The Education Research Speaker Series features the latest research in education from CU Boulder scholars, alumni and leading experts from other institutions. Open to everyone and a Q&A will follow each talk.
Join us on Oct. 11:
At the Intersection of Lau and Brown: Historicizing Language Rights and Racial Integration for Equitable Schooling
In this research talk, Associate Professor Trish Morita-Mullaney will discuss the seminal Supreme Court language rights case, Lau v. Nichols (1974), whichfound that the San Francisco Unified School District’s failed to provide adequate and appropriate instructional programming to 1,800 students of Chinese ancestry who did not speak English and deniedthem a meaningful opportunity to participate in a public education.In this session,Morita-Mullaney will illuminate the stories of Cantonese-Chinese teachers, administrators, students, lawyersand social activists and howthey intersected the aims of racial integration with their language rights.
is an Associate Professor in Language and Literacy at Purdue University and holds a courtesy appointment in Asian American Studies. Her research focuses on the intersections between language learning, gender and race and how this informs the identity acts of educators of multilingual communities. Guided by critical and feminist thought, she examines how these overlapping identities inform the logics of educational decision making for multilingual families. She has studied the Lau case and how it was developed, experienced, and implemented by the Chinese American community of San Francisco, representing the original history and voice of Lau. Her book, Lau v. Nichols and Chinese American Language Rights: The Sunrise and Sunset of Bilingual Education was published in 2024 chronicling this story of language rights.
Open to everyone — Q&A will follow the talk.Stay for the reception after from 2:30-3p.m.