Blog posts
Deaf Football Team’s Inspirational Season
If you haven’t received the news by now, California School for the Deaf’s Riverside Cubs came within one game of securing their division’s title. Emerging this year from seven seasons of consistent losses, the Riverside Cubs—an all-deaf team with deaf coaches—entered its last game with a 12-0 record of consistent wins. The Riverside Cubs had been averaging 65.6 points in each of their 12 winning games. The team fell short in securing a win in its last game, succumbing to the Canoga Park’s Faith Baptist high school football team. The Riverside Cubs should be proud: an outstanding season which captured the imagination of the nation. In the words of running back Enos Zornoza, “We can do anything. We’re not this stereotype that’s out there. We’re equal to hearing people on the playing field.” We await the Riverside Cubs return for the fall 2022 season.
Featured in the NY Law Journal
Indigent Deaf Find Fierce Advocates in Husband-Wife Legal Team
BY REBECCA BAKER
REPRESENTING the indigent deaf poses a host of legal challenges for Bruce and Liz Gitlin, a husband-and-wife team who run a public interest law firm in Manhattan. Among them is making lawyers, judges and other officials understand that some deaf people can’t just “write it down.” “Just because you speak American Sign Language doesn’t necessarily mean that you also read English,” Bruce Gitlin said.
“There are things you don’t think of in the hearing world,” Liz Gitlin added. “It’s not unusual for people to say, ‘Well, I’ll just write and explain what I need.’ People just don’t know that a deaf person may not read English totally.”
Educating the legal community about the needs of the indigent deaf has been the life’s work of the Gitlins, who themselves are not deaf, and their Upper West Side firm, the New York Center for Law and Justice. The center, which the Gitlins opened in 2001, has represented the deaf for more than a decade, particularly low- income deaf clients facing eviction, loss of benefits, domestic violence and other poverty-related issues. The firm also has taken political asylum cases for deaf cli- ents from Jamaica, Gambia and the Mid- dle East with help from large firms such as Kirkland & Ellis, Kramer Levin Naf- talis & Frankel and Bracewell & Giuliani. What makes it particularly difficult for indi- gent deaf clients is the absence of language access that would allow them to represent themselves pro se, Bruce Gitlin said.
The Gitlins recently scored their biggest legal victory— a settlement with New York City that requires it to provide deaf interpreters in the city’s homeless shelters, to train shelter employ- ees on how best to interact with the deaf and” “to install safety features for the eaf such as visual fire alarms and doorbells.”
Landmark Settlement with NYC
New York, NY – The New York Center for Law and Justice (NYCLJ), a legal services organization dedicated to representing the deaf and hard of hearing communities, negotiated individually with the City of New York, as well as jointly with the United States Department of Justice, leading to a landmark settlement requiring the Department of Homeless Services (DHS) to provide American Sign Language interpreters to deaf individuals living within the shelter system.
The settlement arises out of a lawsuit brought by the NYCLJ, along with its pro bono partner, the law firm of Kaye Scholer and litigation partner Jeff Horowitz, on behalf of a deaf client, and her hearing children, as a result of the failure of the New York City shelter system to provide American Sign Language interpreters in shelters. During the course of the litigation, the NYCLJ and Kaye Scholer learned that the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York was engaged in parallel negotiations with the City involving the same issue. Working jointly with the staff of the United States Attorney’s Office, and at times individually, the NYCLJ and Kaye Scholer secured relief for deaf and hard of hearing shelter residents.
Highlights include The New York City Department of Homeless Services’ commitment to ensure that:
- Each shelter makes available a qualified interpreter upon request;
- The homeless shelter system provides the presence of visible alarm appliances for fire and smoke detection; and
- Training will be provided to all City employees involved with the DHS homeless shelter system.
Additionally, if DHS refers a shelter resident who is deaf
or hard of hearing to the New York City Human Resources Administration, the New
York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development or the New York
City Housing Authority for assistance, DHS will notify the respective agencies
that the shelter resident must be provided with a qualified interpreter during
the appointment. This can help deaf individuals in the City’s Shelter system
when submitting a Section 8 housing voucher and for the purposes of obtaining
subsidized permanent housing.
In addition to Liz Gitlin and Bruce J. Gitlin,
of the NYCLJ, as mentioned, plaintiffs were represented by Kaye Scholer
litigation partner Jeff Horowitz, who is Chair of the NYCLJ’s board and who
supervised the matter at Kaye Scholer, and associate Kacy Wiggum, who led the
team of associates representing the deaf client and her children that included,
among others, David Harris, Will Madden, Ashley Holmes, and Stephanna
Szotkowski.
