Metro Transit workers sue over order to limit use of Amharic language

SEATTLE — In spring 2021, King County Metro supervisor Daniel Fisseha asked his colleague, Berhanemeskal Gebreselassie, to print something for him from his computer. He made the request in Amharic; both men are originally from Ethiopia.

On May 5 that year, their boss, Riceda Stewart, called the two longtime employees into her office. She told them that she and her superior, Dennis Lock, had received a complaint from an operator, who reported feeling uncomfortable with their use of their native language. Stewart told them they were not “presenting and acting like a professional,” according to an investigation conducted by Metro’s Office of Equal Employment Opportunity. Going forward, if they wanted to speak Amharic, they should do so only in a private room, they were told.

That act was hostile and discriminatory, the EEO investigation concluded, creating “an atmosphere of inferiority, isolation and intimidation.” By implementing such a rule specifically targeted to two Amharic speakers, Metro was sending an “overt” message “that their national origin identities made people uncomfortable and were not appropriate in the workplace, statements that are subjectively and objectively offensive and discriminatory.”

The men, the report concluded, had grounds to sue.

With the damning EEO report in hand, the two men filed a lawsuit in King County Superior Court last month, asking for damages and attorney’s fees determined in court, and that Metro adopt policies against language discrimination. The case was recently reassigned to federal court, in the Western District of Washington.

“Our native language is in our DNA,” said Gebreselassie. “That’s our blood. That’s our culture.”

The basic arc of events is largely undisputed. Lawyers with the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office acknowledge that Fisseha and Gebreselassie were told they should “be more discreet and use a separate room when speaking in Amharic to each other” in response to a complaint.

Defendant Stewart and Lock also acknowledged to EEO investigators that they’d received the complaint and had told Fisseha and Gebreselassie to use a private room when speaking Amharic, although they disagree on who came up with the plan. Their focus, they said, was on making the operator feel more comfortable.

But in making that their goal, the two bosses failed to consider how it would make Fisseha and Gebreselassie feel.

“Mr. Lock and Ms. Stewart may very well have been thinking about [the complainant’s] comfort when they agreed to this course of action, but the comfort they wanted to provide was discriminatory against employees who speak a language other than English,” the EEO report concluded.

In a statement, Metro spokesperson Jeff Switzer said the agency works to build a healthy environment free from harassment or discrimination.

“It is not, nor has it ever been, Metro’s policy, practice or culture to require people to speak only English,” Switzer said. “We see this as a single, regrettable incident, rather than a rule, and we took swift steps to correct the behavior with the supervisors, including requiring appropriate King County training.”

Fisseha and Gebreselassie immigrated to the Seattle area from Ethiopia in the early 2000s, becoming American citizens several years later. Both started working for Metro as bus operators in 2008 before becoming supervisors — training and scheduling drivers — roughly 10 years after that.

Getting to that level is a source of pride, particularly for Gebreselassie. As an immigrant, he said he has a chip on his shoulder.

“We have to prove ourselves every day,” he said.

After the meeting, the two men requested that the policy be put into writing, which they never received. Shortly after, they filed a complaint with the EEO office.

Fisseha and Gebreselassie allege they were retaliated against for complaining — spurring them to take leaves of absence and later move to different departments with less desirable shifts, including overnight. In its response to the complaint in federal court, Metro denies any retaliation occurred and said the choice to move departments was the two men’s, pointing out that Fisseha returned to work under Stewart again in 2022.

Regardless, Fisseha and Gebreselassie said they were racked with anxiety following the interaction. Rumor spread among Metro’s diverse staff, giving workers pause whenever they slipped into their native languages.

“Sometimes you start talking and you have that feeling of, ‘Well now I have to always watch where I’m at’,” said Gebreselassie.

Ethiopians have lived in the Seattle region since the late 1960s and early 1970s, when about two dozen university students and their spouses came to the United States to earn college degrees with the intention of returning home. That changed with the deposition of the country’s emperor in 1974, sparking the Ethiopian Civil War and leaving Ethiopian students and urban professionals abroad stranded and fearful of returning.

With the passage of The Refugee Act of 1980, thousands of Ethiopians and Eritreans would ultimately settle in the Seattle metropolitan area as immigrants and refugees fleeing war, political persecution, widespread drought and famine.

Today, about 22,000 people of Ethiopian ancestry live in the Seattle area, according to 2021 Census Bureau estimates. Census Bureau data published in 2015 puts the number of people here who speak Amharic at home at about 14,575, with about 46% reporting they speak English less than “very well.”

With such a large population in Seattle, and presence within Metro, being treated like a “cigarette smoker” for using Amharic, was demeaning, the men said.

“I don’t think they respect East Africans,” said Fisseha. “We work hard like everybody else, but at the end of the day, we don’t get respect.”