Students' Rights to Their Own Language

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"Students' Rights to Their Own Language" is a resolution adopted by the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC).^[1] In 1974, the CCCC released a position statement focused on "Student’s Rights to Their Own Language." The statement challenges the expectation that students in the United States should exclusively use Standard American English in their classwork. The statement argues it is unjust and racist to require all students to use the Standard American Dialect, claiming that doing so enables one social group to dominate the others. The statement also claims that it is the duty of educators to respect diversity and help students uphold rights to their own language. The CCCC’s website organizes their position statements thematically. "Students’ Rights Their Own Language" falls under the theme of “Statements on Social and Linguistic and Antiracist Pedagogies.”^[2]