On Fox, GOP strategist Conway asserted that "political correctness" could lead to "two planes crashing"
SUMMARY: During an O'Reilly Factor discussion of a lawsuit over two employees fired for speaking Spanish in the workplace, Republican strategist Kellyanne Conway said: "[W]hat starts out as maybe the person doesn't speak English, getting -- putting mayonnaise instead of mustard as you requested on your sandwich is one day going to blossom into two air traffic controllers who don't speak great English because political correctness has made us appoint them to those positions. They're going to have two planes crashing in the sky." In fact, the federal law prohibiting workplace discrimination contains an exception for "instances where ... national origin is a bona fide occupational qualification reasonably necessary to the normal operation of that particular business or enterprise."
On the November 19 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, while discussing an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) lawsuit against the Salvation Army for allegedly firing two employees for speaking Spanish in the workplace, guest host Laura Ingraham asked Republican strategist Kellyanne Conway: "What stops ... an EEOC lawsuit against ... public schools who demand that kids learn English?" Conway responded: "There's nothing at the moment. And in fact, what starts out as maybe the person doesn't speak English, getting -- putting mayonnaise instead of mustard as you requested on your sandwich is one day going to blossom into two air traffic controllers who don't speak great English because political correctness has made us appoint them to those positions. They're going to have two planes crashing in the sky. And that's not a dramatic example. That's what happens with slippery slopes."
In fact, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as amended in 1991, which prohibits workplace discrimination on the basis of national origin -- the provision of law on which the EEOC suit is based -- specifically includes an exception for "those certain instances where ... national origin is a bona fide occupational qualification reasonably necessary to the normal operation of that particular business or enterprise." And indeed, the lawsuit specifically alleged that the ability to speak English "was unrelated to the job they had been performing since 1999." From the lawsuit:
This is an action under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1991 to correct unlawful employment practices on the basis of national origin and to provide appropriate relief to Dolores Escorbor and Maria del Carmen Perdomo, who were affected by discrimination in the workplace. As alleged with greater particularity below, The Salvation Army ("Defendant") subjected Escorbor and Perdomo to discrimination on the basis of their national origin (Hispanic) by requiring them to comply with Defendant's English-only rule, and terminating them because they failed to comply with its proficiency requirement, spoke Spanish in the workplace and were not fluent in speaking or understanding English.
[...]
9. Escorbor and Perdomo both began work at Defendant's thrift store in Framingham, Massachusetts in 1999. Spanish is their native language and they both speak very little English.
10. They both worked commendably and without incident for at least five years, relying on Spanish as their principal means of workplace communication in their jobs as clothes sorters.
11. In 2004, Defendant decided to enforce a written English language policy at the Framingham store, which it had not previously enforced while Escorbor and Perdomo had been employed. It delayed enforcement of the policy for at least a year. During this year, employees who could not speak English adequately were told they needed to learn English, even though learning English was not part of the written English language policy and was unrelated to the job they had been performing since 1999.
12. On or about December 21, 2005, Defendant terminated both Escorbor and Perdomo for failing to learn English and for speaking Spanish
13. The effect of the practices complained of above has been to deprive Escorbor and Perdomo of equal employment opportunities and otherwise adversely affect their status as employees because of their national origin and to inflict emotional pain, suffering, loss of enjoyment of life, embarrassment, humiliation, and inconvenience upon Escorbor and Perdomo.
The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), an agency of the United Nations that maintains international standards for aviation safety, has declared English proficiency essential for pilots and air traffic controllers and has put in place requirements aimed at preventing the kind of disaster that Conway described. From the ICAO:
Between 1976 and 2005, more than 1100 passengers and crew lost their lives in accidents in which investigators determined that air traffic control (ATCO) communications had played a contributory role (source: ICAO Journal). In order to improve air transport safety, new ICAO English language proficiency standards have recently been adopted (Amendment 164 to Annex 1). The new rules outline the minimum level of English language proficiency (level 4 -- operational) required by pilots and air traffic controllers with a compliance date of March 2008. As a result, applicants for, and holders of air traffic controller and pilot licenses must demonstrate their ability to speak and understand the language used for radiotelephony communications according to ICAO's six (6) proficiency criteria: pronunciation, structure, vocabulary, fluency, comprehension and interactions.
The ICAO standards apply to its 190 member states, including the United States.
