Socially speaking, this lawsuit was bringing up grievances about not being given proper language education, hence barring the students from learning in school.

Steinman argued that English was a core staple in learning at school, as, due to all the educators and other students speaking English, the Chinese students would not be able to learn anything and the education systems efforts would be wasted. Steinman also argued that this went directly against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, prohibiting any sort of racial, or cultural discrimination in any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance� Due to public school systems receiving money from the states, the argument from Steinman is that the schools are discriminating because they are not granting any sort language education, disadvantaging the Chinese students. The petitioners just want the schools to give the Chinese students equal education opportunities, whether these involve language courses or simply being taught the curriculum in Chinese.

The Opinion of the Court was delivered by Justice Douglas. The Supreme court viewed the fact that students needed to know basic English to learn basic English as a degree of hypocrisy. They also stated that it was evident that Chinese students had significantly less advantages, and that denying them English will cost them major educational opportunities.