School in Spring Branch district
Photo: Spring Branch ISD photo (New Orleans) -- The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has thrown out a Houston man's lawsuit that claimed he was discriminated against for speaking only English.
Joseph Chhim was a 63-year-old male of Cambodian descent when he applied for a janitor's job at the Spring Branch Independent School District on Houston's westside. The posting for the job mentioned that speaking Spanish was, "highly desirable."
Chhim doesn't speak Spanish and when the district passed him over for the job, he filed a lawsuit saying that he was discriminated against because of his national origin. He also claimed he was illegally discriminated against because of his age and race.
A Hispanic female who speaks English and Spanish was hired for the custodial gig.
In his lawsuit, Chhim wrote, “Because of the plaintiff’s race and his
national origin the defendant has failed to employ the plaintiff or to hire the
plaintiff because he has no ability to speak, write, read, and to translate fluently
in Spanish languages which are the custodial supervisor’s qualifications . . . .”
In other words, Chhim claimed he shouldn't have to speak Spanish because only a supervisor should have to worry about that. A janitor's job shouldn't require it.
A district court in Houston tossed the lawsuit out, and now Fifth Circuit judges have put the final nail in the coffin on Chhim's lawsuit, writing, "a preference, or
even requirement, that employees have bilingual ability does not give rise to a
discrimination claim based on national origin or race.”
The appeals court ruled that, "Non-bilingual individuals are not a protected class" under US civil rights laws. Judges wrote, "Spring Branch’s preference for bilingual employees did not discriminate
on the basis of race or national origin."
The court pointed out that other people have tried to file similar suits that use this "covert basis" to turn a request for bilingual employees into the same thing as discriminating for national origin or race. Judges say they've struck the notion down in the past, too.
Finally, Chhim had asked for loads of records from the Spring Branch School District that he claimed would prove a district-wide pattern of discriminating. He urged the lower court judge to allow him to pull other custodial records to prove that the bilingual speaking issue was "only a preference as Spring Branch argues or was actually a requirement."
He figured the records would prove he's right by showing that other people were passed over for jobs because they don't speak Spanish.
The district argued that none of those records would prove a legal case for discrimination, and Fifth Circuit judges agreed. The ruling says his being denied those records was proper.
On Chhim's claim of age discrimination as well, judges wrote that he didn't show any evidence or state his claim properly.
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