From the November 19 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor:
INGRAHAM: Here's a question I have for you. What stops, Kellyanne Fitzpatrick [Conway], a lawsuit, an EEOC lawsuit against, you know, public schools?
CONWAY: Nothing.
INGRAHAM: You know, public schools who demand that kids learn English. I mean, that's discriminatory. Why should they learn English?
CONWAY: There's nothing at the moment. And in fact, what starts out as maybe the person doesn't speak English, getting -- putting mayonnaise instead of mustard as you requested on your sandwich is one day going to blossom into two air traffic controllers who don't speak great English because political correctness has made us appoint them to those positions. They're going to have two planes crashing in the sky. And that's not a dramatic example. That's what happens with slippery slopes.
By the way, English empowers employees. This is not just to protect you and me. This is to protect them. Don't you want this person, Tammy [Fox-Isicoff, panelist and immigration lawyer], to understand "Building on fire, get out"? It's to protect them as well.
"And that's not a dramatic example. That's what happens with slippery slopes."
I love this. She's aware that she's presented a logical fallacy, and yet she points to it as a way to bolster her argument. Or maybe I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt, and she's simply too dim to realize that the slippery slope is not exactly a sound argument.
This converstion occurred during an interview with a lawyer who was representing one of the fired workers. I happened to watch this brief exchange and could not understand why a political strategist was the counter-point to a legal professional???
When I heard the exchange referred to in this post, i went Huh???!!! WTF did she just say. I think she makes Britney Spears and Jessica Simpson look like Rhodes Scholars.
Who the hell watches this crap regularly and what's a scarier thought...do they believe it? I immediately changed channels, wnet to the bathroom to spit out the vomit and then banged my head against the wall to try and get it out of my mind.
I haven;t watched Fix in a while, but it seems to have become an even worse joke than it was in the past.
They really need to have a disclaimer at the bottom of the screen alerting viewers that the show they are watching is not real news. Next these bimbos will be doing the show in the nude...oops, I think I just threw up a little in my mouth again....dammit!
SSkin asks "could not understand why a political strategist was the counter-point to a legal professional" Answer: she has really nice "hands", her teeth are perfectly straight and she is willing to "interview" over and over for the same job.
Ahhh...I should have known that. Well now it makes perfect sense and she is totally qualified to be the counterpoint to someone with a real brain.
Thanks for clearing that up. Oh...one more question. Why is she weaing an antenna on her friggin neck?
The neck apparatus is costume jewlery. It came out of a focus group that she would be more appealling if she had on a bit more white trash, shopping channel style accessories.
Hey I can't hear any sound on this clip. Thanks.
No, I mean that. This isn't a complaint.
I've heard enough from these Fox Floozies.
This is the stupidest thing I've heard since Santorum's slippery slope analogy about going from Homosexuality to doing the dog.
This fear of languages is truly astounding. Perhaps, speaking and understanding more languages is not such a bad thing. Perhaps, we should be concerned with the potentials and possibilities that each and every language offers us all. Perhaps we should remember that languages are the collective genius of generations (Edward Sapir) and that we do well to have options of understanding. If languages do predispose us to orient to the world in certain ways (Edward Sapir and Benjamin Whorf), then it would seem that knowing more than one language allows us options of understanding. Irrational fears about languages, and more specifically, speakers of languages are limiting. Ultimately such linguistic ideologies (Michael Silverstein) are not so much about languages (which one doubts Kellyanne has much formal training in) than they are about attitudes towards speakers and a certain iconism of languages and their speakers (the literature of which is quite interesting; see Jane Hill among others). English is not enough.
The argument here is not that English is or should be the ONLY language we know. The lingua franca of the U.S. is English. You can be fluent in French, Italian or Chinese but if you can't conduct business or interface normally with others in English, you are at a disadvantage. Immigrants who wanted success in America knew they had to learn the language. Others felt comfortable living in and speaking the "home" language. They were not as successful.
These idiots on FIX News on the other hand, are trying to profit from this tension. They could care less about the people in the lawsuit and would probably sic their pit bull on them if they showed up at their door.
Criminals for Liars in USA fact check
Once again Media Matters has proven how outrages the stupidty at fox is, but I will post something that isn't even factful to try to distract from media matters being correct in everything. I will prove what a Bushbot I am by saying fox won this one.
