The Trump administration is pushing back on a lawsuit seeking to ensure that sign language interpreters are included at White House events by suggesting that the accommodation is incompatible with the president’s image.
Mandating American Sign Language interpreters at press briefings and other events “would severely intrude on the President’s prerogative to control the image he presents to the public,” wrote attorneys from the U.S. Department of Justice.
The argument, reported recently by Politico, was made in a June court filing in response to a lawsuit brought earlier this year by the National Association of the Deaf and two deaf individuals. The organization sued alleging violations of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution after it said that its repeated requests for ASL interpreters went unheeded.
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ASL interpreters were provided at all public briefings, press conferences and related events by the president, vice president and press secretary during the Biden administration. But, that stopped abruptly when President Donald Trump took office in January, the National Association of the Deaf said.
ASL is distinct from English with its own grammar and structure and closed captioning is inadequate for many ASL speakers, the group said. The Trump administration has argued that captioning and transcripts are sufficient.
U.S. District Judge Amir H. Ali ordered the White House to provide a qualified ASL interpreter at all publicly announced press briefings conducted by Trump or White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt under a preliminary injunction issued in November.
The judge’s order, which is meant to provide preliminary relief while the case proceeds, does not go as far as the National Association of the Deaf wanted. The group also sought to have ASL interpreters at all press briefings and events conducted by the vice president, first lady and second lady.
In the order, Ali took issue with the Trump administration’s concerns over controlling the president’s image.
“To the extent the defendants argue that they prefer to act free from association with accessibility for people with disabilities, their gripe is with Congress and the Rehabilitation Act itself,” Ali wrote. “The defendants concede that section 504(a) applies to them, and wanting to have an ‘image’ free from its requirements is not a sound basis for declining to provide reasonable accommodation.”
The Trump administration is currently appealing, but since the judge’s order was issued, the White House has started including ASL interpreters at some events.
The National Association of the Deaf also sued during Trump’s first term over a lack of ASL interpreters. In 2020, a federal district court ordered the White House to provide interpreters for all coronavirus-related briefings. After that, a policy was put in place to provide ASL interpreters for press briefings conducted by the president, vice president, first lady, second gentleman or the White House press secretary, the group said.
