Reasonable accommodation

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A reasonable accommodation is an adjustment made in a system to accommodate or make fair the same system for an individual based on a proven need. That need can vary. Accommodations can be religious, physical, mental or emotional, academic, or employment related and are often mandated by law. Each country has its own system of reasonable accommodations. The United Nations use this term in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, saying refusal to make accommodation results in discrimination. It defines a "reasonable accommodation" as:

... necessary and appropriate modification and adjustments not imposing a disproportionate or undue burden, where needed in a particular case, to ensure to persons with disabilities the enjoyment or exercise on an equal basis with others of all human rights and fundamental freedoms;

Canada

In Canada equality rights, as set out in provincial and federal anti-discrimination laws and in section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, require that accommodation be made to various minorities. (The origin of the term reasonable accommodation in Canadian law is found in its labour law jurisprudence, specifically Ontario (Human Rights Commission) v Simpsons-Sears Ltd, [1985] 2 SCR 536, and is argued to be the obligation of employers to change some general rules for certain employees, under the condition that this does not cause "undue hardship".)

Quebec

In Quebec, under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the provincial charter of human rights, politicians engaged in "values" clarifications on accommodation from at least 2007. In that time, various ideologies attempted to impose onto Quebecers definitions of values, without consensus or even legislative success. The question on what was and will be the national identity has been contested, such as the court decision on the wearing of the Sikh kirpan in Multani v. Commission scolaire Marguerite‑Bourgeoys.

 

The municipal council of the town of Hérouxville passed a "code of conduct" for residents. It provided details of expectations of behaviour, and defined practices of other countries that were not acceptable in the town, such as stoning women or burning them alive, and female genital mutilation. The code of conduct also explained common practices in Canadian culture. It said that carrying a weapon to school (a reference to the Sikh ceremonial kirpan), covering one's face (some particular forms of the Muslim veil), and making accommodation for prayer in public schools would not be permitted. It attests that "Our people eat to nourish the body, not the soul," in reference to Jewish and Muslim dietary laws, and that health-care professionals "do not have to ask permission to perform blood transfusions."

This code of conduct was developed as the town and province absorbed more immigrants from other cultures. Other cultural questions arose. In 2007 a YMCA set up clouded windows to shield ultra-Orthodox Jews who had complained that youngsters could see girls and women in gym attire. There have been questions about whether voters are allowed to fill out and submit ballots while clothed in a niqab or burka, which can hide identity. A Muslim spokesman said that women are always required to show identity for public purposes, so it was a question raised unnecessarily.

While most residents in Quebec have identified as Catholic on surveys, the province has become increasingly secular, with declining rates of church attendance. The provincial government has worked to reach an accommodation with the Roman Catholic Church on guidelines for conversion or disposal of underused churches. The church has allowed local parishes to work with municipalities to develop the buildings as community centres, for example, rather than for private condominium construction.

Judaism

In 2007, Benjamin Rubin, a forward with the Gatineau Olympiques ice hockey team, refused to play several key matches because they fell on a Jewish holiday. Some claimed the Jews would end up forcing the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League to reschedule all their matches on Fridays and Saturdays. Rubin and the Olympiques came to an agreement, and "he will only miss a handful of games." He has since left the team.

Islam

In 2007 Elections Canada ruled that Muslim women wearing the niqab (veil) or burka would be allowed to vote in all upcoming national elections, by-elections and referendums without showing their faces to an Elections Canada official. The same policy applies to all Canadians under federal Bill C-31, in that photo identification is not strictly required if two other pieces of acceptable official identification are provided, or another voter vouches for them. The proclamation created social animosity towards Muslims in Quebec. Premier Jean Charest of Quebec described this as a bad decision. He noted that Quebec's National Assembly had voted to forbid Muslim women from voting if they would not reveal their faces as a confirmation of identity.

