Posted by: Jennifer Milligan
March 08, 2006

As an employer, can you have an “English-only” policy?  Under limited circumstances you can.   A federal district court in New York granted partial summary judgment in favor of an employer on the narrow issue of whether the employer’s policy requiring sales personnel to speak “English-only” in certain limited circumstances constituted an unlawful English-only rule in violation of Title VII.  EEOC v. Sephora USA, LLC, 2005 WL 2234024.  The employer’s policy required sales personnel to speak English only on the sales floor whenever customers were present or in times of business need (i.e. when safety concerns were at issue).  The Court concluded that the limited circumstances in which the employer used its English-only policy were consistent with the suggestions provided by the EEOC in its Compliance Manual. 

The EEOC’s Compliance Manual provides that an English-only rule would be justified in situations where:  (1) there are “communications with customers, coworkers, or supervisors who only speak English”; and (2) where “workers must speak a common language to promote safety”.  These were the same circumstances provided in the employer’s policy in the Sephora case.  If you have an English-only policy in place, or plan on implementing one, you need to make sure your policy satisfies the justifications set forth by the EEOC. 

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