Clinton Orders US to Become a Modern Tower of Babel

On his way to the Democratic National Convention President Clinton paused long enough to sign Executive Order 13166, ordering all government agencies to make their services available in any language used by a non-English speaking person. Thus in a flash, the president took a big step toward the deconstruction of the nation it took his predecessors more than two centuries to build.

As its authority, Executive Order 13166 asserts that denying services to non-English speaking persons constitutes "national origin" discrimination under Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and is therefore illegal. Thus the order claims that the Administration is merely implementing a law already passed by Congress when, in fact its order amounts to a huge expansion of "national origin" discrimination to include language - an area that is mentioned nowhere in the Civil Rights Law. Moreover, repeated court decisions have explicitly rejected attempts to expand the definition of "national origin" discrimination to include language.   

President Clinton's order gives government departments 120 days to comply with Justice Department guidelines to provide meaningful access to non-English speaking persons. The guidelines also make it clear that compliance is not restricted to translations, but is meant to include oral interpretive services as well. Thus, the cost of implementing the order is potentially huge because it might require interpreters speaking at least one of the 330 or so languages now spoken in the United States, to be available on demand for non-English speaking persons who want help from a government agency.

But even greater cost and confusion is likely to result from civil rights suits and litigation resulting from mistranslations and misinterpretations that occur as a result of the law. Already, suits are popping up in response to alleged translation and interpreter errors that occur in the criminal justice system as a result of having to deal with a huge and growing population of non-English speaking aliens (see related story). When E.O. 13166 goes into force, trial lawyers will have a field day.

To raise awareness of the destructive impact of the order, ProEnglish staff members visited a number of Congressional offices in a last ditch effort to persuade Congress to block its implementation. ProEnglish urges all its supporters to contact their congressional representatives and ask them to pass legislation that would block Executive Order 13166 (supporters connected to the Internet can send a pre-written e-mail message by dialing into our Internet website at www.ProEnglish.org).     

High Court Agrees to Rule
on Alabama Official English Appeal

ProEnglish and other advocates for official English scored a first round victory in the battle to defend Alabama's official English law when the U.S. Supreme Court announced in late Spetmeber that it would rule on Alabama's appeal in the case of Alexander v. Sandoval (no. 99-1908).  Alabama is appealing two lower court decisions that held the state's policy of giving drivers' license exams only in English constituted "national origins" discrimination under the 1964 civil rights law and was therefore illegal. [These lower court rulings were the basis for Executive Order 13166.]  ProEnglish had filed a legal brief in support of Alabama's petition to Supreme Court.  [15 congressmen have supported the amicus brief.  They are Representatives Spencer Bachus, Bob Barr, Bill Barrett, John T. Doolittle, Bob Goodlatte, Earnest Istook, Joseph Knollenberg, William Lipinski, Charles Norwood, Ron Paul, Bob Riley, Dana Rohrabacher, Nick Smith, Bob Stump, and Tom Tancredo.]

Alabama stopped giving its drivers' license exams in English after the state's voters passed an official English initiative by a 9-1 margin in 1990.  In 1996, Martha Sandoval, a non-English-speaking Mexican national, brought a class action suit against Alabama with help from the Southern Poverty Law Center and the ACLU.  The case was later joined by the U.S. Justice Department who intervened on behalf of the plaintiffs.

ProEnglish Chairman Bob Park hailed the court's decision and noted this is the second time ProEnglish would be involved in an appeal before the Supreme Court in the last four years - a remarkable record considering that high court agrees to hear fewer than one percent of the cases it reviews on appeal.  The previous occasion was in 1997 when the group successfully defended Arizona's official English law before the court in Arizonans for Official English v. Arizona, only to see the law later overturned by the Arizona Supreme Court.  Park indicated that ProEnglish planned to file a second brief supporting Alabama's case on its merits.

Translations on Trial

The Michigan Bar Association, worried that faulty interpretations and translations in the justice system could result in confusion, mistakes, and wrongful convictions, is translating legal documents into "several languages" and setting up standards and tests for court interpreters. As John Yun, a member of the Asian American Bar Association, said, "A statement that may come out one way can be interpreted in a different way." Attorney Intissar Ann Alkafaji, a member of the Michigan bar's Open Access Commission warned, "I have no doubt in my mind a lot of people are sitting in prison, convicted in part because their translations were incorrect."

Services that provide translators and interpreters said any effort to raise standards would sharply increase the costs courts would have to pay for their services.
(Detroit Free Press, July 24, 2000)
 
Federal Judge Demands that Puerto Rico Be Allowed to Vote in U.S. Presidential Election

U.S. District Court Judge Jaime Pieras ruled in August that Puerto Ricans in Puerto Rico are entitled to vote in the upcoming U.S. presidential election. The Justice Department immediately appealed the decision, which observers believe is likely to be overturned. In making his decision the judge held that the right to vote for President was inherent in U.S. citizenship, which was granted to Puerto Ricans by Congress in 1917.

