Official English

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Long has been the debate whether or not English should be the official language of the United States. The rhetoric on both side of the argument has been heated and long-winded. Both sides have well formulated points and stick to them stanchly. The immovability leads one to wonder: which side of the argument has the correct answer; is the answer somewhere in between; and can we find empirical evidence to back one side or the other. Only with an examination of the beliefs, fears, and the facts as they stand presently, can one conclude with the correct answer. To start this examination, a clarification of terms is in order. The opponents of any law making English the official language refer to the supporters of English as the official language as The English Only Movement. The No English as Official Language (NEOL) side of the debate believes the Office English Movement (OEM) side wants to exclude all other languages from the United State. The NOEL refers to the OEM as the English Only movement. The renaming is an attempt to shape the debate in their favor. As for this paper, each will be refer to as they refer to themselves, The ACUL testified, before House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution on the English Language Unity Act of 2011, placing themselves squarely on the NOEL side. The ACLU argued: • “unwise and dangerous policy with negative ramifications for a wide range of federal functions ranging from tax collection to voting access to naturalization procedures; • clearly contrary to civil rights laws protecting language minorities from discrimination based on national origin; • unconstitutional under the First Amendment and the Fifth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause; • based on false premises about immigrants’ and language minorities’ English proficiency and assimilation (unfairly targeting, in particular, Latinos and Asian Americans).” (Murphy, Vagins

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