Garcia 1

Lau V. Nichols Research Paper

Lina Garcia

Introduction to Special Education 203

Landmark Court Case

Saturday, March 5 , 2022

 Garcia 2

In 1974, the San Francisco school system was having equality issues with the students

who were unable to speak English. The San Francisco education system failed to supply English

instruction to over 2000 Asian students who couldn't speak English, which denies them the

opportunity to get an equal education as the other students, which violates the Civil Rights Act.

The San Francisco Unified School District, SFUSD, had approximately 2900 students who were

non english speakers and were of chinese ancestry. Nearly two thirds of those students weren’t

were not provided supplemental classes in English. In order to combat the inequality these

students faced, Kinney Kimmon Lau filed a lawsuit claiming that the SFUSD violated their

rights under the Fourteenth Amendment.

For the people who already speak English, you never realize how much of a problem

communicating in America can be. Although the United States is said to be a melting pot of

different cultures, they still value having English be the most spoken language in the country

despite having no national language. So when children of different nationalities or ethnicities go

to school to have an education only for their school not to provide them English instructions,

creating an unfair environment to those students. The SFUSD also had a code that states that

students who fail to meet standard proficiency levels of English will not receive a high-school

diploma.

The case got to the Supreme Court because Lau believed that the SFUSD was

unconstitutional and went against their rights.