CRP Resources Related to Horne v. Flores

Introduction

Horne v. Flores, 129 S.Ct. 2579 (2009), is a case about the rights of English Language Learners (ELs) in public schools in Arizona. The United States Supreme Court accepted the case and, in effect, evaluated whether or not Arizona educational policy with regard to students learning to speak English complied with the law, particularly the Equal Educational Opportunities Act (EEOA). On June 25, 2009, the Court overturned the decision of the state court, deciding in favor of Superintendent Horne and allowing Arizona to determine its own requirements with regards to ELL instruction. Justice Breyer dissented (joined by Justices Stevens, Souter, and Ginsburg) and issued an opinion warning that the Court’s decision risked harming ELLs by denying schoolchildren the English-learning instruction necessary “to overcome language barriers that impede” their “equal participation.”

Research related to Horne V. Flores

District Court Case Developments

After these independent studies were published in compliance with Institutional Review Board (IRB) on each campus, Arizona’s lawyers took the unprecedented action of attempting to force the researchers and the schools they represented to disclose confidential information about research participants.