Watch: American Deaf people don’t complain enough. Are British Deaf people reluctant to complain too?

I watched your video. I agreed what did you describe how Attorneys and legal system deal with deaf community. BUT I disagreed part of you said. (too much reading and writing) for filing complaints because we know only visual language instead of Enlgish. It is absolute false, no offend.

Based on my experiences with filing complaints to EEOE and the legal attorney. Somebody Deaf/ HoH filed complaints. Mostly were rejected without formal interview and investigation… Just like automatically rejection on Deaf community… And some of people are being imitate or scare tactic methods toward deaf community like losing SSI, job, or losing children etc etc.

Deaf people filing complaints and suing based on deaf-related discrimination are far more numerous in the USA procentwise as compared in most European countries. We have laws on which we can base our complaints. What the lady in the vlog says is that deaf people file less complaints as compared to other disabled groups, not that it is a trend..

Many of the complaints of deaf people regarding employment discrimination is very difficult to prosecute. That is what EEOC is most concerned about. There is always something else the employer can hang on the deaf complainants, when they deny discrimination based on deafness.

We have been more successful when dealing with the provision of sign language interpreters by service providers. In the USA, service providers, like doctors, barristers, hospitals, banks, etc. are obligated under ADA to pay for the services of sign language interpreters. The US NAD’s Law Center could wring out from them out-of-court settlements, obligating them to change their policies and procedures to make them more friendly to communication needs of the deaf people.

Our national associations of he deaf have been more active in the past ten years regarding the telephone access and captioning needs on the TV and recently in the Internet. They filed different briefs to the FCC and organized letter campaigns in order from the FCC to issue for us favorable access rulings to telephone, TV, film and Internet, because it is within the regulatory authority of FCC to ensure accessibility of these industries to communicatively disabled populations..

Recently, NAD won a favorable ruling from the Federal Transportation Commission to allow deaf persons to drive 18-wheeler trucks across states. They don’t have to pass a whisper test.

I wish to recount two court cases that reached the Supreme Court. One is a deaf student desiring admission to a nursing school. She was denied admission, because the dean of the nursing school was of the opinion that a nurse must be able to hear and communicate orally. The Supreme Court judged in favor of the school, by simply saying that no court can be an arbiter of the question whether a deaf candidate is qualified to perform the job of nursing and that a school has the freedom to make a professional judgement, what is required for this profession. If the profession is split on this issue, the candidate may try another institution.

The second case concerns the provision of a sign language interpreter for a student in a mainstreamed school. The deaf parents lost the case at the highest level after winning at lower appellate levels. The Supreme Court ruled that the provision of an interpreter is not a right for the student and an obligation for the school district, because the school district showed that they have met the needs of the deaf student adequately without an interpreter as “evidenced” by the good grades the deaf girl made.

These two court cases illustrate the doctrine, and it may be persuasive in (formerly) oralistic countries, that access through sign language may be accepted to be optimal, but not required when deaf people can communicate with hearing people via less expensive methods. Using a more expensive route is not forbidden, but cannot be compelled upon entities who must pay for it. We wish to counteract this doctrine. Only a law that says specifically, that whatever a communication access venue a deaf person requests, this ought to be honored and must not be resisted, and the associated costs not be borne by the deaf person himself.

I think this lady had a point. I’m taking my first ever disability discrimination case – mostly as a last resort because I’ve lost out financially and spent 6 years trying to complain through proper channels with no joy at all. I’m hating it!

I wish I didn’t have to, if it hadn’t cost me over £1000 because of the organisation’s discriminatory attitude and 6 years of writing letters and trying to fight through proper channels and being unable to access a meeting to resolve the issues (same barrier “use a phone to arrange” despite being told why I can’t). I wouldn’t bother. Complaining doesn’t achieve anything, I’ve tried that many times before “Dear organisation, your loops don’t work, here’s how you fix it, love me” etc and nothing ever changes. “Dear organisation, I have 2 impairments like 40% of deaf adults, your solution doesn’t work, no love me” etc just gets me told “Well get someone to help you”.

The paperwork to do legal suing in the UK is onerous, I’m oral but I do have a mild language impairment especially for jargonny language. I find legalese completely impenetrable unless it’s something I can familiarise myself with. I’ve had to get my lawyer to rephrase quite a lot and have relied on friends and family with legal knowledge to explain things to me in clearer language. It took 4 months of doing paperwork before we even sent off a last request to the organisation in order to generate “an incident of discrimination occurring in the last 6 months”. The organisation has just replied after several weeks with a totally inadequate response so we’re finally going ahead. I will never get the hours of my life spent pre legalness fighting or during the legal case – I think I should be able to bill for my time tbh but I can’t.

The fact that only a disabled person can themselves take cases under much of the Equality Act is a problem. Most of us can’t afford legal fees upfront so are looking to get a no win no fee (Conditional Fee Agreement) out of lawyers which slows things down some more. Many people are too busy trying to live lives without spending hours bogged down in legalities. This organisation I’m suing is one of 4 I currently deal with, 3 which I *have* to deal with who have this same issue. 3 of those organisations are government bodies of a kind. I am hoping if I am successful I can use the legal outcome to push #2 and #3 and possibly #4 into sorting their access issues too.

Organisations, especially government ones in spite of their added legal duties are very quick to drown you in paperwork if you try asking them to justify discriminatory behaviour. “We have done X, that is what people with Y impairment need, ergo we have done our duty” when clear X is insufficient and they have an inadequate idea of what Y impaired people need. My case will be predicated on whether this is or is not OK I think.