In 1972 a group of Mexican American families led by Judy Serna, a student at Lindsey Elementary School, filed suit against New Mexico’s Portales Municipal Schools for discriminatory hiring practices and the denial of equal educational opportunities. Although a majority of the students in the school district were of Mexican American descent, ESL (English as a second language) students were denied bilingual education, which Serna argued was a violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Fourteenth Amendment. Serna provided evidence that Mexican American students significantly lagged behind their peers academically due to a lack of equal educational opportunity.