Apparently, English-Only rules in the workplace, etc., are all but illegal. The EEOC's policies state that such rules are assumed to be in violation of federal law (discriminating based upon national origin), unless the employer can prove such a rule is necessary for safety's sake or otherwise necessary for conducting business. Such proof must include actual evidence of the harm of speaking foreign languages in that business' context.

In the spirit of Rush Limbaugh's "demonstrating absurdity by being absurd," I suggest businesses rebel against this idiotic policy (which the courts have upheld to the tune of millions of dollars, by the way) by going to the opposite end of the spectrum. Rather than requiring employees to speak only English on the job, let's be fair to all national origins, not just the Spanish-speaking ones. All written and verbal communication should be available in all languages. For those languages that have no written form, written material must be made available verbally (e.g., via mp3 or other audio format).

Sources list over 6800 languages in the world today. (3000 of these are expected to go extinct within a century--including English. ) I don't think that includes unofficial dialects, though, like "Ebonics", "Jive", "Hick", and "Moron". It would be difficult to translate even a single thought into all those languages, let alone every communique. However, failure to include even one runs the risk of offending somebody. And since federal law is all about avoiding offense, it's a logical deduction that all communication must be available in all languages.

I would have to conclude the only way we have a prayer of meeting federal law then, as the EEOC interprets it, is to immediately invent the Universal Translator, make it work for both verbal and written communication, and make it freely available to everybody (using American taxpayers' money, of course). Using a UT, then, we can write and speak whatever language we want, and the hearer/reader will receive it in his own, preferred language, and vice versa.

I love this plan! I'm excited to be a part of it! Let's do it!