Court Apologizes to Deaf Woman Denied Interpreter
A deaf woman who sued the District of Columbia Superior Court claiming she was unlawfully denied an interpreter for grand jury service has received an apology from the chief judge.
Michelle Koplitz on Wednesday voluntarily withdrew her lawsuit accusing the court of violating the federal Americans With Disabilities Act. In a letter to Koplitz sent Sept. 19, Chief Judge Lee Satterfield expressed his “profound regret” at what happened.
“Please be assured that it is the policy of the Superior Court—and it has been so for many years—to provid[e] all citizens the ability to perform grand and petit jury service,” Satterfield wrote.
One of Koplitz’s lawyers, Joseph Espo of Brown Goldstein Levy, said on Wednesday that the court and the D.C. government’s “response was very prompt, in no way defensive or attempting to suggest that what happened should have happened or was permissible.
“It just should be a reminder that public entities not only need appropriate policies, but they need to do training sufficient so that everyone who’s involved in implementing those policies implements them properly,” Espo said.
Satterfield said in an interview on Wednesday that the incident was an “unfortunate mistake.” He said there was no indication that the jury office previously told prospective jurors that the court wouldn’t pay for an interpreter. Please see the National Law Journal here to read the full post.
One of Marvel’s Avengers Turns to Sign Language
The fight for justice can wear on the body. That is something that Clint Barton, the member of Marvel’s Avengers known as the archer Hawkeye, is going to have to learn to cope with. In issue No. 19 of “Hawkeye,” which arrives in stores on July 30, the writer Matt Fraction and the artist David Aja show the aftereffects of a battle that has left their hero with profound ear damage.
The story strives to connect readers with what he is experiencing: when he can’t hear, the word balloons on the page are blank. The comic also makes extensive use of sign language, but provides no key to interpreting them. “If nothing else, it’s an opportunity for hearing people to get a taste of what it might be like to be deaf,” Mr. Fraction said.
Drawing the issue was “very difficult,” Mr. Aja said. Without the traditional dialogue, his ability to convey gestures was even more critical. Mr. Aja also had to devise ways to depict certain signs that required multiple movements in a clear way. “There’s so much subtlety and expression on the page,” said Sana Amanat, the book’s editor. “You can understand what’s going on even without the balloons.”
The story builds on past adventures, including one where Hawkeye inflicted ear damage on himself to defeat a foe. (The hero’s reluctance to let on that he relied on a hearing aid once led him to demand interview questions in advance of an appearance on “Late Night with David Letterman.”)
The idea of using sign language came from a source closer to home. “When my wife and I had children, we taught them to sign,” Mr. Fraction said. “It cut down on their frustration immensely because they can tell you want they’re thinking.” He consulted with Rachel Coleman, who founded Signing Time, which sells instructional programs aimed at infants and children learning to sign, on how to approach the story’s use of signing. “There was a different grammatical and idiomatic structure,” he said. “Facial expressions were very important.”
Please see the New York Times here to read the full post.
University Ordered to Accommodate Deaf Student
YAKIMA, Wash. — A federal judge has ordered Pacific Northwest University of Health Sciences in Yakima to accommodate a deaf student this fall after the man filed a lawsuit claiming the school discriminated against him by withdrawing his acceptance.
In a preliminary injunction issued Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Salvador Mendoza said PNWU’s defense that accepting the student, Zachary Featherstone, would be a fundamental change for the university was “wholly speculative” and lacking in merit.
“The patient safety and clinical program concerns raised by PNWU are unfounded, based upon the growing trend of successful deaf health care professionals,” Mendoza wrote. “While PNWU is a small, new medical school, when they opened their doors to providing students an education, they, like other schools, have to obey legal obligations that come with providing those services.”
The injunction was granted after oral arguments Tuesday in U.S. District Court, Eastern District, in Yakima. Please see the Yakima Herald to read the full post.
Martin Luther King Jr. Day Reflection
On March 25, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. appeared at the Concord Hotel in the Catskills and spoke before the Rabbinical Assembly of the Conservative Movement. The conversation between King and the rabbis is remarkable for so many reasons, including of course that this historic meeting occurred only ten (10) days before King’s assassination in Memphis. In reading the transcript of the proceeding most recently, however, I am struck by Dr. King’s response to one rabbi’s question regarding how the members of the assembly could assist King in achieving social justice.
