If you're in San Francisco, scholars and educators will be gathering for a conference commemorating the 40th anniversary the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Lau vs. Nichols, a ruling that recognized the rights of linguistic minorities in public education. The conference will revisit the case and examine its impact on linguistic minorities and disabled Americans in education and other areas of public service. It's happening Friday, September 12 at the Chinatown Campus of City College of San Francisco.
Here are some more details:
40th Anniversary of Lau vs. Nichols Decision:
A National Conference on the Rights of Linguistic Minorities
On January 21, 1974, twenty years after the U.S. Supreme Court handed down the landmark decision in 1954 in the case of Brown vs. Board of Education, the same highest court of the land unanimously ruled that the San Francisco Board of Education illegally discriminated against non- and limited-English-speaking Chinese immigrant students by denying them equal educational opportunity, and for the first time in the history of the U.S., recognized the rights of linguistic minorities in public education and by extension, other vital public service areas across the U.S. The decision also provided a strong legal basis for bilingual-bicultural education as the appropriate and effective remedy for children of limited-English-speaking ability. The response of the San Francisco Board of Education was to adopt an unprecedented Master for Bilingual-bicultural Education for all linguistic minority students in grades K-12 and the California state legislature passed the Moscone-Chacon Bilingual-bicultural Education Act of 1976.
Date: Friday, September 12, 2014
Time: 9:00 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.
Place: Auditorium of Chinatown Campus City College of San Francisco (CCSF)
Fee: $50 (Regular), $25 (Students), Waived (UC-Berkeley Students - Bring Cal1Card ID)
Sponsors: Asian American Studies/AAADS, UC Berkeley, Santa Clara Law, Santa Clara University, San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD), Chinatown Campus, City College of San Francisco
Major Speakers: J. Stanley Pottinger, Former Assistant U.S. Attorney General; Libia Gil, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Education, and Director of OELA; Tom Torlakson, California Superintendent of Public Instruction; Richard Carranz, Superintendent; Rachel F. Moran, Dean of Law School; U.S. Department of Justice; U.S. Department of Education; California Department of Education (Invited); San Francisco Unified School District; University of California, Los Angeles
For further information, and to register for the conference, go here.