Orange Unified officials are elated as restraining order on English-immersion plan is lifted.
Foes vow to continue battle.
In a case testing the legality of alternatives to bilingual education, a federal judge ruled Wednesday that the Orange Unified School District may renew a controversial program to teach Spanish-speaking children almost entirely in English. The ruling by U.S. District Judge William B. Shubb of Sacramento lifted a restraining order that a state court issued against the school district three weeks ago. At the same time, former Republican gubernatorial candidate Ron K. Unz has launched a campaign to curtail bilingual education throughout the state through an initiative proposed for the June 1998 ballot. In prior years, about 1,500 elementary students had been enrolled in bilingual classes with instruction primarily in Spanish. They argued that school officials had not taken the proper steps to safeguard the right of students to have equal access to the curriculum regardless of their language background.