Fired Principal Had a Right to Insist on Speaking English

Contact: Phil Kent
March 19, 2014

Phone: (404) 226-3549

ARLINGTON, VA – “It is an outrage that the Hempstead, Texas, Board of Education caved in to vocal multilingual pressure groups and fired a well-meaning principal who instructed students not to speak Spanish in her taxpayer-supported public school,” says Executive Director Robert Vandervoort of ProEnglish. The Arlington-based organization advocates making English the official language of state and federal government operations.

“Critics accuse Hempstead Middle School Principal Amy Lacey of banning aspects of ethnicity or cultural identity, yet this is nonsense,” Vandervoort says. “Radicals love to confuse language with ethnicity and national origin but there is a distinct difference. The federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals underscored this just six years ago in the case of Silva v. Catholic Diocese of Wichita. It essentially ruled that schools have a right to require that English be spoken by students. Disallowing Spanish speaking, the court said, did not constitute being anti-Hispanic.”

“The Hempstead School Board is catering to activist interest groups that have a stake in keeping immigrants isolated, alienated and poor, while in the process diluting America’s English language heritage and weakening the melting pot tradition that is rooted in assimilation and learning our common tongue,” Vandervoort says.

“We urge a patriotic Texas legislator to stand up and introduce a bill to make English the official language of Texas. This is also a timely reminder why laws are needed to protect people like Amy Lacey as well as the Arizona nursing student, Terri Bennett, who was kicked out of her Tucson community college for simply requesting that just English be spoken in the classroom,” Vandervoort said. “Spanish-only speakers seem to think discrimination only goes one way.  Clearly, the Texas principal was discriminated against for disagreeing with the multilingual/multicultural lobby.”