The national Conservative government challenged Elections Canada to review this decision. The federal Liberals and the Bloc Québécois also requested such a reversal, to demand that all voters be required to show their faces in order to vote, even those whose faces are normally covered for religious reasons. They joined other federal and provincial politicians from Quebec who attacked the decision.

Sarah Elgazzar, an advocate for the Canadian Council on American–Islamic Relations in Montreal, declared that it is improbable that very many Muslim women will have hidden faces when voting. Elgazzar insisted that women using niqabs usually take them off to distinguish themselves and do not sport them for photo identification. This fact was echoed by Salam Elmenyawi of the Muslim Council of Montreal.

Media exposure

There was extensive coverage of related issues in Quebec's news media in 2006 and 2007. Some analysts attributed this more to competition among media than a measure of citizen concern. The premier of Quebec declared several non-negotiable values, such as "the equality of women and men; the primacy of French; the separation between the state and religion".

The conservative political party Action démocratique du Québec (ADQ) appeared to gain support from these debates. It formed the official opposition in the provincial legislature for one term from 2007 to 2008, until the increasing prominence of the global economic crisis relegated reasonable accommodation to an issue of less importance.

Employment integration

A 2006 examination from Statistics Canada demonstrated that Quebec had the highest newcomer unemployment rate in Canada. The newest immigrants endured an unemployment ratio of 17.8 per cent in 2006, or almost three times the 6.3 per cent ratio of native-born help. In contrast, joblessness among current newcomers in Ontario was 11 per cent contrasted with 4.4 per cent among the Canadian born. In British Columbia, the numbers were 9.5 per cent and 3.7 per cent, respectively.

The study's coauthor, Danielle Zietsma, was reported to have cautioned that she and her colleagues would need some time to conduct the analyses necessary to explain the basis of these findings. The Montreal Gazette columnist Jay Bryan suggested that Quebec was exceptional in the degree to which it imposed hurdles on new immigrants seeking employment in the province, including "the devaluation of allegedly inadequate foreign credentials, language tests that have little to do with professional performance, and 'Canadian experience' requirements that serve as an all-purpose excuse to lock out job applicants who don't already have a job." However, the column reported that the study had found similar numbers of surveyed immigrants had indicated that the demand for Canadian experience (26 per cent) or foreign credentialing and work experience recognition problems (21 per cent) as principal barriers to employment.

Political reaction

Former leader of the Parti Québécois André Boisclair noted, "We're not talking about reasonable accommodation [if] it has nothing to do with public services", Boisclair said. At the same time, Boisclair blamed Premier Jean Charest for pandering to Quebecers who balk at adjustments made for immigrants in civil society. Charest declined to defend them when girls wearing hijab were prohibited from soccer and tae kwon do, and when prejudiced remarks were offered about Jews.

Mario Dumont, leader of the Action démocratique du Québec (ADQ) said in an interview in La Presse that Quebec needs more immigration for economic and demographic reasons, but that he believes that Quebec had met its limits of immigrant acculturation, and that any further increase in rates of immigration would create ghettos. (At present, the province accepts a smaller percentage of newcomers than elsewhere in Canada.) He criticized Charest for a plan to raise such levels when the Liberal government has cut funds for integration of newcomers into French culture. "We're a linguistic minority...and immigrants need francization", Dumont said. "It's quite a challenge."

Then Parti Québécois leader Pauline Marois said that Quebec should assume all control over its immigration, not the 60 per cent that it has now under a bilateral agreement with the government of Canada. She also said the province should make the message clear to immigrants that Quebec is a francophone "state", not officially bilingual as are the federal government and Quebec's neighbouring province New Brunswick. 

Marois said that Quebec is in need of more immigrants, to offset a low birth rate for future labour needs. She further believes that Quebec is a francophone state in which the rights of the anglophone minority are respected, and where all the inhabitants live in French. Charest criticized his political adversaries in the provincial legislature, and blamed them for encouraging "intolerance" in the continuing controversy. He published an open letter in regional dailies, saying he is worried the province's image of openness will diminish outside Quebec. 