While all Puerto Ricans enjoy U.S. citizenship, they cannot vote in federal elections unless they take up residence in one of the fifty states, because Puerto Rico is a U.S. commonwealth, and not a state. The judge's decision touched off an immediate furor in Puerto Rico where statehood advocates hailed the decision and those favoring Puerto Rican independence or maintaining commonwealth status condemned it. Critics noted that a federal judge lacked the constitutional authority to order Congress to count Puerto Rico's electoral votes in the presidential election.

In September, Puerto Rican Commissioner Carlos Romero Bracero's New Progressive Party followed up the judge's decision by passing a bill in Puerto Rico's House of Representatives that would let Puerto Ricans cast their votes for president on the November ballot. Statehood opponents claimed the presidential vote would be meaningless and was simply another maneuver to win statehood status for the island, despite the fact that statehood has failed to win a majority of Puerto Rican voters in repeated elections over the issue.

Spanish is Puerto Rico's official language. ProEnglish adamantly opposes the admission of any territory as a state that is not required to adopt English as its official language before admission.

[On appeal, Judge Pieras' ruling was overturned.]

Republicans Drop "Official" English From Platform; Continue to Use It in Fundraising Appeals

At its national convention in July, the Republican Party altered key language in its platform, softening its previously strong stand in favor of "official" English, in favor of a more politically correct wording that merely calls for "the recognition of English as the nation's common language." 

The key change was the deletion of the word "official" from the text of the platform provision on language. The revised plank also urges the "fostering of respect for other languages and cultures throughout our society."  A number of media reports cited the rejection of the official-English language as a prime example of the Republican Party's drive to be the party of "compassionate conservatism." In other respects the provision on language closely resembles the Party's platform from 1996.

The platform was crafted in closed door negotiations between top officials of the Bush campaign and senior Republican Party officials - a departure from previous conventions in which the platform was drafted by grassroots party members in sometimes contentious committee meetings.

Notwithstanding the party decision to drop any reference to "official" from its national platform concerning English, the Republican National Committee was still sending mail-in surveys to prospective donors two months later asking them to indicate whether or not they thought English should be declared the official language of the United States and asking them to contribute at the same time.

Besides urging more funding for teaching English to new immigrants and support for bilingual education, The Democratic Party's national platform largely avoids any mention of language. 

ELA Changes Name to "ProEnglish"

The board of English Language Advocates announced its decision to change the official name of the organization from "English Language Advocates" to "ProEnglish" effective October 15. But to minimize confusion and preserve its identity, the former name "English Language Advocates" will be retained as the organization's official subtitle. The goal of the organization - to defend English's role as our common language make it the official language of the United States, remains the same.

The decision came by unanimous vote at a meeting called to consider the change, recommended originally by an outside consultant. Chairman Bob Park explained the board's reasons for making the change, "In the end the most compelling reason for changing our name was the advantage that comes with having a short, easy-to-remember name. This looms especially large in the era of electronic communications when so many organizations are competing for the public's attention via the Internet."

The board's action came after considering the input and comments received from key supporters, which ran 4 to 1 in favor of making the change. The Liberty Bell will be retained as the organization's identifying logo and the group's Internet website address will change from www.elausa.org to www.ProEnglish.org

Evidence Mounts that Bilingual Education is a Bust

California's Proposition 227, the 1998 initiative that dismantled bilingual education in that state, continues to prove itself a blessing for students learning English. For the second year in a row the results of the state's "Stanford-9" tests, used by California to measure academic progress, showed improvement across the board with the strongest gains being registered by students in English immersion classes.

The data from California, released in a state department of education report August 15, was reinforced by a New York City board of education study in September that showed that non-English speaking students ("English Language Learners") placed in English immersion classes scored significantly higher in all areas than their bilingual education counterparts. 

Prior to the passage of Proposition 227 in California, bilingual education advocates had insisted that eliminating bilingual classes would hurt children most in the earliest grades. Yet, the Stanford-9 tests showed these were precisely the grade levels that showed the greatest improvement.

Proponents of bilingual tried to downplay the results of the Stanford-9 tests and claimed that other factors such as smaller class sizes and a renewed emphasis on traditional phonics-based instruction methods for teaching language were as likely to be responsible for the improvement. But the evidence was enough to convince former critics of English immersion such as Los Angeles school superintendent Ken Noonan, one of the founders of the California Association of Bilingual Educators. Noonan who had strongly opposed Proposition 227 commented, "I thought it would hurt kids. The exact reverse occurred, totally unexpected by me. The kids began to learn - not pick up, but learn - formal English, oral and written, far more quickly than I ever thought they would."   

The test scores from California and New York are additional support for an initiative to ban bilingual education that's on the ballot in Arizona (see related story). Like "Whole Language" and "New Math," bilingual education looks increasingly like another one of the many trendy educational theories that have failed in recent years, stunting the education of millions of children in the process

Arizona Vote Could be Crucial to Ending Bilingual Education Nationwide

[This measure passed with 63% of the vote.]

