U.K. judge says government discriminated against deaf

Last week there was a big court decision in the U.K. on whether the government discriminated against a British deaf person when it did not provide an in-frame British Sign Language (BSL) interpreter for two of its earliest coronavirus briefings, which took place in the fall of 2020. A deaf woman named Katie Rowley initiated a legal case. The UK government tried to dismiss her concerns by saying subtitles were sufficient.

Deaf news outlet “The Limping Chicken” reported that’s judge ruled that “the UK Government breached the Equality Act 2010 when it failed to provide a British Sign Language (BSL) interpreter for its scientific briefings on the coronavirus.” Deaf reporter Liam O’Dell said it is a significant ruling because deaf activists in the U.K. has for many months raised serious concerns about lack of BSL interpreters for important press conferences or briefings through the #WhereisTheInterpreter campaign.

Katie Rowley said in an interview with the Royal Association for Deaf People that she has mixed emotions because she “is happy but also sad at the same time that we had to fight for our rights.”

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We in the U.S. have gone through similar legal battles last year with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) being ordered by a federal judge to provide in-frame ASL interpreters for coronavirus-related briefings after a successful lawsuit from a disability rights group on behalf of a group of deaf plaintiffs. A second high profile case is the National Association of the Deaf’s successful lawsuit to require the White House to provide ASL interpreters for its Covid-19 related briefings. Similar to what happened to the U.K., both Cuomo and the Trump administration pushed back against the idea of providing ASL interpreters until they were ordered to do so by a judge.

Limping Chicken: https://limpingchicken.com/2021/07/28/breaking-uk-government-broke-equality-act-by-failing-to-provide-a-bsl-interpreter-for-covid-data-briefings-judge-rules-whereistheinterpreter/

https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-deaf-woman-wins-court-case-over-lack-of-sign-language-at-government-coronavirus-briefings-12366195