Thread: DEFENDING ENGLISH IN COURT

DEFENDING ENGLISH IN COURT


ProEnglish Defends Hazelton, PA's official English statute

In 2006, Hazleton, Pennsylvania, passed an ordinance to deter illegal immigrants that contained a provision declaring English its official language. The city's action triggered a wave of similar ordinances and inquiries from other cities and towns that are experiencing similar influxes of non-English speaking illegal immigrants. The ACLU promptly filed suit on behalf of several Hispanic individuals and advocacy groups to block the city's action.

ProEnglish contacted Hazleton's mayor, Lou Barletta, to offer its legal assistance. Acting on the advice of ProEnglish and other legal advisors, the city replaced its first ordinance with ones that dealt with illegal immigrants and official English as separate issues. The ACLU then re-filed its complaint challenging the new ordinances and got US District Judge James M. Munley to issue a temporary restraining order Oct. 31st barring the city from enforcing the ordinances pending a trial.
(Click here for more.)

ProEnglish sues Alabama to enforce Official English law
By a landslide 9-1 margin in 1990, Alabama's voters passed an amendment to their constitution making English their official language. To comply with the law and the overwhelming desire of the people of Alabama, the state stopped giving driver's license exams in other languages. Six years later the policy was challenged in federal court. But in 2001 the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Alabama's right to have the English language exam policy (see Alexander v. Sandoval, below). Despite their court victory Alabama state officials are now refusing to reinstate the English driver's exam policy. Today, the state allows driver's license applicants to take their exams in one of thirteen languages including Arabic, Russian, and Chinese notwithstanding the obvious danger it poses to public safety. Drivers can get licenses even if they cannot read warning signs, or communicate with police or safety personnel in the event of an accident. Five members of ProEnglish are suing the state to enforce Alabama's official English law.
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ProEnglish sues administration over multilingual mandate, Executive Order 13166
ProEnglish, the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, and three physicians in private practice, have filed suit against the Department of Health and Human Services to block the implementation of rules saying a failure to communicate with someone in their native language is national origin discrimination. The suit asserts the rules are invalid and unconstitutional, and were never authorized by Congress. Moreover the suit argues they ignore thirty years of court decisions that have consistently rejected the government effort to equate language with national origin. UPDATE: The presiding judge dismissed the suit on the basis of legal standing. But in reaching his decision he ignored legal precedents and the case is now on appeal to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
(Click here for more.)

ProEnglish helps AZ family defend itself against EEOC lawsuit over English language workplace rules
ProEnglish is helping to defend Richard and Shauna Kidman, an Arizona couple facing bankruptcy and the loss of their family-owned restaurant due to an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) lawsuit. The EEOC is charging them with illegal discrimination over their English language workplace rule. The suit charges that the Kidmans' policy requiring the restaurant's employees to speak English on the job constitutes prohibited "national origin" discrimination under Title VII of the 1964 civil rights law. The Kidmans' policy, implemented according to guidelines posted on the EEOC's own website, was drafted to protect employees from sexual abuse and verbal harassment.
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EEOC vs. Spring Sheet Metal (New York)
ProEnglish intervened to help Spring Sheet Metal, a privately owned small business in Rochester NY, defend itself from another language discrimination lawsuit filed by the EEOC over the firm's English-on-the-job policy. The company does hazardous sheet metal roofing work and requires employees to speak English on the job for their own safety. The lawsuit is yet another effort by the EEOC to bully small employers in pursuit of its illegitimate policy of equating virtually any English-on-the-job policy with national origin discrimination, despite the clear business necessity for having such a rule. (Click here for news story.)

Ohio Civil Rights Commission vs. Pleasure Inn
The Ohio Civil Rights Commission (OCRC), a state agency charged with overseeing the enforcement of Ohio's civil rights law, is charging a small tavern named the Pleasure Inn in Cincinnati with discrimination because the owner put a sign in his window saying "For Service Speak English." This case is even more extreme than the EEOC cases cited above because the OCRC complaint attempts to assert an entirely new protected class of prohibited 'national origin' discrimination - "non-American" - as the basis for its complaint. After learning about the case, ProEnglish stepped in to lend pro-bono legal assistance and consulting to help the owner defend himself. (Click here for news story.)

landmark ProEnglish victories:

