From what I’ve read, most legal arguments in opposition to laws making English an official language have been based on equal protection or due process issues.
Has anyone ever argued the freedom of speech issue? It would seem to me that you could make a reasonable argument that a government act that makes English the official language is inhibiting the free speech of people who wish to speak a different language.
I don’t understand that argument at all.
The purpose of an “official language” is usually to define what language or languages the government MUST do business in. If the USA decrees that the government must do business in English, how does that prevent you from speaking Swedish on your own time? There is no First Amendment implication there at all.
On the other hand, if the effect of the law were to, for instance, say that all criminal trials were to be held in English and no other language could be used in court, and you only spoke Swedish, you might have a Constitutional argument under equal protection (since you are being unfairly treated in a very specific, powerful way, due to not speaking English) or due process (since it’s being denied you.)
Of course, the reason the United States does not have an official language is that is simply hasn’t ever had a reason to bother. Countries with official language provisions have them for political reasons. The USA hasn’t any need for it.
There was a case – I’m afraid I don’t have a cite, and can only recall this from a VERY imperfect memory. As I recall it, some employees at a government facility – courthouse, or city hall, or whatever – were speaking among themselves in Spanish, and some (jerk) official tried to make them stop, on the grounds of an “English is the language of record” ordnance. The employees sued on First Amendment grounds, and won.
Please, someone who can search competently, correct me on this.
ETA: Here is a reference to a similar case.
The fact that the government is asserting it has the authority to pronounce a language as official shows that it is asserting its authority to regulate speech. Regardless of how it might be enforced, the principle alone is unconstitutional.
I don’t see how that would violate constitutional rights. Criminal trials routinely have to be conducted whee the accused does not know the language of the court, the remedy is to provide him with an interpreter and translated documents.
The government regulates speech in all sorts of ways. It can’t use prior restraint or eliminate all means of speech, but it doesn’t do that in your hypothetical. The government can throw you in jail for speaking out of turn in court, for speaking loudly outdoors in the middle of the night, for speaking threats against others, and many more cases. As long as someone is free to express themself in another language there is no 1st Amendment problem by restricting government communications to one language.
The proposal RickJay is talking about would bar the use of interpreters and translated documents.
Some quick reading if you’re interested:
Alaskans for a Common Language, Inc. v. Kritz, 170 P.3d 183 (Alaska 2007)“Because a portion of the Official English Initiative-the first sentence of AS 44.12.320-violates the federal and Alaska constitutional rights to free speech and to petition the government, we hold that the Official English Initiative is unconstitutional as enacted.”
It’s a starting point and refers to some findings of courts in Oklahoma and the 9th Circuit, but I haven’t had enough time to unpack it all. But it’s a good, if long, starting point.
This is one of the reasons that “legalese” is actually a good idea; it can better survive translation than ordinary language can.
(Heck, even between flavors – or flavours – of English, there are translation problems. A simple phrase like “Every floor in the building above the first” doesn’t mean quite the same thing in Great Britain – or Canada? – that it means in the U.S.)
I used to favor a “language of record” for this reason, but was convinced otherwise by a friend who is a lawyer, who assured me that contracts can be translated into other languages without loss of exactness and specificity.
I don’t see it. Like others have said, with English as an official language, you don’t go to jail for speaking Spanish. Under such a strict interpretation, the government requiring me to use a particular form to apply for a driver’s license or other government benefits would unfairly restrict my speech because I want to orally communicate the information, or write it in crayon on a bar napkin.
Freedom of speech is to protect people from being punished for expressing political thought and would not be abridged by proclaiming English as an official language.
Freedom of speech is NOT to protect people from being punished for expressing political thought. ANY speech content is protectable, though some types of speech are given greater protection because they were given more protection in England, or were considered more important to protect more carefully (like political speech).
But maybe not. The question is, what do you mean by official language?
Is it purely symbolic?
Does it require that the official recard of Congressional discussion be published in English?
Does it require all government documents be published in English?
Does it require all government documents be published ONLY In English? (Note the distinction.)
Does it require something to do with the education system?
The implementation of “official language” law could take a thousand different forms.
FWIW, the parts of Canada that I’ve been in generally follow the same convention as the US - the first floor is the one at ground level. We don’t have ‘ground floor’ and the first floor above that. (I’m not sure how much the British do that anymore either.)
In Britain, the ground floor is the one at ground level, and the first floor is the one above it. That’s still the way it works everywhere I’ve seen.
I work in a building where the floor at ground level is the lobby (L on the elevator) and the next floor up is 1. That’s here in the US, and very common, and confusing to some.
So to get this back on topic, if Congress passed a law that said all public buildings (in or affecting interstate commerce) must label the ground floor as “L” and the floor above that as “2” to avoid confusion, would that violate the first amendment because a building owner should be able to call each floor whatever he wishes?
No it wouldn’t. We give up all sorts of rights to participate in commerce. You can’t sell chicken as beef because you assert your free speech right to call a chicken a cow. The owner can call the first floor Fred if he wants to. He would still have to label it ‘L’.
I think that we are in agreement here, and that the OP is over-analyzing the restriction of speech that would happen with an “English as an official language” law.
Another FWIW: Even in the US, the British convention is sometimes followed. One (newer) wing of my local hospital has a ground floor at a significantly lower grade than the main hospital. Its elevators all call that (G), with (1) being the same floor as (1), the ground floor, of the main hospital.
Very true, but when analyzing whether X is protected speech, IMHO, the courts should keep in mind the purpose of the 1st amendment instead of getting bogged down in whether X law inhibits some esophageal response I would like to make.