Language Fluency

April 13, 2006

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As with all skills and abilities, language fluency must be related to the performance of the job in order to be a legitimate job requirement. Note that this doesn't mean that it is just desirable to have proficiency in the language; it must be an important part of doing the job.

A policy of refusing to hire applicants with "poor grammar" as computer programmers was determined by one court to be unlawful bias since the employer was unable to show a business reason for requiring programmers to have good grammar skills.

However, in another situation, a hotel room attendant's nonpromotion to a front office cashier position was justifiable since a greater English proficiency was necessary for successful job performance in the front office.

If you have 15 or more employees and you require language fluency, you must be able to prove that it is an important and necessary part of the job because federal law requires that you not discriminate against any protected groups, including groups whose ethnicity, national origin, or race may be the reason they have limited English language skills.

So, do you think that you can distinguish between a discriminatory language requirement and a business-related (and therefore nondiscriminatory) language requirement? Try out a little quiz to see if you're on track!

Test Yourself

An employer requires all its welders to pass a written examination as a condition of employment. The test is in English. Is the test discriminatory? Click on your answer to see if you are correct!

Yes