Speak Only Policy Summary

This week’s topic is pretty interesting. I never thought that an organization that requires employees to only speak English would be discriminatory. According to Gevertz and Dowell (2014) English speaking policies are and will continue to be controversial. An organization can make these polices as long as it is in good faith with environment of the organization and not meant to discriminate against a national origin characteristic.
In a military setting the Equal Opportunity talks about the commander can issue an order to speak only English when it is a Non-Discriminatory reason such as giving orders so that everyone understands. When I was in Afghanistan the interpreters were not allowed to speak their language while in the main command post. I can see reasons why there are these polices to insure safety and uniformity within certain environments. We have polices that govern how we do business and this topic does not seem too different in non-military organizations. Policies are what need to show why it is needed is.
In a nonmilitary organization the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 once again is the go to but Gevertz and Dowell (2014) state that it does not strictly prohibit the speak only policy but the Equal Employment Opportunity
An organization manager tells employees that they cannot speak Spanish during their shift. There was no policy that said they could not speak Spanish and some have been doing so for over 10 years. The employees felt “under threat and scrutiny”, “harassed” and “humiliated”. One employee was written up for speaking Spanish. There was a shift in leadership but this appears that the manager had something against the employees but the organization claims that they never said they had a policy to only speak English and that they are proud of the diverse workplace. The end state is the employer has to pay for the lack of training of their manager on EEOC