Lau v. Nichols

Lau v. Nichols (1974) was a landmark Supreme Court case that addressed whether schools must provide equal access for students who do not speak English well. The Court ruled that denying bilingual education services to Chinese-speaking students in San Francisco violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Essentially, the Court decided that language barriers should not be a reason to deny students a fair chance to learn, and schools have an obligation to help non-English speakers understand and participate equally in education. This case helped establish the legal basis for providing language assistance in U.S. schools.