English-Only Policies: Preventing ‘Tower of Babel’ or Aiding Racism? : Civil rights: As more immigrants enter the work force, employers say they need controls on what language is spoken. Opponents call the rules discriminatory, and challenges to them are growing.

Nurse’s aide Jordania Reed didn’t take it seriously when her nursing home imposed an English-only policy last summer.

After all, most of the aides at Driftwood Convalescent Hospital in Gilroy, Calif., spoke Spanish as their native tongue, and Reed’s bilingual skills had helped her land the job.

It was common sense, Reed thought, to address English-speaking patients in English. But the English-only rule also covered employees’ private conversations in hallways, common areas--wherever patients might overhear.

Reed recalls thinking: “This is a stupid policy. They couldn’t fire me for speaking Spanish.”

Oh, yes, they could. Reed got the ax Jan. 3, three days after being heard, for the second time, speaking Spanish to co-workers.

With a few carelessly spoken words, Reed found herself in the thick of a linguistic battle brewing in factories and offices nationwide.

As immigrants bring a growing variety of languages to the American work force, many employers say they need English-only policies to prevent the workplace from becoming a Tower of Babel in which safety, productivity and worker harmony are threatened.

But civil rights groups say such policies are discriminatory, reflecting the racist fears of an Anglo-dominated society grappling with an influx of Latino and Asian immigrants.

No firm statistics exist, but civil libertarians say the number of language-rights complaints they receive has grown since the mid-1980s. It’s a legacy, they say, of the “official English” movement, in which more than a dozen states have made English the official language of government.

Although the laws are largely symbolic, “they give people reassurance in their view that English is the only way to go,” said Edward Chen, attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union in San Francisco,

Chen does not argue that immigrants shouldn’t learn English. The challenge, he said, is encouraging immigrants to learn English without trampling their rights to express their cultural heritage.

That’s largely uncharted territory. Guidelines published in 1980 by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission say English-only rules cannot be imposed except in cases of “business necessity.” But those guidelines are not legally binding, and a mixed bag of court decisions has done little to clarify what constitutes “necessity.”

Employers and workers are left to muddle through, case by case:

* A Puerto Rican warehouse worker in New York City was fired after his supervisor overheard him talking in Spanish about a pizza he had ordered for lunch. The worker ultimately won: His complaint to the EEOC forced the company to abandon its English-only policy.

* In California, a federal judge sided with an English-language radio station that told its disc jockey to stop his occasional use of Spanish on the air. The judge’s rationale: Words were the company’s product, and it had a right to control those words.

Two California cases with conflicting decisions are now on appeal before the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

One involves Aida Dimaranan, a Filipino nurse who challenged an English-only rule at the Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center. The judge did not find the hospital’s policy discriminatory, but he did say supervisors retaliated against the nurse after her initial complaint.

In the other case, a federal judge sided with Priscilla Garcia, who challenged the English-only policy of Spun Steak Co., a meatpacking plant in South San Francisco where Garcia had worked on the assembly line for 18 years.

Garcia recalls her boss telling a co-worker: “If you want to speak Spanish, you should go back to your own country.”

The company claims it was trying to prevent discrimination, not encourage it. Spun Steak attorney James Carter said Garcia and her co-worker had been making fun of a black employee in Spanish.

“He knew he was being ridiculed, but he didn’t know what they were saying,” Carter said.

Other companies cite safety or productivity reasons for imposing English-only rules.

“We work very closely in a team environment,” said Elizabeth Peo, personnel director at Puritan-Bennett Corp. a maker of hospital respirators that imposed an English-only rule at its plant in Carlsbad, Calif.

“Communication with your fellow employees is very important, and to have multiple languages makes it difficult at best,” Peo said. “We need to do everything we can to ensure the integrity of our product. If we don’t do our job, a person could die.”

In Jordania Reed’s case, nursing home director Michael Dunn said he was simply following federal health regulations that say patients should be cared for in their own language.

He said some of his elderly residents have complained of being surrounded by foreign-speaking staff; a few senile residents have even asked, “What country am I in?”

In weighing the rights of workers against those of his residents, “I always err on the side of the residents,” Dunn said.

Chen’s reply: “You can’t cater to people’s prejudices and stereotypes. That goes back to the ‘60s, when businessmen said they couldn’t hire blacks because customers would be uncomfortable.”

English-only rules in the workplace have the support of English First, a Virginia-based group that is a key player in the “official English” movement.

Employers should be able to impose language rules just as they impose dress codes, said George Tryfiates, the group’s executive director.

“Individuals are not entirely free in the workplace to express themselves in every imaginable way possible,” he said. “In some cases we agree to abide by certain rules.”

Reed doesn’t buy that argument. While a suit and tie can be taken off at will, language goes much deeper, she said.

“I don’t think anybody should tell anybody when or where they can speak their language,” said Reed, 27. “Spanish is the language I was born with. It makes me feel close to my heritage.”

A few English-only disputes have had happy endings. In July, Puritan-Bennett settled out of court with the ACLU, agreeing to limit its English-only policy to specific circumstances.

Workers no longer have to speak English except during group meetings, while working in teams where English is the only common language, or when asked by a supervisor to conduct a specific, work-related conversation in English.

Reed’s case probably won’t be resolved so easily. Her complaint is now before the EEOC; she’s ready to pursue it to the Supreme Court if necessary.

“I want to show management that they’re wrong,” Reed said. “I’d like to show them, and the people I used to work with, that you have to speak up for yourself. In whatever language, you should speak up for yourself.”