ProEnglish is the nation’s leading advocate of official English. We work through the courts and in the court of public opinion to defend English’s historic role as America’s common, unifying language, and to persuade lawmakers to adopt English as the official language at all levels of government.
AGENDA FOR ACTION
- Adopting laws or constitutional amendments declaring English the official language of the United States, and of individual states.
- Defending the right of individual states to make English the official language of government operations.
- Ending bilingual education, in favor of English language immersion programs in public schools.
- Repealing federal mandates for the translation of government documents and voting ballots into languages other than English.
- Opposing the admission of territories as states unless they have adopted English as their official language.
OUR GUIDING PRINCIPLES
- In a pluralistic nation such as ours, the function of government should be to foster and support the similarities that unite us, rather than institutionalize the differences that divide us.
- Our nation’s public schools have the clear responsibility to help students who don’t know English to learn that language as quickly as possible. To do otherwise is to sentence the child to a lifetime of political and economic isolation. Quality teaching of English and America’s civic culture should be a part of every student’s curriculum. The study of foreign languages, as an academic discipline, should be strongly encouraged.
- All candidates for U.S. citizenship should be required to demonstrate knowledge of English, and an understanding of our system of government, at a level sufficient to vote in the language of our country.
- Naturalization ceremonies, including the Oath of Citizenship, must be conducted in English.
- The right to use other languages must be respected.
BACKGROUND
- Founded in 1994 under the name English Language Advocates, ProEnglish’s first project was defending an official English initiative passed by the voters of Arizona, after the State of Arizona refused to appeal a decision overturning the initiative in federal court.
- Since its creation, ProEnglish has gained expertise and considerable experience in the rapidly evolving field of language law. As a result, in addition to doing research and conducting a wide variety of public education activities to advance the goals listed above, ProEnglish has specialized in providing pro-bono legal assistance to public and private agencies facing litigation or regulatory actions over language.