The Charlottesvlle Daily Progress ran an interesting job listing today:
EMPLOYMENT : HELP WANTED – GENERAL
Se Busca Ayudante EN LA COCINA Horario de dia, 35-45 horas por semana, horarios/dias flexible. Aplica en Michie Tavern montana de monticello
My wife Helene, the ex-foreign service officer formerly fluent in Spanish, tells me this means something pretty close to “Seeking kitchen assistant; 35-45 hours per week; hours/days flexible. Apply at Michie Tavern, Monticello Mountain.”
I assume it would be illegal to post a job opening for a “Hispanic kitchen assistant.” (Or would it?) Is it legal to post a notice only in Spanish? Did Jefferson speak Spanish? [How many Virginians does it take to screw in a light bulb? Four. Three to argue about how Jefferson would have done it, and one to do it.] Maybe everyone else in the kitchen speaks Spanish, and so speaking Spanish is a bona fide job requirement.
The same section of the paper reprints (in the Sept. 3 paper edition; not online) an article from yesterday’s Washington Post, “In Neb., ‘Spanish Now Spoken Here’: West Point, Other Midwestern Communities Ramp Up Services to Meet Immigrants’ Needs.”
They needn’t have gone so far afield. Or maybe Lewis and Clark, Señor Jefferson’s buddies, taught the Nebraskans some Charlottesville Spanish on their way through.
Its not illegal, for much the same reason as it isn’t impermissable discrimination against Hmong refugees that all of the listings (er, all but one) happen to be in English. Its similarly legal to target the advertisement of your position to a particular subgroup, provided you don’t discriminate after the fact. This could be very exploitable, by the way. You could create a 100% gay or Catholic workforce by only advertising in the relevant magazines, at least until someone outside of the group picks one up at the bookstore. Not insinuating, of course, that people who advertise in other are in fact discriminating (or even if it was that it would be necessarily wrong — not completely convinced of it, at any rate).
dear tomas jerfferson i want to said that you wast they best president in unitated states so im at florida that i come you died in 1963
that my question and thanks
you
from shasha
to tomas Jerfferson
that if you have kids iwant to im sorry
that i never meet you
that my