I suppose I’ll use this first post to take up my new friend Laura Appleman’s invitation "to talk ideas [and] ponder questions large and small" in the Faculty Lounge. Doing so on such an open forum of course invites risk, as my good friend Al Brophy reminds me - especially for us junior faculty folk. But instinct tells me to steam ahead, and if a bit of political irreverence lands me on a sinking ship I’ll have no-one to blame but myself.
So here goes . . .
With candidates focused on big ticket immigration items - border fences, "amnesty" bills, driving rights - the silliest of anti-immigration measures are sneaking past the radar. Topping the list is a move by Esmeralda County, Nevada to discourage students from speaking Spanish while riding the bus to school. That’s right. English-only. On the bus. Going to school.
Superintendent Robert Aumaugher announced the policy in a letter to parents last October. Claiming to have his students’ best interests in mind, Aumaugher cited ethnic disparities in graduation rates and economic "competition from around the world" as reasons for encouraging English-only bus rides. Spanish conversations also make it difficult for drivers "to maintain order and discipline," he added, and open the door for Spanish speakers to "take advantage of the situation and exhibit disrespect." Last Thursday, the ACLU of Nevada along with the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project demanded that Aumaugher rescind the policy because it breached constitutional standards. And they’re right. The First Amendment might not protect the kid who yells "fire!" in a crowded theater, but it does protect the one who greets a classmate with a cheery "hola" on the morning ride to school.
Here’s why the policy is illegal - and absurd.
It was 1969 when the Supreme Court in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District first announced that "students do not shed their constitutional right to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate." Students to be sure have never enjoyed the same rights as adults in the outside world, but never have administrators been allowed to silence speech based on an undifferentiated fear of possible disruption, much less a concern that a student may, possibly, I don’t know, perhaps one day, secretly "disrespect" an adult using their native language.
The intervening 40 years have seen a slow and steady erosion of student rights, resulting in greater discretion for administrators to regulate what kids can say at school, and sometimes outside of school. Last year's decision in Morse v. Frederick upheld the suspension of a Juneau, Alaska high school student whose nonsensical "Bong Hits for Jesus" banner was said to conflict with his school's anti-drug policy. The banner was unfurled off school grounds at an Olympic torch relay that students watched as part of a supervised field trip. But the authority to police that type of off-campus educational event does not bring with it the power to silence what kids say, or how they say it, on a bus ride home.
Even without the First Amendment, this makes for remarkably bad public policy. The English-only rule stigmatizes Spanish speaking students who struggle with English, and discourages English speaking students from developing a second language, including those enrolled in a Spanish language course. Only in some parts of the world is English the "power language" Aumaugher says it is, and that world is shrinking fast. As anyone whose traveled abroad will tell you, America's problem is not that too few of us speak English, its that so few of us speak anything but.
Such an ill-conceived policy makes it hard to ignore the possibility of nativist anti-immigrant bias. After all, if "order," "discipline," and "respect" were legitimate concerns, why not hire Spanish speaking drivers and prohibit students from speaking English? Or, for that matter, the County could hire drivers who only speak French and have all the kids on the bus sit quietly. Either approach is of course absurd, but begs the question why the rights and experiences of presumably non-white Spanish-speaking children are so readily discarded to make a bus ride more comfortable for English-speaking whites.
There is no doubt that students across America benefit from learning English, but I have yet to meet a single Spanish-speaking parent who hasn't made that priority number one for their children. To suggest otherwise, as the County’s policy does, profoundly misrepresents the immigrant experience while making a mockery of free speech, ethnic equality and basic human understanding in the process.
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