Ruling on Foreign Language Ban Criticized

Civil rights activists on Friday said a federal judge’s decision upholding a Pomona hospital’s “no-Tagalog” policy sets a dangerous precedent for employees who want to speak their native languages while on the job.

Representatives of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Asian Pacific American Legal Center said Judge Edward Rafeedie’s Oct. 21 ruling may encourage employers to adopt similar language bans and other rules targeting ethnic groups.

“It’s a difficult concept for me to understand why selecting (a specific language to ban) would somehow protect an employer” from a discrimination lawsuit, ACLU attorney Robin Toma said at a news conference. He said he may appeal the decision.

Rafeedie’s ruling addressed a policy prohibiting the use of Tagalog--the Filipino language--in the mother/baby ward of the Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center. A Filipina nurse, Adelaida (Aida) Dimaranan, sued the hospital in July, 1989, contending that the policy was a de facto “English-only” rule that violated her civil rights because it prevented her from speaking her native language even while on a break.

Dimaranan, who was assistant head of the mother/baby ward, also said she was unfairly demoted after she complained about the no-Tagalog rule.

A nursing supervisor, Connie Tanquary, imposed the language policy in April, 1988, after complaints from some non-Filipino nurses that Dimaranan’s use of the language was “rude and disruptive” and caused dissension among employees. The policy was repealed after Dimaranan’s demotion.

In his decision, Rafeedie said the policy was not racially discriminatory because it was “little more than management’s response to the increasing tension that was dividing the staff nurses. The non-Filipina nurses believe that plaintiff showed favoritism . . . toward other Filipina nurses.

“However misguided and ineffective the hospital’s language restriction may have been, there is simply no basis for concluding that it was motivated by ethnic animosity,” Rafeedie said.

But he also ruled that the hospital unfairly retaliated against Dimaranan by demoting her for refusing to obey the language ban. He ordered her transferred, with back pay, to a position comparable to that of other former assistant head nurses in the mother/baby ward. The judge ordered the hospital to eliminate all negative employee evaluations given to Dimaranan, and said the hospital may be ordered to pay Dimaranan’s attorney’s fees.

The hospital’s attorney, Carlo Coppo, said Friday that he plans to appeal the portion of the decision regarding back pay and legal fees. But he said the thrust of the ruling vindicates the hospital and sends out a message that the use of foreign languages must not interfere with job performance.

Other court cases involving language rights have been unclear on the extent to which an employer can restrict language use in the workplace. In 1988, hospital employees at UC San Francisco Medical Center filed an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint over an English-only policy, but the matter was settled after the hospital agreed to repeal the rule.

Likewise, the Salvation Army deleted English-only statutes in 1987 in its employee handbook before a Latina employee sued over the matter. The suit was dismissed.