Rachel F. Moran

The Politics of Discretion: Federal Intervention in Bilingual Education

Historically, state and local educators have exercised considerable discretion in designing the school curriculum. Only boards of education, which typically represent the values of an electoral majority, traditionally have had authority to constrain that discretion. Beginning with the challenge to segregation in the schools, however, minority communities began to express growing dissatisfaction with pedagogical discretion restrained only by majority will. They demanded more vigorous federal oversight of the schools to ensure that the educational process did not underserve minority groups. In keeping with these developments, the federal government during the late 1960s began to take a more active role in formulating bilingual education policy. Advocates of federal intervention initially focused on the need to include linguistic minorities fully in the educational system in the face of local prejudice. Upon discovering that state and local educators had failed to meet the needs of linguistic minority students, however, congressional policymakers recast the problem in terms of pedagogical effectiveness rather than civil rights. In light of the uncertainties associated with educating these students, federal policymakers stressed the importance of designing and implementing adequate instructional programs. Eventually, the federal government endorsed programs that rely heavily on native-language instruction, such as transitional bilingual education (TBE) and bilingual-bicultural programs. TBE programs employ subject-matter instruction in a students native language until the child is sufficiently proficient in English to participate in a regular classroom.1 Bilingual-bicultural education programs not only promote mastery of

Bilingual Education as a Status Conflict

America has evolved for the better. She will pretty much meet you on your terms. In fact, I think that she has finally come to the conclusion that the Blacks, Mexicans, Indians, etc. are here to stay. And the only way to perceive them is to accept them and their existence as valid. Acceptance, thats really the key word. America is accepting all the people, as one people, the way it was meant to be. Today, at least, you can afford to be yourself. -Maria, a Hispanic social worker1

Undone by Law: The Uncertain Legacy of Lau v. Nichols

Although there has been widespread celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of Brown v. Board ofEducation,I there has been relatively little recognition of the thirtieth anniversary of Lau v. Nichols. 2 Brown rested on a finding that intentional segregation of public school students by race violates the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Lau pushed beyond a paradigm of intentional harm to attack exclusionary practices, whether or not motivated by a discriminatory purpose. The Supreme Courts decision in Lau was based not on a constitutional wrong, but on a violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, as interpreted by the Office for Civil Rights (OCR). The statute, along with OCRs interpretation, barred school practices that have the effect of excluding children from the educational process based on language, where language is a proxy for race, ethnicity, or national origin. By finding a violation based on discriminatory effect, regardless of underlying intent, Lau greatly amplified the scope of civil rights protection. Today, that approach is under increasing attack, and the pressing question is how and if Lau will miraculously survive the undoing of its opinion. This article first provides a brief history of Lau and then examines how it has undergone a kind of ritual dismemberment in the courts. The article closes by exploring whether Laus undoing really matters in light of other federal protections. Although these protections continue to provide meaningful access to the courts for English language learners, none is a perfect substitute for the enforcement regime established under Lau.

Angela Harris: The Person, the Teacher,the Scholar

Angela Harris has written eloquently about the creative tensions that define her as a person, a teacher, and a scholar. She has explored the challenges of maintaining a private identity when called upon to share her life experience with a public audience, whether in the classroom, at a conference, or in an essay. She has reflected on the ways in which legal teaching privileges reason over emotion, wondering whether this dynamic impoverishes the exchange of ideas and undervalues the joy that can motivate a caring advocate. And, she has explored the dialectic between identity politics and the structural forces that entrench inequality. Angela argues that whatever post-modern doubts critical race theorists may harbor about the utility of law in effecting change, they must act as pragmatic modernists who strive to combat injustice. In all of this work, Angela demonstrates the creativity, candor, courage, and compassion that inspire all of us to dedicate ourselves to making a difference.