Court Agrees to Accommodate HOH
February 2005
I believe we're seeing the leading edge of a movement by hard of
hearing, late-deafened, and oral deaf people to enforce their legal
rights to equivalent access in American society. One of the most galling
situations in memory is the persistent refusal by our legal system to
provide accommodations appropriate to the individual. I know of several
cases in which people who don't sign were called for jury duty and were
offered interpreters as a "reasonable accommodation"; requests
for more appropriate accommodations were denied! This attitude makes it
all but impossible for the majority of the hearing loss community to
serve as jurors.
An ADA case brought by the US Department of Justice against the Santa
Clara County (CA) Superior Court alleges that "the Court's policies
and procedures for providing assistive listening systems and other
auxiliary aids and services do not ensure effective communication with
hard of hearing persons. This limits the participation of hard of
hearing individuals in the Court's programs, services and activities.
The parties have engaged in extensive discussion concerning the issues
and determined that the agreements made herein will resolve this
complaint."
The agreement stipulates that the Court will provide
"appropriate auxiliary aids and services to ensure effective
communication and an equal opportunity for hard of hearing persons to
participate in the programs, services and activities conducted by the
Court." and that "auxiliary aids and services may include
qualified sign or oral interpreters, assistive listening devices or
systems, real time transcription, written materials, note pads and other
effective methods of making aurally delivered materials available to
hard of hearing individuals."
The agreement also calls for the Court to clearly display information
regarding the availability of appropriate accommodations and to train
Court personnel regarding this agreement. Note that "the training
will emphasize the differences in the communication needs of hard of
hearing individuals as compared with deaf persons, and the different
methods of communicating with hard of hearing persons via telephone and
in the courtroom. The training will also cover operation, use and
maintenance of auxiliary aids and services, including a plan of
scheduled maintenance."
For years, the protestations of the non-Deaf members of the hearing
loss community that they are not "Deaf Lite" and that some of
their needs are different from those of Deaf individuals have gone
largely unnoticed. Part of the reason for this, of course, is that oral
members of the deaf community have not been nearly as vocal in enforcing
their rights as have members of the Deaf community.
I, for one, applaud the person or persons who initiated the complaint
with the Department of Justice. I also applaud the DOJ for following
through. I'm following a couple of other situations in which oral
members of the hearing loss community are stepping up to the plate and
demanding appropriate treatment.
And I'd love to hear what YOU are doing to advance this cause!
The complete Settlement Agreement for this case is available at: http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/ada/santacl.htm
