

“ELA and EFF are deeply concerned about the effect of the Eleventh Circuit’s equating language and national origin,” said the brief, which noted that both groups “believe that equating language and national origin will both stop governments from requiring the use of English and force governments to provide services in languages other than English.”

“We’re thrilled this case is going to the high court,” Boulet said. “Language is part of the national origin.”

Boulet said his organization sympathizes with immigrants and resident aliens who don’t know English. But, he said, “it’s difficult for the government to function in more than one language.”

Also, in regards to the Alabama case and the state’s attempt to give English-only driver exams, there is cause for “concern over street signs” and other highway-related warning and information mediums.

“Although [signs] are universally shaped, people who don’t learn English can’t read the signs if they are going quickly without a dictionary” or a translator, he said.

Related stories:

Clinton mandates multilingual U.S.

‘Multilingual’ order based on Carter’s

Clinton’s ‘multilingualism’ already in practice

Feds win landmark English-only case