Accent Discrimination at the Workplace

Language discrimination at the workplace occurs when a person is treated differently because of his/her native language or other characteristics of his/her language skills. For instance, an employee may be experiencing language discrimination if the workplace has a “speak-English-only” policy but his/her primary language is one other than English. She may also be the victim of language discrimination if she is treated worse than other employees, because of his/her English with an accent, or if he or she is told he/she does not qualify for a position because her English is not good enough. Language discrimination may also occur if a person is denied access to businesses or government services because he or she does not speak, understand, read or write English well.