Attorney General Pam Bondi on Monday set forth guidelines for implementing President Donald Trump’s executive order declaring English the official language of the United States, saying the guidance is “transformative” and aimed at fostering “a more cohesive and engaged nation.”
“As President Trump has made clear, English is the official language of the United States,” Bondi said in a statement. “The Department of Justice will lead the effort to codify the President’s Executive Order and eliminate wasteful virtue-signaling policies across government agencies to promote assimilation over division.”
As @POTUS has made clear, English is the official language of the United States of America.@TheJusticeDept will lead the effort to ensure that mandate is reflected across our federal agencies. https://t.co/kBAR7dmRls
— Attorney General Pamela Bondi (@AGPamBondi) July 14, 2025
The seven-page guidance directs all federal agencies to scale back multilingual services and evaluate whether their programs would be more effective if operated exclusively in English. Agencies must now conduct a full internal inventory of non-English services and prepare plans to phase out “unnecessary multilingual offerings.” Savings from the phaseouts are expected to be reallocated toward English language education and assimilation programs.
The memo also calls for the temporary suspension of LEP.gov, a federal website for people with limited English proficiency. Public-facing materials related to language access, including letters, videos, and online training tools, will be paused while an internal review is conducted.
Over the next 180 days, agencies are expected to submit updated plans and seek public input as they craft new language access standards. According to the DOJ, the process will produce “clear, practical guidelines that help agencies prioritize English while explaining precisely when and how multilingual assistance remains necessary to fulfill their missions.”
The guidance encourages agencies to explore alternatives such as artificial intelligence and machine translation where minimal assistance in other languages remains appropriate.
DOJ rejects ‘disparate impact’ theory for language access
The Justice Department memo also signals a major shift in civil rights enforcement, disavowing the use of disparate impact theory to mandate multilingual services. Disparate impact is a legal doctrine that prohibits practices that appear neutral on their face but disproportionately harm members of a protected group, even without evidence of intentional discrimination.
For decades, agencies operated under the view that denying language assistance could constitute discrimination under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, even without any intent to discriminate. But the DOJ now says that view is legally unsupported.
“A statute that classifies based on language, but is neutral on its face with respect to national origin, should be considered a mere proxy for national origin discrimination only if the classification is ‘unexplainable on grounds other than’ national origin discrimination,” the memo states, citing Supreme Court precedent.
The memo notes that the Supreme Court’s 2001 ruling in Alexander v. Sandoval made clear that Title VI prohibits only intentional discrimination, not statistical disparities. That position is echoed by other rulings, including an 8th Circuit’s 2010 decision in Mumid v. Abraham Lincoln High School, which found that treating limited English proficiency as a separate classification from national origin does not violate civil rights laws.
While the DOJ acknowledges that language-based policies could, in rare cases, be used to conceal national origin bias, the guidance reaffirms that such cases must meet a high bar and involve direct evidence of discriminatory intent.
Capping Trump’s language policy with teeth
Trump signed the English-only executive order in March, saying it is “long past time that English is declared as the official language of the United States.” Wednesday’s DOJ guidance marks the first detailed legal interpretation of that mandate, and it cements the administration’s move away from policies that prioritize equity through multilingual accommodations.
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Bondi’s memo frames the change as both a legal correction and a cultural reset, aligning federal law with the Trump administration’s broader campaign to dismantle diversity, equity, and inclusion mandates, equity-based enforcement, and race-neutral theories of discrimination.
“This guidance equips agencies with practical tools to implement this transformative policy while upholding their core missions,” Bondi said.