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You Don’t (Always) Have A Right To Speak Spanish – OpEd </h1>
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<span class="gmail-posted-on"><a href="https://www.eurasiareview.com/11052018-you-dont-always-have-a-right-to-speak-spanish-oped/" title="3:56 am" rel="bookmark"><i class="gmail-fa gmail-fa-calendar-o"></i> <time class="entry-date gmail-published" datetime="2018-05-11T03:56:08+00:00">May 11, 2018</time></a></span>
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</div> <p>By <a href="https://www.eurasiareview.com/author/mises/" title="Posts by MISES" class="gmail-author gmail-url gmail-fn" rel="author">MISES</a> </p>
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<div class="gmail-at-above-post gmail-addthis_tool"></div><p>By Ryan McMaken*</p>
<p>The Associated Press reported last week that the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is <a href="https://nypost.com/2018/05/03/store-faces-suit-for-not-allowing-workers-to-speak-spanish/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">suing the Albertsons grocery store chain</a> in federal court over limits placed on employees as to when they may speak Spanish on the job.</p>
<p>The specifics of the case are less clear-cut than the headlines
suggests. The lawsuit alleges that the company adopted a stance in which
management “suggested … it’s best if workers refrain from speaking
Spanish in front of workers who do not speak the language.”</p>
<p>The EEOC alleges, however, that this admittedly flexible policy was
enforced too aggressively and applied only to employees of Hispanic
origin.</p>
<p>In other words, the real problem, according to the EEOC, is that a
hostile work environment was created for a certain subset of Spanish
speakers. It’s not really a case of a blanket prohibition on Spanish.</p>
<p>But, for the sake of argument, let’s say that Albertsons <em>did</em> impose a blanket “no Spanish” policy on employees.</p><div class="gmail-JRQ7TDdC"><div style="display:block;float:left;margin:5px 20px 5px 5px">
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<p>That assumption, after all, seems to already be driving numerous articles in the media. Tucker Carlson, <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/should-english-be-official-language-united-states-tucker-carlson-says-core-911959" target="_blank" rel="noopener">for example</a>,
has used the Albertsons suit as an occasion to advocate for a mandated
national official language in the United States. Apparently unaware that
Switzerland exists (with its four official languages), Carlson
maintains that any country without a single official language will be
torn asunder by civil strife. (Carlson also ignores the fact that the US
has a long <a href="https://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/back-when-america-was-multi-lingual/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">history of linguistic diversity</a>, and ten percent of the US population in 1920 <a href="https://mises.org/wire/us-not-one-nation-%E2%80%94-and-it-never-was">reported a “mother tongue” other than English</a>.)</p>
<p>At the other end of the spectrum is Raul Reyes’s <a href="http://thehill.com/opinion/civil-rights/386786-whats-wrong-with-speaking-spanish-at-work-nada" target="_blank" rel="noopener">article in <em>The Hill</em></a> which
is mostly just a pro-immigration article, but which states: “Speaking
whatever language we choose is one of the hallmarks of our democratic,
free society…Our country gives people the freedom and right to speak
whatever language they choose.”</p>
<p>But do people really have a “right” to choose the language they use?</p>
<p>Well, as Murray Rothbard points out, that<em> depends on the situation</em>.
Specifically, it depends on whether the person in question is on his
own property or not, and whether or not he acts with the approval of the
owner. In <em>Man Economy and State</em>, Rothbard explained how “freedom of speech” cannot be separated from property rights:</p>
<blockquote><p>Freedom of speech is supposed to mean the right of
everyone to say whatever he likes. But the neglected question is: Where?
