Bilingual Group Told English-Only Crusade Undermines Freedoms

The English-only movement undermines freedom of expression and other First Amendment rights, a University of Massachusetts legal scholar said Wednesday at a conference in Anaheim of bilingual teachers from throughout the state.

“Freedom of expression and to form beliefs and opinions are being undermined by this movement,” Stephen Arons said in his keynote address to about 1,000 teachers, parents and administrators on the first day of the 12th annual conference of the California Assn. for Bilingual Education.

His topic: “No official religion. No official race. No official language.”

Arons, a professor of legal studies at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and a veteran of the 1960s civil rights movement, was invited to speak after he wrote an article for Education Week on First Amendment rights for students whose first language is not English. The article drew intense criticism from English-only advocates last October.

Shelly Spiegel-Coleman, president of the bilingual teachers organization, defended Arons’ invitation to the conference.

“The reason why we had Prof. Arons speak is that a lot of us in bilingual education lose focus of the questions he raises,” Spiegel-Coleman said. “We’re hoping that people who heard him today take some of his arguments and share them with parents and administrators.”

In the Education Week article, Arons concluded that the English-only advocates violate the principles of the First Amendment by imposing their beliefs and values, with the help of government, on others.

“The debate over language policy in the schools is beginning to sound startlingly similar to the historically discredited efforts to create an official religion and an official race in America,” Arons wrote.

During his speech Wednesday, Arons criticized California’s Proposition 63, the English-only initiative that passed overwhelmingly last November. He called the measure, which supporters contended would help unify different cultural groups, divisive.

“Coerced unity is not only inappropriate, it is impossible,” he said. “It will not work. Therefore, we have to ask the question, ‘What is the real goal behind their claim of unity?’ ”

The head of U.S. English, a citizens lobbying group that is pushing for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution making English the official language of the United States, said Wednesday that Arons is misrepresenting the English-only movement.

“What he says doesn’t match any of the circumstances we’re advocating in what Proposition 63 does and what we’re calling for in a new constitutional amendment,” U.S. English executive director Gerda Bikales said from Washington in a telephone interview. “It behooves government to function in one language.”

Arons said there is a widespread assumption by English-only advocates that students with limited English proficiency should sacrifice their cultural heritage as the price of a public education.

Public schools serve as mechanized “socialization centers” where an adult’s thoughts, beliefs, and opinions are molded, Arons said.

But it is in the public schools that manipulators can best attack the sanctity of the individual and his self-expression, he said.

“We need a restructuring of education, especially to language-minority families,” Arons said. “Majority-controlled public education in schools undercuts and weakens the entire concept of the First Amendment.”

English-only programs, he said, stigmatize and demean children when they do not find their language and culture reflected and respected in public schools.

Some of Arons’ concerns were expressed in a bill, sponsored by Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco), on bilingual education funding that passed in the Legislature but was vetoed by Gov. George Deukmejian last year, said Peter F. Schilla, a Sacramento lobbyist and attorney who sits on the bilingual education association’s board.

A new package of five bills has been introduced this year in Sacramento, including AB 37, Brown’s new version of the bill that was vetoed, Schilla said.

Brown is scheduled to speak to the association at a luncheon Friday. The conference is being held at the Anaheim Hilton.

Begun in 1976, the bilingual association has about 2,000 members and is composed primarily of bilingual education teachers but also includes some administrators and parents.

The conference continues through Saturday.