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SACRAMENTO, California, United States—Businesses cannot deny service to a patron due to the language he or she speaks, the Assembly Judiciary Committee decided as it passed the bill adding “language” to the list of protections in the state’s civil rights, which prohibits discrimination within business establishments.
While speaking one’s native language is protected in cases of employment and housing under state law, such protections are not currently extended to consumers.
The Unruh Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination within business establishments, generally to protect patrons from not receiving service. Senate Bill 242, authored by Senator Leland Yee (Democrat-San Francisco/San Mateo), would add the use of any language to the list of the Act’s protections, which currently includes sex, race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, disability, medical condition, marital status, and sexual orientation.
“No one should be discriminated against simply for speaking their language,” said Yee.
“All patrons, English speaking and non-English speaking, deserve to be served. SB 242 will rightfully add language to the list of protected classes within California’s civil rights act.”
The issue stems from a proposed policy announced last summer by the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) to suspend players who do not speak English. Despite there being no relevance to the sport, the policy was important for players to be able to interact with American media and event sponsors, the LPGA claimed.
Ironically, many of the sponsors are international companies and a number of the tournaments are not held in the United States. No other professional sports league in the United States has such a mandate.
The LPGA later rescinded the proposal after objections from Yee and over 50 civil rights organizations.
Under SB 242, it would be a violation of state law for an entity to adopt or enforce a policy that requires, limits, or prohibits the use of any language in a business establishment, unless the language restriction is justified by a business necessity and notification has been provided of the circumstances at the time when the language restriction is required and of the consequences.
A business necessity would be defined as “an overriding legitimate business purpose for which all of the following are true: the language restriction is necessary to the safe and efficient operation of the business; the language restriction effectively fulfills the business purpose it is supposed to serve; and an alternative practice to the language restriction that would accomplish the business purpose equally well with a lesser discriminatory impact does not exist.”
SB 242 will now be considered by the entire Assembly.
