U.S. English (organization) - Current Advisory Board Members

Current Advisory Board Members

Current members of the Advisory Board are listed as: Jacques Barzun, Ph.D., Edward A. Capano, Denton Cooley, M.D., Midge Decter, Jorge Delgado, Dinesh Desai, Mrs. Richard DeVos, George Gilder, Nathan Glazer, Ph.D., Charles Gogolak, Lee Majors, Laura McKenzie, Harvey Meyerhoff, Barbara Mujica, Ph.D., Alex Olmedo, Arnold Palmer, Margie Petersen, Norman Podhoretz, Donald M. Ross, Randolph Rowland, James Schlesinger, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Norman D. Shumway, Rodney Smith, Alex Trebek, George W. Wilson, and Roger Wildermuth . To date, the United States federal government has recognized no official language, even though nearly all federal, state and local government business is conducted in English. Some states and territories do have English as an official language; a few have passed laws embracing another language alongside English, such as Hawaiian in the state of Hawaii. In total, 30 states have English as their official language. The U.S. House of Representatives passed English as the official language in 1996, but the Senate did not act on the measure before the conclusion of the 104th Congress.

In the view of U.S. English's members, making English the official language of the U.S. would mean that all government business must be conducted in English, "with commonsense exceptions" of necessity, for example the dissemination of public-health information to non-English speaking immigrant communities.

Opponents of the goals of the U.S. English organization or of English as the official language object that the practice would express a bias against immigrants who have not yet learned English. U.S. English suggests that the practice would instead encourage immigrants to learn English more quickly, and thereby reap greater economic and political benefits. Thus, in the view of many supporters of this approach—including members of other English-only advocacy groups—the move to make English the only official language can have benefits for non-English speakers, and is not a form of legalized discrimination.

Walter Cronkite was once a board member of the organization, while Linda Chavez was once executive director. A leak by the Arizona Republic newspaper of a memo from John Tanton, which some including Cronkite believed went too far in its characterization of Latinos, prompted Chavez and Cronkite to resign. Cronkite called the memo "embarrassing". John Tanton also severed his ties to the group in 1988 following the leak of the memo, and is no longer associated with U.S. English; he later went on to found a separate pro-official English group, ProEnglish.