Dumont's statements about immigration, he said, led to the passing of a code of conduct by the town of Hérouxville that notified Muslims that face veils or stoning women would not be accepted there.

Bouchard–Taylor Commission

Premier Jean Charest, citing several instances of "unreasonable" accommodation, advised the Lieutenant Governor of Quebec to appoint a two-man commission in February 2007, to investigate the issue of reasonable accommodation, and report back by 31 March 2008. The formal title for the commission is the Consultation Commission on Accommodation Practices Related to Cultural Differences, and it is sometimes called the Bouchard–Taylor Commission. Its commissioners are professors Charles Taylor, a well-known federalist and philosopher, and Gérard Bouchard, a historian and sociologist. Bouchard said in an interview that sovereignty was the solution to calm Franco-Quebecers' cultural insecurity. Co-chair Taylor stated, however, that Quebecers need to demonstrate the "openness and generosity of spirit" that majorities should have towards minorities.

The commission conducted hearings in various Quebec regions. The committee listened to individuals, organizations, and so-called experts on Quebec identity, religion, and integration of cultural communities (minority groups). Before formal proceedings began, Bouchard and Taylor said they heard in focus groups across the province that there was insecurity among Quebec's traditional ethnic French population. They believed that hearings would help with educating the public; for instance, they thought the perception of Muslim influence was higher among some groups than is justified by data. Taylor underlined that Quebecers need to show an "openness and generosity of spirit" for 'cultural communities. As well, the report recommended that accommodation be made in public schools to allow students who want to wear religious attire in class, such as the hijab, kippah or turban, to do so.

The Bouchard–Taylor report recommended that judges, Crown prosecutors, prison guards and police officers refrain from wearing any religious attire or symbols. "We believe that a majority of Quebecers accept that a uniform prohibition applying to all government employees regardless of the nature of their position is excessive, but want those employees who occupy positions that embody at the highest level the necessary neutrality of the state ... to impose on themselves a form of circumspection concerning the expression of their religious convictions", Bouchard and Taylor wrote.

The commission also recommended that the crucifix in the National Assembly, placed above the Speaker's chair by Premier Maurice Duplessis, be removed to another part of the building. This is a recommendation that successive governments have rejected.

In 2017, In the aftermath of the Charter of Quebecois Values debate, Taylor stated that he no longer supports that opinion, and said it was misinterpreted by many politicians. The Bouchard–Taylor report deliberately did not include teachers, civil servants and health-care professionals from those that should be forbidden to wear religious symbols.

United States

In the United States, federal law requires that reasonable accommodations be made for employment, education, housing, courts, and public venues. 

Employment

The Americans With Disabilities Act, known as ADA, was signed into law on 26 July 1990. It carried forward material from Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. 'A reasonable accommodation' is defined by the US Department of Justice as "any modification or adjustment to a job or the work environment that will enable a qualified applicant or employee with a disability to participate in the application process or to perform essential job functions. Reasonable accommodation also includes adjustments to assure that a qualified individual with a disability has rights and privileges in employment equal to those of employees without disabilities."

In September 2012, Home Depot company agreed to pay $100,000 and furnish other relief to settle a disability discrimination lawsuit filed by the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, for the alleged failure to provide a reasonable accommodation for a cashier with cancer at its Towson, Maryland, store, and then for purportedly firing her because of her condition.

State and local government services, programs, and activities

Title II of the ADA provides that "no qualified individual with a disability shall, by reason of such disability, be excluded from participation in or be denied the benefits of the services, programs, or activities of a public entity, or be subject to discrimination by any such entity". State and local governments must provide reasonable accommodations to ensure such access, unless a fundamental alteration would result.

Public accommodations

Title III of the ADA requires private businesses open to the public and commercial facilities to provide reasonable accommodations to people with disabilities to ensure that they have equal access to goods and services.

