EEOC Says Requiring Employees To Speak English Is Against The Law

One of the scariest things that can happen to a recruiter is an EEOC lawsuit.  If you are unlucky enough to be caught in such a net, your best bet is to take the cash in your freezer and flee the country.

Well, not really, but you've been caught in one of the government's worst dragnets.  And you thought the IRS was bad.  The problem with EEOC lawsuits is they legally deal with your compliance with government mandates on hiring, but in reality, they are dealing with moral and ethical issues of whether or not you discriminate.

Now, in a perfect world, the EEOC would cover only real discrimination.  A manager refuses to hire a woman, or a black man, or a Sikh because he doesn't like that group. Pretty clear.  The manager gets fired, the candidate gets some compensation, and the company learns a lesson.  But that's not the way it goes.

The EEOC can file complaints against your company for unintentional discrimination.  Yep, involuntary discrimination occurs when practices you engage in lead to results that don't fit the government's view of the racial and gender make-up of your staff.  In practice, this leads to a massively complex series of hiring practices that catch up good recruiters and transform them into zombie paper-pushers, afraid to use their judgement because judgement is the legal equivalent of admitting your bias.

Try saying you were using your judgement in an EEOC lawsuit.   It's probably worth millions to the candidate for you to do so.

Of course, I can only write about this because I'm not recruiting for positions with a large firm, but it's worth it to take a look at what the EEOC can do to you, for something as simple as requiring that English be spoken for your job position.  An interview with Lamar Alexander on one of his recent amendments to the immigration bill speaks volumes.

What the EEOC has done is equated a speaking requirement that employees speak English with illegal discrimination based on national origin. That was never intended. And what it does in practical effect means that a shoe shop or a Senate office or a school or a department store or a Wal-Mart basically has to hire a lawyer to prove that speaking English is a bona fide occupational qualification reasonably necessary to that business. The burden of proof would be on every business in America to show they have some reason to expect their employees to speak our common language.

That's right, employers.  Having a requirement that your employees speak English can be considered a violation of the EEOC policies regarding discrimination based on national origin.

I have no advice on how to solve the problem, other than to say that if your goal is to increase the size of the government, you have to expect the government to look for ways to employ those people, and they usually will be employed in creating mischief. 

Comments

[BryanB]

Actually all the EEOC requires in cases of adverse impact (what you refer to as unintentional discrimination) is that the employer be able to show that the practice is job related and consistent with business necessity.

Employers make a lot of dumb rules, and some recruit and hire in very dumb ways ("What kinda name is AlJafar anyway? Sounds like a terrorist!"). As long as you document your recruiting/hiring process, and it relates to the requirements of the job, you don't have much to worry about.

p.s. unless you're a police or fire department, in which case all bets are off

[Yehuda Draiman]

English literacy requirement
as a component in the naturalization of aliens within the United States. Surprisingly, such a requirement has existed in statutory form for less than 100 years, having first been enacted in 1906.
Currently, federal law (8 U.S.C. Section 1423) provides that:
(a) No person except as otherwise provided in this subchapter shall hereafter be naturalized as a citizen of the United States upon his own application who cannot demonstrate — an understanding of the English language, including an ability to read, write, and speak words in ordinary usage in the English language: