School Prevails in English Lawsuit

http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=4712

By Ron Sylvester
The Wichita Eagle

A federal judge ruled Friday that a Wichita Catholic http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=4926 policy requiring students to speak only English didn’t break any civil rights laws.

But U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Marten criticized both sides in the lawsuit for the way they handled the conflict and characterized St. Anne Catholic School’s implementation of its English-only policy as “one-sided.”

“It has divided a school, its church and congregation,” Marten said. “It has divided the Hispanic community in its congregation. And it has touched a nerve in this community and across the nation.”

But Marten said the policy didn’t rise to the level of a “hostile educational environment” — the legal standard applying to this case — and denied a request from three Hispanic families to end the practice at St. Anne.

Marten said school administrators resisted working with Spanish-speaking parishioners to resolve a dispute that seemed to single those students out.”They implemented the English-only policy without consulting with the segment of the school it would impact the most,” he said.

School officials testified that English-speaking students at St. Anne’s middle school were intimidated by hearing their peers speak in a language they didn’t understand.

The English-speaking children felt excluded and humiliated, fearing they were being ridiculed in a foreign language, administrators said.

The Spanish-speaking students said they felt harassed and ostracized by being prohibited from speaking a language common in their family and culture.

http://www.kansas.com/213/story/495943.html

2008-08-20