Housing

Under Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, as amended by the Fair Housing Amendments Act of 1988, codified in the United States Code at 42 USC §§ 3601–3619, and commonly known as the Fair Housing Act, virtually all housing providers must make reasonable accommodations in their rules, policies, practices, or services under certain circumstances. A reasonable accommodation must be granted when such an accommodation is necessary to afford a prospective or existing tenant with a disability an opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling (including but not limited to apartments, single family homes, and other types of private and public housing) to the same extent as a person who does not have that disability. The Fair Housing Act covers "dwellings", and in many situations that term encompasses such non-traditional housing as homeless shelters and college dormitories. It bears noting that in regard to larger dwellings such as apartment buildings, the right to a reasonable accommodation under the Fair Housing Act requires that housing providers grant a requested reasonable accommodation that is necessary to enable a disabled tenant to enjoy an indoor or outdoor common area to the same extent as a non-disabled tenant enjoys such areas. 

In regard to reasonable accommodations, there is no requirement that a housing provider initiate the reasonable accommodation process; the Fair Housing Act contemplates that a tenant will approach his or her landlord with a request for a change in the landlord's policies that will reasonably accommodate the tenant's disability. For example, a prospective or actual tenant whose disability requires him to use crutches may request a reasonable accommodation in the form of an assigned parking space close to the entrance of his or her apartment building. If the disability is of a kind covered by the Fair Housing Act, and there is a genuine relationship between the requested accommodation and the disability, and granting the reasonable accommodation would not fundamentally alter the nature of the landlord's operations or impose an undue financial or administrative burden on the landlord, then the landlord must grant the requested reasonable accommodation or else find himself in violation of the Fair Housing Act and liable for substantial civil money penalties as well as payment to the disabled person for the injury suffered by him or her.

The Fair Housing Act is enforced by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), whose regulations governing reasonable accommodations are found at 24 CFR § 100.204. Sometimes it is easy to tell when (for example) a tenant has a disability and the tenant's reasonable accommodation request must be granted; other times it is not quite so apparent that a tenant suffers from a recognized disability. But a housing provider has an obligation to engage in an interactive process in order to honestly try to figure out whether the requested accommodation is reasonable and must be granted.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development and the US Department of Justice have issued a joint statement to provide guidance on the concept of reasonable accommodation. Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, as amended (including the amendments made by the Americans with Disabilities Amendments Act of 2008), overlaps with the Fair Housing Act in its coverage of public housing. As noted on HUD's website: "Public housing was established to provide decent and safe rental housing for eligible low-income families, the elderly, and persons with disabilities." Over a million US households live in public housing.

United Kingdom

The laws of England, Wales, and Scotland require employers to make reasonable accommodations for disabled employees, initially under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, and now under the Equality Act 2010. Failure to do so can give rise to a complaint by an employee to an employment tribunal.

Audism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Audism is a set of beliefs that include: hearing people are superior to Deaf people; Deaf people should be pitied for having futile and miserable lives; Deaf people should become like hearing people as far as possible; and shunning of sign languages. Tom L. Humphries coined the term in his doctoral dissertation in 1975, but it did not start to catch on until Harlan Lane used it in his own writings. Humphries originally applied audism to individual attitudes and practices; whereas Lane broadened the term to include oppression of deaf people.

Types of audism

Linguistic audism can occur by banning use of sign languages. Many schools throughout the world engaged in such prohibition and many continue to do so. Audism may also be found in deaf education and in other corporate institutions and groups that deal with deafness. In these cases, it is believed that the educators, administrators, and professionals within these organizations behave in a way that is meant to dominate or marginalize the Deaf community.

Dysconscious audism favors what is normal for hearing people. This limits Deaf culture and pride, by creating an environment in which deaf people must conform to the ways of hearing people. It greatly impacts Deaf education in terms of shunning sign languages in favor of communication that is based on spoken languages, and more acceptable to hearing people.

