In the Lau vs. Nichols case, a suit was brought by Chinese-speaking students against the San Francisco Unified School District, asking the district to implement programs in Chinese that would permit them to learn English. The basic claim of these non-English-speaking children is that in refusing to meet their learning needs, the district is violating their right to adequate educational opportunity under the equal protection clause of the Constitution. The social, economic, and political discrimination against the Chinese and Mexican-Americans forced them into an isolation that has resulted in large communities of non-English-speaking students in California and the Southwest. Since language is an integral part of the ethnic culture of the students involved, discrimination based on language is one manifestation of discrimination based on national origin. In the Lau case, the Ninth Circuit Court ruled that there could be no state action unless the school district had had a specific intent to discriminate. However, the Supreme Court on other occasions has found a seemingly nondiscriminatory policy to be a violation of equal protection when it had a discriminatory impact. It is possible to find both the teachers and the funds to implement the required programs, and the question now is to what extent the courts will become involved in the education process. (Author/PM)