A review of the national and state legislation dealing with bilingual education is presented in the context of an introductory history of the bilingual movement in the United States. This history falls into two periods; the first from 1840-1920, and the second from 1960 to the present. The goal of bilingual education, to teach English without sacrificing the home language and culture, is the backdrop for the examination of the laws governing it. First, federal bilingual policy mechanisms are examined from the initial constitutional mandate resulting from the Brown v. Board of Education case to action of the Reagan administration in 1981 withdrawing proposed Lau regulations. In each case the legislation is criticized in terms of its impact on equal educational opportunity for limited English speaking minority children. Following this section, the response of the Los Angeles Unified School District to the 1974 Supreme Court decision in the Lau case is presented and an outline of major deficiencies existing in Los Angeles as of 1980 are discussed. A fourth section describes California's bilingual/bicultural education program and the policy mechanisms that support it. The final section is a review of court actions in Los Angeles and Judge Egly's orders in 1980 on proposed programs for segregated and racially isolated minority schools. (AMH)