King responded by indicating that there were concrete steps that the rabbis could take subsequent to the assembly. King then spent a few minutes explaining his vision for a march on Washington to be held in May, 1968 and requested financial support and offers to host the thousands of residents from Marks, Mississippi who would be traveling to Washington to speak about their condition of abject poverty and unequal access to opportunity.
King never lived to see this march, although Robert Abernathy, who had succeeded Dr. King as leader of the SCLC, decided to fulfill the dream of the slain civil rights leader. Thousands of people converged on the capital and lived in tents on the National Mall in what was known as “Resurrection City.” Many commentators who covered the march include in their reporting their observations of the consistent rain and mud puddles that marked the march during May and June. While camping out in mud puddles on the mall, moreover, the residents of Resurrection City sadly learned that Robert Kennedy had been assassinated.
Assessments of the gains made during this moment in history are mixed, at best, with commentators suggesting that the march may not have created much movement in stemming the subsequent rising tide of millions born into poverty. Many of the leaders and participants wistfully recalled, furthermore, the charisma of King, assessing a loss of opportunity following King’s death, and raising questions how the movement might ever achieve its goals.
Like the powerful national and personal narrative of Dr.
King, so many narratives begun in our own lives will only bear completion, if
at all, in the lives of our successors. This is because the path to achieving
nearly impossible goals-peace or equality of opportunity, for example-is often
unclear and there are more questions about how to find the road than answers
how to navigate it once the destination is clear. Yet, raising the critical question of what is
required of us-personally and nationally-is actually the very beginning of
achievement, and we are fortunate if we can then start to articulate answers to
our questions and act upon our responses.
Many of the great questions formulated during
the course of Dr. King’s short lifetime continue to remain unanswered today,
particularly as they relate to matters of national community, including our
response to poverty and lack of access to justice-matters that are especially
precious to our law center. Let us find inspiration in Dr. King’s life and
work. Let us resolve, further, to utter the beginning of an answer to the
profound questions, first raised by Dr. King, that continue to resonate in our
own time.
Blog posts
Deaf Football Team’s Inspirational Season
If you haven’t received the news by now, California School for the Deaf’s Riverside Cubs came within one game of securing their division’s title. Emerging this year from seven seasons of consistent losses, the Riverside Cubs—an all-deaf team with deaf coaches—entered its last game with a 12-0 record of consistent wins. The Riverside Cubs had been averaging 65.6 points in each of their 12 winning games. The team fell short in securing a win in its last game, succumbing to the Canoga Park’s Faith Baptist high school football team. The Riverside Cubs should be proud: an outstanding season which captured the imagination of the nation. In the words of running back Enos Zornoza, “We can do anything. We’re not this stereotype that’s out there. We’re equal to hearing people on the playing field.” We await the Riverside Cubs return for the fall 2022 season.
Featured in the NY Law Journal
Indigent Deaf Find Fierce Advocates in Husband-Wife Legal Team
BY REBECCA BAKER
REPRESENTING the indigent deaf poses a host of legal challenges for Bruce and Liz Gitlin, a husband-and-wife team who run a public interest law firm in Manhattan. Among them is making lawyers, judges and other officials understand that some deaf people can’t just “write it down.” “Just because you speak American Sign Language doesn’t necessarily mean that you also read English,” Bruce Gitlin said.
“There are things you don’t think of in the hearing world,” Liz Gitlin added. “It’s not unusual for people to say, ‘Well, I’ll just write and explain what I need.’ People just don’t know that a deaf person may not read English totally.”
Educating the legal community about the needs of the indigent deaf has been the life’s work of the Gitlins, who themselves are not deaf, and their Upper West Side firm, the New York Center for Law and Justice. The center, which the Gitlins opened in 2001, has represented the deaf for more than a decade, particularly low- income deaf clients facing eviction, loss of benefits, domestic violence and other poverty-related issues. The firm also has taken political asylum cases for deaf cli- ents from Jamaica, Gambia and the Mid- dle East with help from large firms such as Kirkland & Ellis, Kramer Levin Naf- talis & Frankel and Bracewell & Giuliani. What makes it particularly difficult for indi- gent deaf clients is the absence of language access that would allow them to represent themselves pro se, Bruce Gitlin said.
