Article published in:

Linguistic Equality
Edited by Humphrey Tonkin
[Language Problems and Language Planning 39:3] 2015
► pp. 227–244

Forty years after Lau

The continuing assault on educational human rights in the United States and its implications for linguistic minorities

M. Beatriz Arias | Center for Applied Linguistics

Terrence G. Wiley | Center for Applied Linguistics

This article addresses the right to an education (including the right of access), and the right to an education in one’s native language, within the broader context of educational human rights, and language minority educational policy in the United States. Included in this discussion is an overview of educational and linguistic human rights as recognized in the US, followed by a review of the legal and historical background prior to the passage of the Lau v Nichols decision in 1974. The implications of demographic changes coupled with federal policy for language minority students forty years after Lau are discussed.

Keywords: educational policy, language minority students, language rights

Published online: 25 February 2016
https://doi.org/10.1075/lplp.39.3.02ari

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