Only two weeks ago, a House of Lords report on the Equality Act showed how laws designed to protect deaf and disabled people “simply aren’t working in practice.”
However, this NY Times article shows how, in America, a series of lawsuits has shown that the Americans with Disabilities Act can be enforced, resulting in greater awareness of the protection offered by the law.
Last year, the city’s Department of Homeless Services settled a case that charged its shelters with failing to provide American Sign Language interpreters for deaf residents, and a suit filed last summer in Westchester County claimed that two hospitals refused a deaf couple’s requests for interpreters after the husband had a heart attack.
Another case involved Diana Williams, a deaf woman from Staten Island who was arrested in 2011 and was denied a sign-language interpreter, as the federal law dictates. In October, the Police Department settled her lawsuit for $750,000. Her lawyers, from the Eisenberg & Baum Law Center for Deaf and Hard of Hearing, said it was one of the biggest payouts of its kind.
“What’s disturbing about all these lawsuits is that the A.D.A. has been in effect for several decades,” Eric Baum, one of the firm’s founders, recently said. Mr. Baum said that his firm had litigated about 100 deaf discrimination cases, roughly half in the New York metropolitan area, many dealing with a failure to provide interpreters. He was sitting in the Union Square office alongside the Law Center’s co-directors: Andrew Rozynski, a lawyer and fluent A.S.L. signer whose parents are deaf, and Sheryl Eisenberg-Michalowski, a deaf rights liaison who was born deaf.
Read the full article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/27/nyregion/deaf-and-hard-of-hearing-fight-to-be-heard.html?_r=0
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Tim
April 11, 2016
The Equality Act is new (2010) and yet we live in a time of the worst inequality – that is all the evidence you need to dismiss the Act as a feeble piece of legislation.
Cathy
April 11, 2016
I am surprised at this story, coming from America! This is because I have always thought of Deaf Americans as being far more forward and far more confident in life than Deaf Brits.
My attitude has been thus formed as a result of a programme on See Hear a few years ago that showed Deaf Americans protesting and kicking up an almighty fuss about a president for Gallaudet University, who was hearing and Deaf students were adamant the person appointed to this position should be Deaf!
It really was a powerful protest that none of the Deaf students would back down from. I remember thinking something on that scale would never happen here! But the hearing President finally stood down and was replaced by a Deaf one!
In comparison to this event, the Deaf Community in Britain is much more docile as we sail along with gentle bingo sessions and pub nights, that sometimes end in the whole gang of Deaf people being banned from a pub because two of them have had a massive row and fights break out!
This is how opinions are formed, but, this story is giving the impression that Deaf Americans are not really any further forward than we are!
In spite of the difference between Deaf Communities in two countries, this story exposes the very real discrimination that no doubt exists worldwide for Deaf Communities. However, I fail to understand how this story claims to actually “enforce” an act of equality for discrimination of Deaf and disabled people.
For instance, how would British homeless shelters fund interpreters for a Deaf resident, when it is charity based? And how have they “enforced” it exactly in America? Do they have to provide an interpreter 24/7 or just when the Deaf person needs the Doctor, for example? I can see how such “enforcement” is actually blackmail especially when massive payouts are made by a Police Force!
I am not sure such “blackmail” is the way forward for gaining equality in such disadvantaged communities and certainly in Britain such impacts would be devastating on Police budgets, which have been extensively cut by our present government; that such payouts could easily send the system to the wall, entirely.
As for Shelters in Britain that are funded under Charity rules if they are constantly “blackmailed” to payout, would this not impact on charitable funding? Would people end up saying “oh boy am not giving to that charity anymore!” Funding is already difficult to procure and such payouts could inadvertently make future funding dry up, then where would massive payouts come from?!
I do not believe massive payouts actually advance Deaf peoples’ causes and such “unintended consequences” is something we need to be seriously mindful of as such payouts for failure to provide interpreters could very easily backfire on us!
I now realise Deaf Americans are no further forward than Deaf Brits and their gigantic payouts could actually send their cause even further backward than any of them envisaged.
What a painful lesson for “enforcement” that would be………..
Hartmut
April 17, 2016
Lawsuits on the basis of ADA DOES advance the rights of Deaf people to communication access. After a handful lawsuits against police and hospitals, they are much more accessible than ever before. Several large hospitals have ASL interpreters on the staff, either full-time or part-time. Several businesses pay for interpreters for contracting work (f.e. installation of solar panels), such as banks for loan signing, Also employers now refuse hiring interpreters for meetings, in-house training, and performance reviews much less than before.
Lawsuits and the threat of a lawsuit are necessary. Cathy, your fears are wholly unfounded and hinder the enforcement of the ADA law.