On August 3, 2020, the National Association for the Deaf and five plaintiffs who are deaf and use American Sign Language (ASL) as their primary and preferred language brought this action against President Trump and other members of the White House staff (ECF 1). Following the onset of the Covid-19 ...
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On August 3, 2020, the National Association for the Deaf and five plaintiffs who are deaf and use American Sign Language (ASL) as their primary and preferred language brought this action against President Trump and other members of the White House staff (ECF 1). Following the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, the White House began holding televised briefings with the White House Coronavirus Task Force. The briefings did not include in-frame ASL interpretation, the approach adopted by many governors in their own Covid-19 briefings.
The plaintiffs sued President Trump and other members of the White House alleging that the defendants' failure to provide in-frame ASL interpretation constituted a violation of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the First Amendment. The plaintiffs sought preliminary and permanent injunctive relief and declaratory relief.
The case was assigned to Judge James E. Boasberg of the District Court for the District of Columbia.
On September 9, 2020, Judge Boasberg signed an order granting the plaintiffs' motion for preliminary relief. 2020 WL 5411171. The order was stayed until the parties conferred regarding the proper remedy. The parties reached general agreement on the conditions of the injunction, and on September 23, 2020, Judge Boasberg issued an order defining the scope of the preliminary injunction. 2020 WL 5757463. Under the preliminary injunction, defendants were required to include a qualified ASL interpreter in the White House Communications Agency feed for all White House Coronavirus briefings. The interpretation was required to either take the form of an in-frame interpretation by an interpreter near the speaker or a simultaneous stream with an interpreter from a remote location in a picture-in-picture format (PIP). If Defendants used the PIP approach, they were required to make that video feed available to television networks so that they can use the ASL interpretation in their own broadcasts.
Following the court's order of a preliminary injunction, the defendants appealed to the DC Circuit and moved to stay District Court proceedings until the appeal was resolved. Judge Boasberg ordered a stay on all further proceedings pending the resolution of Defendants' appeal.
The case remains open.
Gabrielle Simeck - 02/23/2021
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