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One month after you hired Anna, a bilingual woman of Cuban descent, to fill an administrative assistant position, your company adopted an English-only policy. The policy provides that no Spanish will be spoken in the main office unless a customer does not speak or understand English. Anyone heard speaking Spanish in the office is subject to discharge. The policy does not restrict employees from speaking Spanish outside of the main office during breaks. All employees working for your company speak English and some, but not all, speak Spanish. Anna refused to sign the memorandum indicating that she understood the policy. After being discharged for tardiness and absenteeism, she files suit, alleging that the policy discriminated against her in violation of Title VII. She does not claim that she was discharged for refusing to adhere to the policy; instead she argues that the policy discriminated against her based on her national origin because it restricted her ability to speak in her native language. Will she be successful?
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Answer: |
No. In a case with similar facts, a federal trial court in New York ruled that an employee failed to show that the employer’s English-only policy discriminated against her based on her national origin. The court, citing the EEOC’s Guidance on National Origin Discrimination noted, “an employer may have a rule requiring that employees speak only in English at certain times where the employer can show that the rule is justified by business necessity.” In reaching its conclusion, the court assumed that the employee established that the company’s policy restricted bilingual employees from speaking Spanish at certain times. It was then up to the employer to show that the policy was justified by business necessity.
Business necessity. The court concluded that the employer had a business necessity for maintaining the policy because it was “vital” to the business. The company operated a dispatch center, which handled calls from customers and provided communication to drivers relaying pickup information. The English-only policy was necessary to avoid instances of miscommunication, particularly between taxi dispatchers and drivers. Requiring employees to converse in English in the main office, except when the needs of customers dictated otherwise, served an essential business purpose by making sure communications were not misunderstood. This was not a case, the court noted, in which an English-only policy was applied to employees who spoke no English or whose ability to speak English was limited.
Moreover, while the employee objected to the policy, “she failed to suggest that any alternative policy and practice would satisfy the business necessity of avoiding miscommunications,” explained the court. The employee sought “the right to speak Spanish as a matter of preference,” the court stated, but she never alleged any inability to speak English, and, therefore, was not unduly burdened by the limited policy.
Source: Gonzalo v. All Island Transp (EDNY 2007) 89 EPD ¶42,736.
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