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Whether an employee or job applicant's ancestry is Mexican, Russian, Filipino, Iranian, American Indian, or any other nationality, individuals are entitled to equal access to employment opportunities. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 makes it illegal to discriminate on the basis of national origin. This law applies to employers with 15 or more employees. It forbids discrimination based upon an individual's birthplace, ancestry, culture, linguistic characteristics (common to a specific group) or accent. It also applies to individuals married to or associated with persons of a particular national origin, membership or association with specific ethnic promotion groups, attendance or participation in schools, churches, temples, or mosques associated with a national original group, or a surname associated with a national origin group. This section will explain national origin discrimination in greater detail. A subset of national origin discrimination is language discrimination. For more information on that please see our language discrimination page.