Where does a man have this right? He certainly does not have it on
property on which he is trespassing. In short, he has this right only
either on his own property or on the property of someone who has agreed,
as a gift or in a rental contract, to allow him on the premises. In
fact, then, there is no such thing as a separate “right to free speech”;
there is only a man’s property right: the right to do as he wills with
his own or to make voluntary agreements with other property owners.</p></blockquote>
<p>This is fairly easy to apply to the specific situation of speaking
Spanish (or any language). Obviously, in a Spanish-speaker’s own home,
or in his own business, he ought to free to say anything he wishes, and <em>in any language</em> he wishes.</p>
<p>Rothbard<a href="https://mises.org/library/human-rights-property-rights"> continues: </a></p>
<blockquote><p>In short, a person does not have a “right to freedom of speech”; what he <em>does</em> have
is the right to hire a hall and address the people who enter the
premises. He does not have a “right to freedom of the press”; what he <em>does </em>have
is the right to write or publish a pamphlet, and to sell that pamphlet
to those who are willing to buy it (or to give it away to those who are
willing to accept it). Thus, what he has in each of these cases is
property rights, including the right of free contract and transfer which
form a part of such rights of ownership. There is no extra “right of
free speech” or free press beyond the property rights that a person may
have in any given case.</p></blockquote>
<p>The same relationship between property and the rights like “the
freedom of speech” applies to the use of foreign languages as well. A
person has a right to produce a lecture, publication, or broadcast and
distribute it to anyone else who would like to read, hear or watch the
media in question.</p>
<p>If we apply this to the situation of employees speaking Spanish at an
Albertsons store, the solution is clear: an employee on duty has a
right to speak any language the employer agrees to. The same would be
true of customers as well, since an owner may also limit what customers
do on the premises.</p>
<p>In practice, of course, badgering either employees or customers about
what language they use is terrible for business and for employee
morale. In most situations, multi-lingual employees are an asset, not a
liability. And it’s not a great idea to turn away potential customers
who happen to prefer using other languages.</p>
<p>Predictably, the media has attempted to turn the controversy into a
battle of ideologies over immigration, religion, culture, and ethnic
origin. We’ve seen this sort of thing before.</p>
<p>In 2014, when Hobby Lobby sued in federal court over the right to
contract freely with employees on the matter of health insurance, many
leftwing activists<a href="https://mises.org/library/employer-provided-health-care-not-religious-issue"> labeled
the conflict as one between an alleged “right” to healthcare and the
reactionary forces of “theocracy” and religious dogma</a>. In truth, it
was simply a case of an employer wanting freedom over how to compensate
workers who freely consented to employment.</p>
<p>Similarly, in 2015 the <a href="https://mises.org/library/discrimination-isnt-about-religion-its-about-private-property">fight over whether or not shopkeepers can decide for whom they might want to bake a cake</a>, the defenders of private property were once again denounced as religious zealots.</p>
<p>In both cases, the real heart of the matter was simply one of
ordinary property rights in which consenting adults ought to be free to
enter into agreements — and in which no person can force another person
to use his own body or other property in a way he or she doesn’t want
to.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, the conflict is being framed as one in which workers
from a certain ethnic group are being targeted by bigots. The response
from some on the other side has been to attempt to devalue the use of
foreign languages altogether and to even frame them, as Carlson is
doing, as a threat to American domestic peace.</p>
<p>The Albertsons conflict, however, won’t be fixed by implementing
“official languages” or by threatening federal lawsuits at any employer
who requests only certain languages be spoken in the break room.</p>
<p>Indeed, there is no reason for any sort of government policy on the
matter whatsoever. In the real world, depending on location, ownership,
and the customer base, some employers will be quite open to the use of
foreign languages. And some will be less so. In those places where
consumers often use Spanish, for instance, employees who also speak
Spanish will be more valuable than mono-lingual employees. In all cases,
of course, owners and employers will have an incentive to accommodate
foreign-language-speaking consumers.</p>
<p>But in each case, it must be up to the property owners to determine the best way to do this.</p>
<p>Yes, there will always be some emotionally fragile oddballs who feel
“offended” or “threatened” by hearing a foreign language spoken within
earshot. And it’s unfortunate that such people revel in being poorly
educated and unable to comprehend foreign tongues.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, it must be up to shopkeepers, employers, entrepreneurs,
homeowners, landlords, and other private owners who determine what
sorts of speech are allowed on their premises — and what languages may
be spoken there.</p>
<p><strong>About the author:</strong><br>
<strong> *Ryan McMaken</strong> (<a href="https://twitter.com/ryanmcmaken" target="_blank" rel="noopener">@ryanmcmaken</a>) is the editor of <em>Mises Wire</em> and <em><a href="https://mises.org/search/site/the%20austrian/library/institute-publications-184/library/austrian-541">The Austrian</a></em>. Send him your article submissions, but read <a href="https://mises.org/blog/article-submission-guidelines-mises-daily">article guidelines</a>
first. Ryan has degrees in economics and political science from the
University of Colorado, and was the economist for the Colorado Division
of Housing from 2009 to 2014. He is the author of <a href="http://store.mises.org/Commie-Cowboys-The-Bourgeoisie-and-the-Nation-State-in-the-Western-Genre-Digital-Book-P10923.aspx" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><em>Commie Cowboys: The Bourgeoisie and the Nation-State in the Western Genre.</em></a></p>
<p><strong>Source:</strong><br>
This article was published by the <a href="https://mises.org/wire/you-dont-always-have-right-speak-spanish" target="_blank" rel="noopener">MISES Institute</a></p></div>
<div class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><br> Harold F. Schiffman<br><br>Professor Emeritus of <br> Dravidian Linguistics and Culture <br>Dept. of South Asia Studies <br>University of Pennsylvania<br>Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305<br><br>Phone: (215) 898-7475<br>Fax: (215) 573-2138 <br><br>Email: <a href="mailto:haroldfs@gmail.com" target="_blank">haroldfs@gmail.com</a><br><a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/" target="_blank">http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/</a> <br><br>-------------------------------------------------</div>
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