Air Force discrimination; RISD finalists
EEOC Complaint: Air Force discriminated against deaf employees
Here are two Deaf News Briefs.
The first is a report from the Air Force Times that a deaf employee of the Air Force filed a complaint with the EEOC alleging that the Air Force discriminated against her and other deaf employees by failing to provide ASL interpreters, real-time captioning equipment, and videophones. That complaint was granted class certification last week, which means that any deaf person who has worked for or applied for a job with the Air Force since 2018 can join the complaint.
Attorneys representing the deaf employees told the Air Force Times that there are at least 700 deaf employees and applicants nationwide that could be a part of the class. The Air Force said it had about 2,600 civilian employees who identified as deaf or hard of hearing, so the class could be between 700 to 2,600 employees.
The deaf person who initiated the complaint is Sarah Weimer, a former labor and employment attorney for the Air Force Warfare Center at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada. She said most of her requests for interpreters were denied, unfilled, or gone unanswered. She also struggled with finishing her required training videos because they did not have captions. She said she worked for almost a year without a videophone and that two other deaf employees worked for over five years without videophones.
The Air Force Times said the class complaint will go to the EEOC’s district office in Los Angeles and an administrative judge will probe the allegations.
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RISD announces finalists for its director position
The second news is an announcement from the Rhode Island School for the Deaf (RISD) that it has named two finalists for its director position. They are Christopher Kaftan and Sarah McGaughey. Both will visit the RISD campus during the last week of April to tour the campus and meet with students, staff, and administrators. Kaftan is currently the Director of Student Services at The Learning Center in Massachusetts. McGaughey is currently the Elementary Principal at Marie Philip School at The Learning Center for the Deaf. RISD is working with consulting firm Innivee Strategies in the search process.
That’s the two Deaf News briefs for today.
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