Language minority students are legally entitled to a baseline opportunity for an adequate, affirmative, appropriate, and effective education, allowing them an "equally fair shot" at a high school diploma. Certain absolute legal standards for this baseline educational entitlement are posited to exist; this claim is supported by complementary analyses of (1) the right to equal educational opportunity under the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964; and (2) protected interests under the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. A synthesis of these two legal analyses reveals that equal educational opportunity presupposes some entitlement to minimum quantity and quality of education. In practice, this means that planning, diagnostic, and program requirements must work to allow second language minority students to participate effectively in the regular instructional program. It is observed that the establishment of such a baseline standard of educational adequacy provides an objective basis for educational malpractice litigation, since states and school districts must demonstrate that they have adequately, affirmatively, appropriately, and effectively instructed the student in all the skills, concepts, and courses required for high school graduation. (TE)