May 3, 2007

The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has over the years been broadly hostile to employer policies requiring that employees speak English on the job, viewing such policies as improperly tending to screen out workers of protected national origin. Federal courts haven't always agreed with the agency's views on the question, however; in a 2003 case the Salvation Army, the venerable religious institution, was upheld in its right to fire a worker who'd refused to speak English when asked to do so by her boss. Now the EEOC has taken the Salvation Army back to court again, in a case where two clothes sorters at an Army facility in Framingham, Mass., outside Boston, lost their jobs after supervisors decided to start enforcing an existing speak-English policy. Bloggers (e.g. Never Yet Melted) have been noticing the story as a flashpoint in the assimilation/immigration wars, and Pittsburgh Tribune-Review has coverage. For more on legal attacks on "English-only" policies, see Overlawyered posts here and here. (& welcome Michelle Malkin readers).