Trump's proposed executive order for "English official" would eliminate the requirement to assist people using other languages.
I'm not a lawyer, but it seems to me that refusing to serve someone who can't understand English would violate equal protection.
Is this legal? Or is my suspicion correct?
Is this legal?
I don't think that there is an accurate answer to this question at this level of generality.
Trump's English language only Executive Order is almost surely invalid, at least in part, for a variety of reasons specific to the contexts in which they come up.
Sometimes, this may be because refusing to communicate to someone in a language that they can understand denies them a fundamental constitutional right beyond a mere right to "equal protection of the laws" under Section 1 the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
In other cases, this may be because the President (or even the federal government, more generally) lacks the authority to do so, or because a duly enacted statute, treaty, or regulation that is still in force, has not be changed with the required legal process.
The Status Quo
There are some circumstances where the U.S. already is "English only", even though it isn't the "official language" of the United States.
For example, to become a naturalized citizen in the U.S., one must pass an English language proficiency exam.
Similarly, essentially all legislative bodies in the U.S., apart from Puerto Rico and a few tribal governments, conduct their legislative business in the English language, and jurors in U.S. court proceedings (outside Puerto Rico) are often required to understand the English language. Real property records in the U.S. have to be in English, or accompanied by a certified English translation, to validly affect title to real estate.
In all but a handful of circumstances, traffic signs are only in English. Air traffic control is also conducted exclusively in English, despite dealing with pilots from all over the world.
On the other hand, communicating to ordinary people in everyday life in relation to their personal, often fundamental legal rights and obligations must be in a language that the affected person can understand.
For example, there is a right (probably due to provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1964) to have election materials provided to you in a language you can understand. Defendants in criminal cases who don't speak English are entitled to have interpreters in court proceedings in their cases.
Product warnings need to be in multiple languages when it is reasonably foreseeable that someone who needs to be warned won't understand an English language warning. Health care providers aren't per se required to communicate in multiple languages, but they are required to obtain "informed consent" to medical procedures and treatments, and as a practical matter, this means that there has to be some communication with patients in a language that the patient is able to understand, either through translation of materials, or an interpreter.
Other government services are mixed.
For example, public schools in the U.S. have English as a primary language of instruction, even though additional language instruction is offered on a transitional basis, basically out of necessity, in controversial bilingual education programs. Unlike French Canadians who have a right to publicly funded education with French as a primary language of instruction in French speaking areas, Americans generally do not have a right to received publicly funded education in a primarily language of instruction other than English.
Many governments, in places with significant percentages of people who are not fluent English speakers, provide bilingual or multilingual information to their residents and citizens in a variety of contexts, like instructions on how to use publicly provided compost and recycling bins, even if they don't have to, because this improves compliance with the instruction by people who aren't fluent English speakers.
Likewise, there are many U.S. states where English is the official language in the state constitution, and other languages must be used only when a federal constitutional or federal law right, or a conflicting state law requirement, provides otherwise.
So, there are lots of contexts where a government can do business with people only in English, although this isn't absolute, even in states where English is constitutionally the sole official language.
Analysis
There isn't one answer that applies across the board
This review of the status quo is a long way of saying that there may be some contexts where there is a constitutional right to receive communications in a language that you understand (due process rights in some, voting rights in others, etc.), and other contexts, where there is no such right.
Equal Protection rights are limited
The Equal Protection clause of Section 1 of the 14th Amendment probably plays a quite minor role in this analysis, compared to other constitutional rights.
Alleged equal protection violations receive strict scrutiny from the courts in circumstances where they concern a fundamental right or a suspect classification. They receive "intermediate scrutiny" in a smaller subset of circumstances, mostly involving discrimination on the basis of sex, that are unlikely to apply.
But, when fundamental rights, or a classification that is not subject to strict or intermediate scrutiny are presented, legislation survives an equal protection challenge if there is a "rational basis" for the distinction made, and the administrative convenience and reduced cost involved in doing government business only in a single language, or in allowing private businesses to only communicate in a single language, probably overcomes rational basis review.
The President's authority to do so by Executive Order is doubtful
There is also the question of when an Executive Order of this kind is one that the President actually has the authority to make.
If the Voting Rights Act of 1964 requires multilingual communications in election materials, this statutory mandate can't be overridden by an Executive Order.
In general, the federal government, in general, and the President acting through an Executive Order (which hasn't even passed the Administrative Procedures Act regulation adopting process), can't tell state and local governments how they should conduct their business, or forbid them from doing business in a language other than English.
Maybe Congress has the power to enact an official language for the U.S. federal government, although this power isn't expressly stated in Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution enumerating the powers of Congress, despite the fact that people not fluent in English have been residents and citizens of the United States since before the U.S. Constitution was adopted in 1789, but maybe it doesn't.
Indeed, even if Congress does have the power to make English the official language of the United States, this might be a major decision of the type that the non-delegation doctrine prohibits Congress from delegating to the Executive Branch.
There is certainly no generalized statute authorizing the President to decide unilaterally that English is the exclusive official language of the United States across the board. And, there are some statutes (like the Voting Rights Act of 1964) which require multi-lingual communications in certain federal government contexts.
There are also additional regulations duly enacted under the Administrative Procedures Act which require communications of the federal government or in connection with federal government programs to be in more than one language, which can't simply be taken off the books with an Executive Order that doesn't follow the process for changing an existing regulation under the Administrative Procedures Act.
refusing to serve someone who can't understand English would violate equal protection.
The Executive Order doesn't require any agency to "refuse to serve" anyone.
In fact, it doesn't require any agencies to change how they operate at all. It explicitly says:
nothing in this order, however, requires or directs any change in the services provided by any agency. Agency heads should make decisions as they deem necessary to fulfill their respective agencies’ mission and efficiently provide Government services to the American people. Agency heads are not required to amend, remove, or otherwise stop production of documents, products, or other services prepared or offered in languages other than English.
Finally, it contains the following clause (which I've noticed in every EO that Trump has issued -- this may be standard boilerplate):
(b) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.
So if any policy change were inconsistent with Equal Protection or other laws, it's not authorized by the EO.
This EO merely revokes Bill Clinton's EO 13166, Improving Access to Services for Persons With Limited English Proficiency. The goal of this was (in brief):
each Federal agency shall examine the services it provides and develop and implement a system by which LEP persons can meaningfully access those services consistent with, and without unduly burdening, the fundamental mission of the agency.