Thanks to the English for the Children of Arizona Committee backed by California entrepreneur Ron Unz, Arizona voters will have the chance to vote on Proposition 203 this November - the measure that would end the state's bilingual education program. Besides giving thousands of Arizona school children hope for a better future by teaching them English, passage of the initiative could build momentum for ending bilingual education nationwide.

Introduced in the 1970s as a way to help immigrant children learn in their native language while simultaneously learning English, bilingual education became an excuse for maintaining foreign languages. According to the Arizona Department of Education, less than 3 percent of the children in the state's bilingual education program learn to speak English well.

ProEnglish is supporting the passage of the Arizona initiative with a newspaper and billboard advertising campaign. ProEnglish Chairman Bob Park said, "The results are in. Bilingual education has been an enormous failure that has cost untold thousands of school children a chance for a decent education and better lives. It's time to bring this failed experiment to an end."   

Arrogance Defined
"I strongly resent the electorate, the person next door who knows nothing about how children acquire language, telling us how to teach children." - Sarah Gonzalez, assistant superintendent for educational services in Hayward, CA, criticizing the implementation of Proposition 227 ending the state's bilingual education program, as reported in the San Francisco Chronicle, Sept. 29, 1999.   

Establishment Aborts Democracy (Again) in Oklahoma

In an arrogant and ominous obstruction of democratic processes, Republican Governor Frank Keating resorted to a rarely invoked legal loophole as an excuse to avoid putting an official English initiative in the ballot in Oklahoma. The petition to qualify the initiative for the ballot had been signed by over 100,000 Oklahoma voters that had been certified as valid by the Oklahoma Secretary of State.

But under Oklahoma law, at least 60 days prior to an election, the Governor must approve an initiative's position on the ballot. Another law gives any citizen the right to challenge an initiative before the State Supreme Court. After the court dragged in setting its timetable for filing objections, a complaint was filed at the last possible moment by a coalition of "immigrants' rights" organizations. The state court then delayed ruling on the objection until the 60-day deadline had passed, which gave Governor Keating the legal loophole he wanted.

The governor's office defended his refusal to act in letters to constituents saying that although he supported the right of the people to vote on the measure, he felt the initiative was "mean-spirited." The letter added that Governor Keating thought that if the initiative passed, it would hurt Oklahoma's economy because "it is wrong to deny the same government services [to non-English speaking immigrants] that are provided to us just because they can't speak English adequately, or read a government form provided only in English."  In effect, the letter makes the same argument used by the Clinton Administration to justify issuing Executive Order 13166, mandating that the federal government become a fully multilingual service provider (see related story).
     
The latest maneuver came after years of similar tactics by a political establishment fearful of its own people. The Oklahoma State House has passed official English measures by overwhelming margins three times in the past, only to see the law blocked by the actions of a single State Senator in his Senate committee.       

Colorado "English for the Children" Initiative Axed by Court

In yet another effort to stifle democracy, the Supreme Court of Colorado voted 7-0 to reject the language of the citizen's initiative, "English for the Children," that sought to ban bilingual education in Colorado schools. The court found no fault with the initiative's wording itself, but decided that the language of the ballot description and title adopted by the state Title Board was in error. The Title Board is a government agency charged with the responsibility of writing the titles and descriptions of initiatives that actually appear on the ballot.

Because it came too late to resubmit the petition, the ruling effectively nullified the signatures of 40,000 Colorado citizens who had signed petitions to qualify the initiative for the ballot this year. The initiative, its title and description were virtually identical to California's Proposition 227, which was adopted in 1998 and has already passed const itutional muster in federal courts.

Supporters highlighted the apparently political nature of the court's ruling. Representative Tom Tancredo (R-CO), a leading backer of the initiative termed the ruling "completely predictable" and called the court, "the most political entity in the state of Colorado."

"This was politics. This was finding an excuse to shoot it down," added Barnaby Zall, a lawyer who has worked frequently on behalf of ProEnglish. "The good news," he added, "is that the court's language very specifically defines that the initiative does not violate [Colorado's] single-subject rule." Colorado supporters said they were undeterred by the Court's action and immediately laid plans to re-qualify the initiative for the ballot in 2002.   

ProEnglish Expands, Adds Staff

ProEnglish is facing many new challenges. To meet these challenges, ProEnglish has added a new staff member, Dan Marsh.  Dan's special responsibilities will include managing our Internet website and e-mail communications, answering inquiries and requests from activists and the general public, and monitoring Capitol Hill to keep ProEnglish supporters informed of important developments and to present ProEnglish's views on legislation before Congress.

Dan's concern about the erosion of English came while studying to be a schoolteacher. "There are a number of bad ideas being propagated by the education establishment," contends Marsh, "the effort to downplay the critical role that English has played in uniting our nation, and deny that heritage to new immigrants is perhaps the most destructive of all of them."