Supreme Court To Rule On Workplace English Policy

WASHINGTON, DC - Beauty Enterprises, Inc. (BEI) and U.S. English, the nation's largest non-profit organization dedicated to preserving the unifying and empowering role of the English language throughout America, filed complementary "Friend of the Court" briefs Monday in Alexander v. Sandoval. The case will decide whether the Alabama Department of Public Safety, based on its receipt of federal highway funds from the U.S. Department of Transportation, needs toprovide Martha Sandoval of Mobile, Alabama, and other non-English speaking citizens of Alabama their drivers' license exams in languages other than English. In 1990, Alabama overwhelmingly voted to enact a state constitutional amendment that required Alabama state officials "to take all steps necessary to insure that the role of English as the common language of the state of Alabama is preserved and enhanced." The BEI and the U.S. English briefs, both of which are in support of Alabama, suggest that the question presented to the Supreme Court may well entail consideration of English language workplace policies and practices such as the one BEI adopted more than 20 years ago.

"Our speak English in the workplace rule was put in place to solve serious safety and morale problems at BEI," said Robert Cohen, BEI president. "Before adopting a speak English in the workplace rule there was a great amount of tension among employees and even, on several occasions, incidents of physical violence, as well as safety concerns because employees could not understand one another. After the rule was adopted tensions were greatly reduced, safety incidents decreased and overall efficiency went up significantly."

For over twenty years the rule has been in place without incident. Recently, however, at the urging of a local politician and a disgruntled former employee, the EEOC and fifteen individuals, of which five are current full-time BEI employees who collectively have over ninety-five years of continuous employment with BEI, and ten are individuals placed at BEI, but employed by temporary staffing services agencies, threatened to file a lawsuit seeking punitive damages charging that BEI's enforcement of the speak English in the workplace rule caused disparate impact national origin discrimination.

Mauro E. Mujica, Chairman and CEO of U.S. English stated, "With last week's overwhelming victory in Utah, over half of the United States now have official English constitutional or statutory provisions; most, if not all, federal and state agencies customarily communicate only in English; and private employers such as BEI impose Official English Rules in their workplaces. The only way for an immigrant to profit from everything America has to offer is to learn our common language. The sooner the assimilation, the faster immigrants can empower themselves to function as members of our society. How do I know this? I am also an immigrant. My 'mother tongue' is Spanish. I now speak, think, and live American English."

Precedent has been set on the Official English issue by two previous Federal Court cases, Garcia v. Spun Steak Co. (9th Circuit, 1993) and Long v. First Union Corp of America (4th Circuit, 1996). In both cases the courts rejected an EEOC 'Speak-English' guideline that presumes such workplace rules are illegal in the absence of business necessity.

U.S. English, Inc. is the nation's oldest and largest non-partisan citizens' action group dedicated to preserving the unifying role of the English language in the United States. Founded in 1983 by the late Sen. S.I. Hayakawa of California, U.S. English, Inc. (www.usenglish.org) now has more than 1.8 million members.