This has been another Criminals for Liars fact check
She's right! Bush doesn't speak great English and look were we are.
OK, please tell me where political correctness still exists. Is it with Ann Coulter? Or Rush Limbaugh? Maybe Biff O'Reilly?
Or maybe I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt, and she's simply too dim to realize that the slippery slope is not exactly a sound argument.
Well, the slippery slope can be a valid argument, however the person making the claim must back it up with sound justification. Conway clearly offered one when she...oh, wait...err...nevermind. She offered no reasonable evidence other than the typical anti-pc diatribe that some conservatives eat up. Yeah, it's a a fallacy, baby. ;)
You're right, I should have said her slippery slope wasn't exactly a sound argument. But then it was less of a slippery slope than it was a logical leap off a cliff.
If that happens, it is because her idol has let that happen. The president is responsible as we all know that president Reagan fired ATC before. Moronic thing to say but then again, she is speaking to a specific audience, the FOX viewers.
I know why this GOP bimbo does not realize that the international governing body for air traffic control has declared English as the standard. It is because she and her Neo-Con heroes would not acknowledge the UN or any of its successes -- because it would make them look like the fools they are.
I'm outraged enough about getting mustard instead of mayo on my sandwich, and now this?
Others here have nailed it, it's fear. Maybe not of language itself, but a fear of anything different or unexpected. That's normal for toddlers, but the only adults I see this in are the far right-wing.
On my occasional safaris to freeperland, I always take note of the tags people put on their posts.These are sometimes a famous quotation, often some combination of God Bless someone and the glamor of war, and it is tagged onto every comment by that poster.
They can put anything they want there, whatever their most burning issue or most profound thought is, they can brand their post with it.
And one of my favorites is (something like); "I shouldn't have to press 3 to hear English!":
And that's the biggest burden in your life, Loser?
And that's the biggest burden in your life, Loser?
Since the average freeper has a brain the size of a deformed walnut, every aspect of their life is a burden, HBL.
:-)
"And that's the biggest burden in your life, Loser?"
Am I being attacked for agreeing with the post by someone agreeing with the post. I am so confused. I have to look at this site earlier in the day -- obiviously I am missing something.
ufleirx, sorry for the confusion. The burdened loser is the Freeper who is outraged at having to push a button.
Let's not forget the law about air traffic controllers, and pilots for that matter. Everyone who flies, or controls the air traffic has to speak English. It's a law, and it's the language that is used for the operation of air traffic around the world, not just the US, and or England or other countries where English is the primary language.
Her argument is totally BS. Unless they change the laws on the books and start allowing non English speakers to be ATCs, and or pilots. What a stupid person she is for even bringing up this whole argument.
I remember reading a few years ago that because all international airline pilots have to speak English, the following two words are most often the last two words recorded on the black-box flight recorders that they recover from the wreckage after a plane crash:
"Oh, s**t!"
As an airline pilot I agree with Ms. Conway. I regularly fly into New York and I don't speak New Yorkese so I for one want all the controllers at La Guardia to learn English or at least Chicagoese so I can understand. I have enough trouble translating Texan and Atlantaese.
Do you fly into Newark as well?
It's like they speak an entirely different language in Jersey, even though it's only a short distance to Kennedy or LaGuardia.
And don't get me started on Philadelphia and Baltimore.
Hey Hon,
Don' you go bad mowffin Bawlmore.
Fuggedaboudit.....
(Translation: "Forget about it.")
Great. Now all our posts are going to have to come with subtitles.
I think NJ aircraft controllers are brought in from elsewhere. I was just up there and most of the native New Jerseyans(?) incorporate the words "boom!" or "bang!" into their sentences too frequently to ever make it into the field of aircraft control.
Can you imagine a NJ air-traffic controller giving you instructions? Okay there flight 577, BANG! you need to go to an altitude of 10,000 feet BADABING! - on a heading of zero-niner-zero BOOM! Kabeesh?
This makes me very sad. My one point of pride was that the Republic party was very smart and very corrupt, and between these two points, were able to steal elections and smear the opposition instead of running on principles.
If this woman is truly a "Strategist," the GOP has either severely dumbed itself down, or it was never as smart as I thought it was - and if the Left is losing to people this incredibly stupid, it's a very, very sad thing.
