Judge Upholds Hospital’s Ban on Foreign Language

A Pomona hospital’s “no Tagalog” rule did not discriminate against Filipino nurses because the policy was adopted to improve employee morale and job performance, a federal judge ruled this week.

But Judge Edward Rafeedie ruled that the Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center did violate the civil rights of a Filipina nurse who refused to obey the language rule and filed a discrimination lawsuit in 1989. Two months after she sued, nurse Aida Dimaranan was demoted from an assistant head nurse in the mother/baby ward to an emergency room position. Rafeedie ordered the hospital to reinstate Dimaranan to a position comparable to that of her previous job, and to give her back pay.

In 1988, the hospital banned the use of Tagalog in the mother/baby ward after nurses complained that Dimaranan’s use of the language was “rude and disruptive” and caused disunity, Rafeedie said.