Twenty years after the landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education, non-English-speaking students of Chinese ancestry were still fighting for equal educational opportunity in the United States. A new wave of Chinese immigration began in 1965. Concentrated in urban centers, this upsurge in immigration placed pressure on underfinanced and understaffed school boards to provide bilingual instruction to non-English-speaking Chinese students. In 1971, tensions arose in San Francisco after the landmark decision in Johnson v. San Francisco United School District. In this case, the federal district court approved the San Francisco United School District (SFUSD) school desegregation plans, which included reassigning pupils of Chinese ancestry. The overall objective of the desegregation plan was to achieve a unitary school system as mandated by Brown v. Board of Education. Mimicking Section 71 of the California Education Code, the court’s order contained the following provision: “Bi-lingual classes are not proscribed. They may be provided in any manner which does not create, maintain or foster segregation.” This meant that thousands of students of Chinese ancestry who were not fluent in English could be integrated into the school district. Six hundred San Francisco residents of Chinese ancestry attended the school board’s bimonthly meeting to voice their concerns. Many opposed the comprehensive desegregation plan on the ground that it reassigned students away from predominantly Chinese public schools. These schools provided Chinese-English bilingual programs; the desegregated public schools that they were to attend did not.