The Gitlins recently scored their biggest legal victory— a settlement with New York City that requires it to provide deaf interpreters in the city’s homeless shelters, to train shelter employ- ees on how best to interact with the deaf and” “to install safety features for the eaf such as visual fire alarms and doorbells.”
Landmark Settlement with NYC
New York, NY – The New York Center for Law and Justice (NYCLJ), a legal services organization dedicated to representing the deaf and hard of hearing communities, negotiated individually with the City of New York, as well as jointly with the United States Department of Justice, leading to a landmark settlement requiring the Department of Homeless Services (DHS) to provide American Sign Language interpreters to deaf individuals living within the shelter system.
The settlement arises out of a lawsuit brought by the NYCLJ, along with its pro bono partner, the law firm of Kaye Scholer and litigation partner Jeff Horowitz, on behalf of a deaf client, and her hearing children, as a result of the failure of the New York City shelter system to provide American Sign Language interpreters in shelters. During the course of the litigation, the NYCLJ and Kaye Scholer learned that the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York was engaged in parallel negotiations with the City involving the same issue. Working jointly with the staff of the United States Attorney’s Office, and at times individually, the NYCLJ and Kaye Scholer secured relief for deaf and hard of hearing shelter residents.
Highlights include The New York City Department of Homeless Services’ commitment to ensure that:
- Each shelter makes available a qualified interpreter upon request;
- The homeless shelter system provides the presence of visible alarm appliances for fire and smoke detection; and
- Training will be provided to all City employees involved with the DHS homeless shelter system.
Additionally, if DHS refers a shelter resident who is deaf
or hard of hearing to the New York City Human Resources Administration, the New
York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development or the New York
City Housing Authority for assistance, DHS will notify the respective agencies
that the shelter resident must be provided with a qualified interpreter during
the appointment. This can help deaf individuals in the City’s Shelter system
when submitting a Section 8 housing voucher and for the purposes of obtaining
subsidized permanent housing.
In addition to Liz Gitlin and Bruce J. Gitlin,
of the NYCLJ, as mentioned, plaintiffs were represented by Kaye Scholer
litigation partner Jeff Horowitz, who is Chair of the NYCLJ’s board and who
supervised the matter at Kaye Scholer, and associate Kacy Wiggum, who led the
team of associates representing the deaf client and her children that included,
among others, David Harris, Will Madden, Ashley Holmes, and Stephanna
Szotkowski.
Court Apologizes to Deaf Woman Denied Interpreter
A deaf woman who sued the District of Columbia Superior Court claiming she was unlawfully denied an interpreter for grand jury service has received an apology from the chief judge.
Michelle Koplitz on Wednesday voluntarily withdrew her lawsuit accusing the court of violating the federal Americans With Disabilities Act. In a letter to Koplitz sent Sept. 19, Chief Judge Lee Satterfield expressed his “profound regret” at what happened.
“Please be assured that it is the policy of the Superior Court—and it has been so for many years—to provid[e] all citizens the ability to perform grand and petit jury service,” Satterfield wrote.
One of Koplitz’s lawyers, Joseph Espo of Brown Goldstein Levy, said on Wednesday that the court and the D.C. government’s “response was very prompt, in no way defensive or attempting to suggest that what happened should have happened or was permissible.
“It just should be a reminder that public entities not only need appropriate policies, but they need to do training sufficient so that everyone who’s involved in implementing those policies implements them properly,” Espo said.
Satterfield said in an interview on Wednesday that the incident was an “unfortunate mistake.” He said there was no indication that the jury office previously told prospective jurors that the court wouldn’t pay for an interpreter. Please see the National Law Journal here to read the full post.
One of Marvel’s Avengers Turns to Sign Language
The fight for justice can wear on the body. That is something that Clint Barton, the member of Marvel’s Avengers known as the archer Hawkeye, is going to have to learn to cope with. In issue No. 19 of “Hawkeye,” which arrives in stores on July 30, the writer Matt Fraction and the artist David Aja show the aftereffects of a battle that has left their hero with profound ear damage.
The story strives to connect readers with what he is experiencing: when he can’t hear, the word balloons on the page are blank. The comic also makes extensive use of sign language, but provides no key to interpreting them. “If nothing else, it’s an opportunity for hearing people to get a taste of what it might be like to be deaf,” Mr. Fraction said.