It's not that the left (or progressives or Dems, whatever) are "losing." Polls bear out that this admin is one of the least popular in history. It is really about the Repubs lust for power being so unfathomable as to be frightening. They will turn over any rock, fix any machine, disenfrachise any race/religion to glorify in "winning" and "power." Just like any other playground bully.
The R's have completely let their years in charge go to their heads. Politicians seem to get more and more out of touch with reality the more time they spend in office. Think there's something in the water in D.C.?
I have read that by 2050 Spanish will be the majority language in the USA. Then they will be saying; If you want to speak English go back to England!
Conway is yet another Conservative twit who owes her TV Punditry career to the Clinton witch hunts of the 90s. She was a regular on the talking head shows that beat the Monica Lewinsky story to death every night. She's a shameless hack, and is emblematic of the absolute corruption and uselessness of our current "news" media.
Where's the wall-to-wall coverage of Scott McClellan's bombshell....? (Crickets chirping.)
It's usually a pretty big story when the President of the USA commits a felony.
You'd think, Dogrun. But the McClellan story doesn't even seem to be making a ripple.
Was it a felony? Lying to Congress is or a court could be a felony, but just to play the devil's advocate here - did the devil in question really commit a felony? I am only aware of McClellan's false information given to the press at the direction of the President &al. - which wouldn't necessarily be a crime to my knowledge.
It would seem to give merit to Plame's claims that this was politically motivated. It is reasonble to conclude that the President, VP, Rove and Libby lied to cover-up the truth - that it was a political move.
If only the 9/11 hijackers had been bigoted blonde harpies with chronic diarrhea of the mouth. This woman would never be allowed on a plane again.
By the way, English empowers employees.
And Kellyanne Conway is empowered by ignorance, hatred, and racism.
It's a little bit like blaming a church when someone kills someone who is a homosexual.
It all depends on the church. If it's Westboro Baptist, then go ahead and heap the blame on them.
No, not talking about them. I recall hearing a quote from somebody blaming the church view of homosexuality as a sin as contributing to violence on gays, but I can't find it.
I think you're confusing a contributing factor with a sole factor. I don't think anyone would argue that religious dogma is the only reason for violence against homosexuals, but it's hard to believe that it's not part of the problem.
Exactly. If you have a preacher who claims God is punishing America for its tolerance of gays (as Falwell did)...how much of a leap is it to believe that such messages could incite violence in some cases?
I think what some people don't understand is that religion is supposed to deal with universal truth. It's not like someone listening to their loudmouth neighbor where they have no incentive to take them seriously. These are representatives of God that are condemning it. Someone who takes that literally and seriously can feel justified in violence, since God is on their side.
In addition to the international organization that has specified English as the language for pilots and air traffic controllers, the FAA has also specified:
To qualify for entry-level air traffic control specialist positions, applicants from the general public must achieve a qualifying score on the current FAA authorized pre-employment tests and measures. They must also meet the following requirements:
- Applicants must be U.S. citizens
- Be able to speak English clearly enough to be understood over radios, intercoms, and similar communications equipment
These people on O'Really seem to just make up whatever they want to make whatever point they want to make. No matter how farfetched it is.For those of you who don't comprehend satire, I suggest Mikeskew is employing it in agreeing with Ms. Conway.
It is a fact that in EVERY NATION, commercial air traffic controllers use English, as well as pilots.
Unlike COnway and FauxNews talking heads, air traffic controllers in he US have strict certification tests.
Also, air traffic controllers are not "appointed", they pass a rigorous certification program requiring complex memorization of aircraft, 3D airspace, time and working under intense pressure. Passage is not based upon opinion or grading on the curve, but scores and memorizing a thick book of rules.
Pathetic, just pathetic that people like Conway get paid to act stupid.
She's right. Political correctness WILL cause a mid-air collision.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get ready for my wedding. I'm marrying my mule today...
What Happened to Gannon, is your mom still pissed off that you didn't find a nice Jewish mule?
I need a RICH Jewish mule so I can confiscate her family's wealth ; )
You're marrying the person who smuggles drugs for you? Well, at least they won't be able to testify against you.
I wonder if Rush will marry his maid one day.
BTW: Anyone else notice Conway looks like Laurie from "That 70s Show?" Her hair is very Farrah...
Actually, I think it looks like Madonna and Sandra Bernhard had a love child.