Feds win ‘landmark’ English-only case

September 6, 2000

In what the agency has deemed a “landmark” decision, the

Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission has won a court case against a private employer who banned employees from speaking any language other than English while at work.

According to

an EEOC statement, U.S. District Judge Judge Milton Shadur ordered Watlow Batavia, Inc., a subsidiary of Watlow Electric Manufacturing Co. of St. Louis, to pay $192,500 to eight Hispanic former employees in the Assembly Department of a plant in suburban Chicago. The plant manufactures aluminum radiators and other components, the agency said.

According to the federal employment agency, Watlow Batavia was found in violation of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin.

Watlow company officials said they settled with EEOC to avoid further costly litigation. The company, however, has maintained they did nothing improper in imposing the English-only rules.

According to Watlow attorney Ed Jepson, the company imposed the rule because fully one-third of its Chicago assembly plant workforce was Hispanic, “and that the English-only rule had been adopted to improve communication on the assembly line,” Jepson said. It never applied to any worker who was away from the line, he added.

“The company was having trouble with productivity and quality control because people weren’t talking to each other,” said Jepson. “This is a company that values diversity and encourages diversity.”

“The Commission will continue to defend employees’ civil rights when rules are implemented that arbitrarily penalize a single group based on their national origin,” said EEOC Chairwoman Ida L. Castro. “It is imperative for employers to be aware that blanket English-only policies, those requiring workers to speak English at all times with no exceptions, may be unlawful if they are not clearly justified by business necessity.”

The decision comes just three weeks after President Clinton

signed
Executive Order 13166 mandating that federal programs must become multilingual or risk being prosecuted for violations of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Jim Boulet, Jr., executive director of

English First, an activist group tracking the implications and applications of the new decree, claims that Executive Order 13166 has now made “language” a protected civil right under Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Thus, he says, it may be construed retroactively to justify efforts of governmental agencies — like the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission — to make language a protected civil right under Title VII of that same law.

Clinton’s order formally declared that Title VI of the Civil Rights Act “creates a right to government services in the language of one’s choice,” Boulet said.

Indeed, the order was interpreted by Deputy Attorney General Bill Lann Lee, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, to mean that “a federal aid recipient’s failure to assure that people who are not proficient in English can effectively participate in and benefit from programs and activities may constitute national origin discrimination prohibited by Title VI.”

Executive orders traditionally are aimed at executive branch operations, Boulet noted, and are not supposed to be applied to areas of public law traditionally reserved to Congress and the courts.

“The truly frightening part of this radical redefinition of national origin discrimination to include language choice is that it may well apply to every other law which uses the term ‘national origin,’ especially Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act,” Boulet said.

According to the Center for Equal Opportunity, as of August 30, “national origin” appears 343 times in the U.S. Code and 922 times in the Code of Federal Regulations. In addition, many state and local anti-discrimination laws mimic federal terminology, said Boulet.

“Because Executive Order 13166 has now made ‘language’ a protected civil right under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, it has also retroactively justified efforts by the EEOC and other government agencies to make language a protected civil right under Title VII of that same law,” Boulet said.

Overall, the impact of Executive Order 13166 is “a loaded gun pointed at the head of every business owner, manager and executive in the United States,” Boulet noted. “The EEOC can be expected to start using its new weapon with enthusiasm.”

That is especially true, civil rights analysts say, if the Watlow case becomes the EEOC’s language-standard precedent.

According to the agency, besides paying monetary damages, Watlow will also have to provide “comprehensive training to its management personnel, post a notice at its plant detailing the outcome of the litigation, and maintain certain employment records for EEOC’s review,” said the agency’s statement.

Also, the court order “requires that the company not discriminate against its workforce based on national origin nor implement any English-only rules,” said EEOC.

“Cases involving language issues, accent discrimination, and restrictive language policies or practices are a strategic enforcement priority for the Commission,” said EEOC General Counsel C. Gregory Stewart. “The Commission will aggressively prosecute such cases in order to remedy employment discrimination and protect the public interest.”

English First researchers verified Stewart’s pledge by noting that the agency has “more than tripled the number of language/accent discrimination cases filed, from 77 in FY 1996 to 253 in FY 1999.”

Additionally, the civil rights office of the Department of Health and Human Services has also increased activity on the language discrimination front. Last year, for example, the department won a decision against Contra Costa County (Calif.) Department of Social Services which required that “all county services and programs [be] accessible to persons who are limited English proficient.”

Boulet noted the similarity of EEOC actions resulting from language rights to what happened after the Americans With Disabilities Act was passed in 1990.

“Most people thought the ADA would mean more wheelchair ramps,” Boulet said. But, “the EEOC interpreted the ADA to mean that a truck driver subject to epileptic seizures was discriminated against for being fired for safety reasons.

“The driver had another seizure while driving for a different firm and crashed,” he said.

The EEOC statement supported Boulet’s assertions that prosecutions for alleged language rights violations are on the rise.

“Since EEOC started separately tracking English-only charges in 1996, there has been an increasing trend in charge filings alleging national origin discrimination based on such policies,” said the agency’s statement.

Settled on Friday, the Watlow suit was originally filed in March 1999.

“This settlement should send a strong message to employers in Illinois and across the country about the illegality of English-only rules,” said John C. Hendrickson, Regional Attorney of EEOC’s Chicago District Office, which filed the lawsuit. “This is an important step in our fight against discrimination on the basis of national origin.

“We expect that companies will think long and hard about whether to implement rules that discriminate against those who speak languages other than English when those rules aren’t necessary to do the job,” he added.

The agency said its policy on English-only rules is set out in its Guidelines on Discrimination Because of National Origin, Part 29, Code of Federal Regulations, Section 1606.1.

“It is the Commission’s position that rules requiring employees to speak only English in the workplace have an adverse impact on individuals whose primary language is not English or who are limited in English proficiency,” said the EEOC statement. “Such English-only rules, when applied at all times, may violate Title VII on the basis of national origin.”

Boulet said that in the end, “all but one of the original eight workers named as being wronged in the suit have left the company.”