Lau v. Nichols
Lau v. Nichols, 414 U.S. 563 (1974), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court unanimously decided that the lack of supplemental language instruction in public school for students with limited English proficiency violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The court held that since non-English speakers were denied a meaningful education, the disparate impact caused by the school policy violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the school district was demanded to provide students with "appropriate relief". Background In 1971, the San Francisco school system desegregated based on the result of Supreme Court case Lee v. Johnson. At that time, 2,856 Chinese and Hispanic students, who were not fluent in English, were integrated back into the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD). Only about 1000 of those students were provided supplemental English instruction. Of the other 1800-plus Chinese students who were not fluent in English, many were placed in special education classes while some were forced to be in the same grade for years. Even though the Bilingual Education Act was passed by Congress in 1968 to address the needs of Limited English Speaking Abilities students, its application was limited. School participation