Additionally, deaf people can practice forms of discrimination against members of their own community, based on what they believe is acceptable behavior, use of language, or social association. Dr. Genie Gertz explored examples of such audism in American society in her published dissertation. Audism can also occur between groups of deaf people, with some who choose not to use a sign language and not to identify with Deaf culture considering themselves to be superior to those who do, or members of the Deaf community asserting superiority over deaf people who use listening and spoken language to communicate. 

Active audism is when a person knowingly engages in audist behavior. The person knows the effects of audism, yet still engages in this behavior and has an audist attitude. Passive audism is when a person is engaging in audist behavior, yet does not have knowledge about the Deaf community's values. Passive audists do not think about how their actions or words concern deaf individuals, hearing individuals, or sign language. Passive audists act due to their lack of knowledge of the Deaf community and its culture.

Ben Bahan describes audism in two forms: overt and covert audism. Overt audism is a term used to define Deaf people and their culture as inferior to hearing culture. In the medical field, this idea can manifest by looking at deafness as something to be fixed, but can also be applied to practices such as audiology, speech therapy, medicine psychology, social work and other fields. This does not mean that all institutions inherently practice audism but that they are revert to audiological tendencies. These two forms illustrate the exclusion of Deaf people from specific institutions or practices. Bahan notes inventions such as telephones, radios, or a lunch bell can be considered audist because they are sound-based technologies.

History

The principles and ideas behind audism have been experienced by the Deaf community for many centuries, but the term "audism" was first coined in 1975 by Deaf scholar Tom Humphries in his unpublished essay. Humphries originally defined audism as, "the notion that one is superior based on one's ability to hear or behave in the manner of one who hears". Since then, other scholars, such as Harlan Lane in his book, Mask of Benevolence, have attempted to further expand on Humphries' definition to include different levels of audism: individual, institutional, metaphysical, and laissez-faire. As Humphries' definition stands, it only incorporates individual audism, which includes Deaf jokes, hate crimes, and low classroom expectations of Deaf people.

The idea that there is systemic, or institutional, audism within society was originally proposed in Harlan Lane's Mask of Benevolence, as an extension of David T. Wellman's concept of institutional racism. It was further expanded by H-Dirksen Bauman, in Audism: Exploring the Metaphysics of Oppression, and again, by Richard Eckert and Amy Rowley, in Audism: A Theory and Practice of Audiocentric Privilege, and institutional audism is now described as, "a structural system of exploitative advantage that focuses on and perpetuates the subordination of Deaf Communities of origin, language, and culture".

Despite scholars' best efforts to incorporate all aspects of audism, still, there is another important facet of audism. Scholars have noted that deaf people who used their voice had more societal rights than those deaf people who did not have the ability to speak. In attempt to quantify this relationship, Bauman extended the concept of phonocentrism proposed by Jacques Derrida, "the supremacy of speech and repression of nonphonetic forms of communication", and developed the term, metaphysical audism. Metaphysical audism refers to the idea of language being a distinguishing factor in what makes us human; however, with metaphysical audism, language becomes confused with speech, and in turn, speech becomes linked to being human.

Origins of audism

The seeds of audism were reflected in the lack of early documentation and a misunderstanding of deaf people and their language. Limited evidence can be provided about the treatment of deaf individuals by ancient civilizations. However, the documentation that is provided shows a resistance towards deaf people as a functioning part of society. Aristotle's Poetics alluded that those labeled as "disabled" would be put to death for the benefit of the rest of society. During the time of the Renaissance, efforts to educate deaf individuals posed complications due to the lack of literacy from the vast majority of society, deaf and hearing alike. In New England during the pilgrimage to America, any variant from the category of the norm was grounds for witchcraft or sorcery.

Richard Eckert coined the term laissez-faire audism to indicate the modern state of acknowledging members the Deaf community's humanity, but denying their independence, for example through pediatric cochlear implantation.

