An Insight into Linguistic Rights before the Courts and in Public Education in the United States of America

Abstract

This article aims to give a deeper insight in the linguistic rights in the United States of America (United States or US). In particular, it will analyze how these rights are protected and reflect on its effectiveness. Linguistic rights are especially important in multilingual and multicultural societies. The United States are such a society. However, we will see that the United States are evolving more towards a monolingual society, or at least are intentionally trying to implement the use of a sole language in the public sphere, through various legal and other means.

This article consists of three parts. First, it will give an overview of what linguistic rights are and discuss their importance. Furthermore, it will discuss why English is the predominant language in the country today and what other languages play an important role.

Second, it will lay out how linguistic rights are enshrined in the legal sphere and how these are protected. In this part, the article will focus on the legal frameworks for such rights and will take a closer look at how such rights are protected before the United States courts (both at the state and federal level). Special attention is also placed on linguistic minorities and protections for Native languages. When looking at protections before the US courts, the article will draw upon relevant case law in the matter.

Finally, the article will look at the protection of linguistic rights in public education. In doing so, it will again rely on relevant case law in that regard, as well as public policy and other instruments to bring about such protections. Again, here we will have a closer look at linguistic minorities and Native languages.