Kaplan College fires English-only president

[Dennis Baron]

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Kaplan College fires English-only president

The president of the Chula Vista, California, branch of Kaplan College  
was fired after telling students that they could be disciplined for  
speaking Spanish in their classes.

Here’s what prompted the incident: During a break in a medical  
assistant course, Jonathan Cedeño and some friends were grumbling in  
Spanish about an Anglo student who had criticized them for not keeping  
up. After class the Anglo student complained to Dennis Manzo, the  
school’s president, that she couldn’t understand what the other  
students were saying about her.

The program director turned up at the next class to warn students that  
“campus policy forbade the use of any language other than English in  
class, even in side conversations.” Later, Pres. Manzo told the  
Chronicle of Higher Education that Kaplan’s English-only policy was  
necessary to ensure that students attain the highest level of  
professionalism, and that “having a side conversation in Spanish [is]  
unprofessional.”

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____________________
Dennis Baron
Professor of English and Linguistics
Department of English
University of Illinois
608 S. Wright St.
Urbana, IL 61801

office: 217-244-0568
fax: 217-333-4321

http://www.illinois.edu/goto/debaron

read the Web of Language:
http://www.illinois.edu/goto/weboflanguage

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