Anderson v. Utah (2001):
ProEnglish wins legal battle as Utah court upholds Official English law
In 2000, a ballot initiative to declare English to be Utah's official language passed with 67% of the vote. Before the law could take effect, a state court granted an injunction and blocked its implementation in response to a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Utah's Multicultural Legal Center. The lawsuit alleged the law violates the "free-speech" and "equal protection" clauses of the Constitution.
The defense of the voter-adopted law put on by Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff's office was so weak that Judge Ronald Nehring wondered, "Is there any possible scenario where this initiative could be violated?" The judge then allowed ProEnglish permission to file a brief defending the law, given the abysmal effort mounted by the attorney general's office. When the judge issued his ruling it rejected the ACLU's claims across the board and drew heavily on ProEnglish's legal arguments. Stung by the decision the ACLU filed an appeal with the Utah Supreme Court. But when the deadline came for filing its appellate brief, the ACLU abruptly changed course and refused to press its case, and tried to spin Judge Nehring's decision as a "victory."

Sandoval v. Alexander (2001):
U.S. Supreme Court vacates lower court decision; Alabama's English law survives
In 1990 Alabama voters adopted an official English amendment to their constitution via a statewide referendum, which passed by an astounding 9-1 margin, the biggest landslide for any referendum in Alabama's history. As a result of the amendment's passage, state officials changed their policy on drivers' license exams, and began giving them exclusively in English. Six years later Martha Sandoval, a resident alien from Mexico, with help from the Southern Poverty Law Center filed suit in federal court charging that the policy discriminated against her on the basis of her national origin, and was therefore illegal under Title VI of the civil rights law. A judge ruled in favor of Sandoval becoming the first decision to explicitly assert an equation between someone's language and their national origin. With legal assistance from ProEnglish Alabama appealed the decision all the way to the Supreme Court.
When it reached the Supreme Court ProEnglish filed an amicus curiae ("friend-of-the-court") brief , rejecting the claim that language is not synonymous with national origin and pointing out that the Sandoval decision contradicted thirty years of contrary court decisions. Fourteen members of Congress signed on to ProEnglish's brief. In 2001 the Supreme Court ruled for Alabama and vacated the lower court decisions, in effect erasing them from the legal record. But because the court decided the case over the issue of whether or not an individual had the right to sue a state under Title VI (private right of action), the Justice Department and multicultural advocates are claiming that the Sandoval decision is still valid, even though the Supreme Court said it was illegal for it to be filed in the first place. This case illustrates the basic lawlessness of government bureaucracies as well as Congress's failure to exercise its proper oversight responsibilities. Nevertheless, the Sandoval decision was a landmark victory for ProEnglish and other official English advocates who are trying to block the federal government's undemocratic policy forcing multilingualism on the American people.
(Click here for more. )

Arizonans for Official English v. Arizona (1997)
U.S. Supreme Court: official English laws are valid.
In 1988, a state employee challenged Arizona's newly enacted Official English initiative, Proposition 106, claiming that she had a First Amendment right to speak any language on the job. A federal judge agreed and overturned it. When the State of Arizona refused to appeal ProEnglish Chairman Bob Park intervened to defend the constitutionality of the official English initiative. After a long series of appeals over the trial judge's ruling that the initiative violated the First Amendment, Park and Arizonans for Official English prevailed at the U.S. Supreme Court, upholding the right of states to have official English laws.
But after the Arizona law was upheld under the U.S. Constitution, a state court quickly ruled that the new law violated Arizona's constitution. The decision was appealed but later upheld by the Arizona Supreme Court. The U.S. Supreme Court then refused to review the state courts' decisions. This marks the only time that courts have ruled that an official English law violated a state's constitution, despite a number of similar court challenges.

ProEnglish legal news archive

http://www.proenglish.org/legal/legalindex.html

WOW!! I'm embarassed to admit that I'd never heard of ProEnglish.

Martha Sandoval, a resident alien from Mexico, with help from the Southern Poverty Law Center filed suit in federal court charging that the policy discriminated against her on the basis of her national origin, and was therefore illegal under Title VI of the civil rights law.

I'm in a particularly bad mood tonight so I'll just grit my teeth!

Martha Sandoval, a resident alien from Mexico, with help from the Southern Poverty Law Center filed suit in federal court charging that the policy discriminated against her on the basis of her national origin, and was therefore illegal under Title VI of the civil rights law.

That has no basis, first English has been accepted language for some time and two, the US Constitution does not apply to illegal aliens.

I always thought the Constitution only applies to actual American citizens not just anyone standing on Us soil. When did the rules change?



Head 'em up,move 'em out Rawhide!

The rules change when 'they' want the rules to change and 'they' aren't obligated to tell you when the rules change. 'They' are the elites who have taken over this country.