Deaf student lawsuit resolved out of court
An out-of-court settlement was the outcome of a lawsuit filed against USU by deaf students on campus.
While the issue of not enough or not fully qualified interpreters has been ongoing since 1997, the students fully joined forces and notified the school in October of 2005 that they would be filing a lawsuit for violating the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act. The lawsuit was then filed in November of 2005.
Last April the two sides met out of court and gave the university two years to fulfill the requirements. The settlement reached was that the university would hire full-time interpreters who are qualified with a ratio of one translator for every two students. Transcript service and note-taking services would continue, and if students felt they were behind they could receive tutoring, said Diane Baum, director of the Disabilities Resource Center.
“I am glad with how it’s been resolved,” Baum said. “USU was willing to meet the requirements of the students.”
A shortage of interpreters is happening across the nation, according to faculty at USU and information taken from a video on the lawsuit made last year by USU alumna Brittany Nelson. In the video, Baum said while money was short on campus, that wasn’t the reason interpreter numbers were limited. Interpreters were in demand across the nation, and there weren’t enough people to fill the positions, especially ones where the pay and benefits weren’t as high as others, as was the case with USU. Baum said she felt she had done all she could at that point in trying to attract interpreters to come to USU.
The exact number of interpreters could not be determined, but Ellen O’Hara, a USU student who worked on the lawsuit, said two Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf were hired last semester, with one more this year, and there are three level one interpreters who are working toward level two qualification.
Six deaf students are currently at USU, and the number of interpreters thus fulfills the settlement’s requirements.
Only three of the 12 students who filed the lawsuit are still at USU, O’Hara said. She cited four as having left the school during the lawsuit for somewhere they felt had better interpreters. The students had heard and dealt with the issue in the past, and when they filed the lawsuit, O’Hara said it was their way of getting the university to take action.
“They woke up and did something about (the problem) when we expressed our frustration and threatened them with the law,” O’Hara said.
The students are still wary if USU will keep its side of the settlement, O’Hara said, but for now the goal is accomplished. So far this year the interpreters are better in their skill, O’Hara said, but it is still hard to get them for after school activities because “they have a life,” she said. To get around this, the deaf students do their own activities with the Deaf Education Student Association, and Moen Hall, which has an American Sign Language floor, provides activities.
Improvements are happening, but the image of USU’s deaf interpreters has already been established. Many students haven’t come to USU because of the level and amount of interpreters, even though the deaf education program is well known, O’Hara said.
“USU is not deemed by the deaf community as a deaf-friendly campus,” Freeman King, deaf education professor, said on Nelson’s video.
Interpreters’ level in translating the “big words” professors use is just one of the barriers O’Hara said she has faced. The next big one is note takers.
“Deaf students can’t split their eyes watching the interpreter and taking notes at the same time,” O’Hara said.
Note takers are hired through the Disability Resource Center to take notes for the deaf students. Baum reported that while the numbers are changing daily due to new hires, there are six or seven note takers on campus. O’Hara and the other students depend on the note takers to get the information they need and sometimes to write down the vocabulary the professor is using that their interpreters don’t know.
The barrier O’Hara has experienced with note takers is usually that they are a random person who is not taking the same class as the deaf student, and they never meet each other. The note takers are sometimes unsure of where to turn in the notes, and then it can take up to two weeks to get the notes transcribed by the DRC and put on Blackboard, O’Hara said. If there is a quiz, test or assignment due within those two weeks, it can cause problems. O’Hara found a solution by finding students in her classes and taking them to the DRC to sign the forms to be note takers.
While this worked for O’Hara, she said other deaf students don’t feel they can be that powerful and must obey the DRC’s wishes. Reaching out and letting others know she is friendly is something O’Hara has had to do her entire time at USU, and she said she wishes hearing students would reach out more and realize she is a student just like them.
The settlement between the university and the deaf students is a step in the right direction to making the USU community more deaf friendly and inviting to those deaf students who wish to attend school here.
“Hopefully USU will maintain their promise and accept our feedback. The deaf people will start to once more come back to USU, and the deaf community here will grow,” O’Hara said.
-alison.baugh@aggiemail.usu.edu