Drawing the issue was “very difficult,” Mr. Aja said. Without the traditional dialogue, his ability to convey gestures was even more critical. Mr. Aja also had to devise ways to depict certain signs that required multiple movements in a clear way. “There’s so much subtlety and expression on the page,” said Sana Amanat, the book’s editor. “You can understand what’s going on even without the balloons.”
The story builds on past adventures, including one where Hawkeye inflicted ear damage on himself to defeat a foe. (The hero’s reluctance to let on that he relied on a hearing aid once led him to demand interview questions in advance of an appearance on “Late Night with David Letterman.”)
The idea of using sign language came from a source closer to home. “When my wife and I had children, we taught them to sign,” Mr. Fraction said. “It cut down on their frustration immensely because they can tell you want they’re thinking.” He consulted with Rachel Coleman, who founded Signing Time, which sells instructional programs aimed at infants and children learning to sign, on how to approach the story’s use of signing. “There was a different grammatical and idiomatic structure,” he said. “Facial expressions were very important.”
Please see the New York Times here to read the full post.
University Ordered to Accommodate Deaf Student
YAKIMA, Wash. — A federal judge has ordered Pacific Northwest University of Health Sciences in Yakima to accommodate a deaf student this fall after the man filed a lawsuit claiming the school discriminated against him by withdrawing his acceptance.
In a preliminary injunction issued Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Salvador Mendoza said PNWU’s defense that accepting the student, Zachary Featherstone, would be a fundamental change for the university was “wholly speculative” and lacking in merit.
“The patient safety and clinical program concerns raised by PNWU are unfounded, based upon the growing trend of successful deaf health care professionals,” Mendoza wrote. “While PNWU is a small, new medical school, when they opened their doors to providing students an education, they, like other schools, have to obey legal obligations that come with providing those services.”
The injunction was granted after oral arguments Tuesday in U.S. District Court, Eastern District, in Yakima. Please see the Yakima Herald to read the full post.
Martin Luther King Jr. Day Reflection
On March 25, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. appeared at the Concord Hotel in the Catskills and spoke before the Rabbinical Assembly of the Conservative Movement. The conversation between King and the rabbis is remarkable for so many reasons, including of course that this historic meeting occurred only ten (10) days before King’s assassination in Memphis. In reading the transcript of the proceeding most recently, however, I am struck by Dr. King’s response to one rabbi’s question regarding how the members of the assembly could assist King in achieving social justice.
King responded by indicating that there were concrete steps that the rabbis could take subsequent to the assembly. King then spent a few minutes explaining his vision for a march on Washington to be held in May, 1968 and requested financial support and offers to host the thousands of residents from Marks, Mississippi who would be traveling to Washington to speak about their condition of abject poverty and unequal access to opportunity.
King never lived to see this march, although Robert Abernathy, who had succeeded Dr. King as leader of the SCLC, decided to fulfill the dream of the slain civil rights leader. Thousands of people converged on the capital and lived in tents on the National Mall in what was known as “Resurrection City.” Many commentators who covered the march include in their reporting their observations of the consistent rain and mud puddles that marked the march during May and June. While camping out in mud puddles on the mall, moreover, the residents of Resurrection City sadly learned that Robert Kennedy had been assassinated.
Assessments of the gains made during this moment in history are mixed, at best, with commentators suggesting that the march may not have created much movement in stemming the subsequent rising tide of millions born into poverty. Many of the leaders and participants wistfully recalled, furthermore, the charisma of King, assessing a loss of opportunity following King’s death, and raising questions how the movement might ever achieve its goals.
Like the powerful national and personal narrative of Dr.
King, so many narratives begun in our own lives will only bear completion, if
at all, in the lives of our successors. This is because the path to achieving
nearly impossible goals-peace or equality of opportunity, for example-is often
unclear and there are more questions about how to find the road than answers
how to navigate it once the destination is clear. Yet, raising the critical question of what is
required of us-personally and nationally-is actually the very beginning of
achievement, and we are fortunate if we can then start to articulate answers to
our questions and act upon our responses.
Many of the great questions formulated during
the course of Dr. King’s short lifetime continue to remain unanswered today,
particularly as they relate to matters of national community, including our
response to poverty and lack of access to justice-matters that are especially
precious to our law center. Let us find inspiration in Dr. King’s life and
work. Let us resolve, further, to utter the beginning of an answer to the
profound questions, first raised by Dr. King, that continue to resonate in our
own time.