September 13 Deaf News Briefs
Here are two Deaf News briefs.
The first is a news report that the North Dakota School for the Deaf has hired Donna Sorenson as its new superintendent. The Grand Forks Herald explained that the school provides an academic program for preschool through grade 8, and then students transition to a local high school that has a deaf program and interpreters. The news report said Sorenson is hearing, fluent in ASL, and has experience as a superintendent at the Montana School for the Deaf.
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The second news brief is an article from the Colorado Sun that says a deaf attorney named Spencer Kontnik is suing the Denver County Court for excluding him as a juror because he is deaf. Kontnik is alleging that the court discriminated against him.
The article explained that Kontnik received a summons to appear for jury duty for a case in July 2021. He wears a cochlear implant, and hearing aids, and is able to speak with his voice. He made arrangements for there to be a real-time captioning service (CART) during jury selection, but when he arrived for jury selection, he was told by the CART interpreter that the attorneys and the judge had already agreed to dismiss him from jury duty because they decided that it may be tough for him and that it would slow down the trial.
Kontnik’s lawsuit explains that he regularly uses CART interpreters in the courtroom in his job as an attorney and that it was embarrassing to be “stricken from a jury” because of his disability.
That’s the two Deaf News briefs. For more information, you can read the links to the articles in the transcript.
https://coloradosun.com/2022/09/13/denver-disability-discrimination/
http://www.deafnewstoday.com/post/excluded-from-jury-duty-deaf-lawyer-sues-the-court