Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination on the basis of national origin by any recipient of federal financial assistance. The Department of Justice and the Department of Health and Human Services have long interpreted "national origin" discrimination to include failure to provide meaningful language access to Limited English Proficient (LEP) individuals.
In practice, that means courts, state agencies, school districts, and most healthcare providers must provide qualified interpretation and translation services to LEP individuals at no cost. Failure to do so is a federal civil rights violation, not just an inconvenience.
What "meaningful access" actually requires
The federal guidance, first formalized in DOJ's 2002 LEP Guidance and reinforced by the LEP Coordinator and OCR investigations since, identifies four practical factors:
- Number or proportion of LEP persons served by the program
- Frequency of contact with the program
- Nature and importance of the program to people's lives
- Resources available and costs
High-frequency, high-stakes touchpoints (a hospital ER, a public defender intake, a school IEP meeting) require professional interpretation. Lower-stakes interactions can sometimes use translated materials or telephonic interpreting.
Common compliance gaps
- Using family members or untrained staff as interpreters in serious medical or legal settings
- Posting English-only signage in public agencies serving large LEP populations
- Producing translated forms in only the most common languages and turning away speakers of rarer languages
- Lacking a documented Language Access Plan
What a compliant program looks like
A compliant program identifies its LEP service population, maintains a documented Language Access Plan, contracts with a language services provider that can supply certified interpreters across the full range of languages encountered, and translates vital documents into the most-requested languages with capability to translate others on request.
AMS supports federal, state, and local clients in meeting these obligations across hundreds of languages, including the rare and indigenous languages that present the most common compliance gaps.