Phanna Xieng is a Cambodian-American who worked for Peoples
National Bank of Washington. Mr. Xieng was repeatedly denied a
promotion although he had an excellent work history, high marks in his
reviews, and had been filling in on the very position he applied for over an
extended period of time. There were documented comments from his
superiors concerning his accent as the primary stumbling block to his
promotion. In this case, the court could not overlook the fact that Mr.
Xieng could carry out the job he claimed he could do, in spite of his
accent, precisely because he had already been performing well at the job.
It might seem that being on the inside – already employed by the
Defendant – provides an employee with a valid language-focused
discrimination complaint with some strong evidence, but there are many
similar cases in which promotion is denied.
Is it the case, then, that the Plaintiff’s chances of winning a language-
focused discrimination case depend to the greatest degree on the integrity
and objectivity of the judge hearing the trial? Unfortunately, it is not as
easy as this. Below it will become clear that for some areas of
employment, even the most open-minded of courts still are subject to the
unwritten laws of a standard language ideology.
Context
In civil rights violations of the kind discussed here, courts are disposed to
favor the employer, which makes it very difficult for the Plaintiff to build
a successful case. These cases fail for all kinds of reasons in a variety of
combinations, five of which we have seen here:
1. Kahakua: Court declared Kahakua’s accent a handicap that he
could overcome if he wanted to, and found he had not been
discriminated against.
2. Fragante: Court refused to recognize the connection between
foreign accent and national origin discrimination.
3. Dercach: Blatant language-focused national origin
discrimination established, but the presence of a valid reason