The University of Massachusetts Boston Human Rights Working Group (UMBHRWG) is sponsoring an October 16th forum on bilingual education.

An initiative on the November ballot in Massachusetts would do away with bilingual education. If it passes the 20 percent of students in the state who are English language deficient but proficient in another language will no longer be able to study history, mathematics, and other subjects in their native tongue. They will, in the view of UMB professor Pepi Leistyna, therefore be deprived of their right to a decent education.

The effort to do away with bilingual education in the state has been spearheaded by California Businessman, Ron Unz, and a group he sponsors called English for the Children. Unz claims, among other things, that children who don’t speak English do better when they are forced to take English intensively for one year and then take all their subsequent instruction in English. Professor Leistyna challenges this view in his article below.

The UMBHRWG consists of faculty, students and staff at the University of Massachusetts Boston and human rights activists in the wider community whose purpose it is to establish a Human Rights Center and Human Rights Program and carry out other human rights activities. Its office is in the College of Public and Community Service complex on the 4th floor of Wheatley. It holds regular meetings on Friday at 1pm in W-4-138. For more information send email to [email protected].

As part of its effort to bring human rights issues into the academic arena the UMBHRWG seeks contributions for future columns from faculty, students, and human rights activists on and off campus. Essays, photos, artwork, or poetry dealing with human rights issues will be accepted. The essays should be approximately 750 words and emailed to [email protected] or sent by regular mail to the Human Rights Working Group, c/o The Mass Media, M-1-627 McCormack Hall, University of Massachusetts Boston, 100 Morrissey Blvd, Boston, MA 02125.