Audism in the educational system

Audiological ideologies have shaped curriculum within Deaf Education. Because Deaf people make up 1% of the American population, teachers are less equipped to work with the needs of Deaf or hard of hearing students. In the USA, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and the Education for all Handicapped Children Act (EAHCA) allow deaf children to more easily participate in mainstream public education if their families so choose. These acts provide education policies that reinforced integration of deaf individuals into hearing society. Signed languages were generally replaced with Manually Coded English as a method of communication and Deaf/Hard of Hearing students were placed with hearing students in hopes that this would further speech development.

Institutions such as the National Association of the Deaf (NAD) continue to work with U.S. Officials to improve these policies, claiming these educational practices were audist and create precedence of one language over another by implementing English as the primary language for instruction.

Audism in the legal system

Lack of access to communication in trials of deaf individuals has resulted in mistrials attributed to factors including interpreter and CART provider error and unqualified interpretation, all contributing to an overall lack of understanding or misunderstanding by the judge and members of the jury. These factors have also led to unlawful sentences in some criminal cases. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires Deaf individuals be given equal access in the courtroom through a qualified interpreter. The law establishes stricter guidelines for interpreting licensure, aiming to reduce the number of errors in the courtroom.

Conversely, a deaf man convicted of rape in Norway successfully appealed for a shorter sentence by arguing his deafness constituted a mitigating circumstance, reducing his degree of culpability for the crime. The court's decision angered the Norwegian Deaf community, which perceived the rationale behind the reduced sentence as patronizing, ignoring the capacity of deaf individuals to reason and thus to be held fully accountable and to receive the same sentences as other, hearing, Norwegian citizens.

Domestic crimes committed among and against deaf individuals tend to have a lower investigation rate than domestic crime between hearing individuals. A study shows that deaf women have a higher rate of abuse than hearing women, although the disparity has attracted little attention for further research.

Among deaf individuals incarcerated in Texas in 2004, 20% were judged "linguistically incompetent", unable to either understand the charges they faced or to meaningfully participate in the creation of their defense, while another 30% were "adjudicatively incompetent, unable to understand the legal proceedings without targeted instructional intervention. These statuses were the results of either lack of fluency in any language or functional illiteracy, respectively. As a result, it is unlikely that these deaf inmates had received their constitutional right to due process of law. However, all deaf inmates studied had nevertheless been convicted and incarcerated, possible violations of their constitutional rights. Notably, deaf individuals who were either ASL-dominant bilinguals equally comfortable in both ASL and English were the least likely to fall into either category and therefore the most likely to have received due process.

Audism in linguistics

Audism can be closely linked to the term linguicism, or ideologies that pertain to the way in which an institution is facilitated and regulated in favor of a dominant culture through the basis of language. Linguicism highlights spoken language to be a part of the dominant culture and signed languages to be of the minority culture, expanding that those who use spoken language are provided with more accessible economic, social and political resources which give them an advantage over those who use signed languages.

Audism is linked to phonocentric values in defining linguistics. Linguistic terminology has been determined by sound based methodologies, for instance the concept of linearity in spoken languages fails to recognize the grammatical structures of visual-manual-kinesthetic based languages. Additionally, early twentieth century linguists determined those without sound-based languages did not possess any capacity for language while others romanticized sign languages or believed them to be primitive. However, additional linguists argue this claim minimizes the advances in Deaf Studies and the recognition of signed languages as a part of the linguistic lexicon.

For centuries, there has been controversy over whether linguistic theory pertains to signed languages. It was not until William Stokoe contested this argument and found structural evidence that linked ASL to linguistic rules that ASL was finally recognized as a language. These claims, however, are still contested by some lawmakers and educators due to the inability to recognize the rules of visual-modal languages and misconceptions of their origins outside of sound-based languages.

Additional resources pertaining to audism

Personal accounts of audism have been documented from documentaries such as Audism Unveiled, a movie that discusses the oppression of deaf people and their personal struggles with audism. Other accounts can be seen through the research of academics such as Peter Hauser whose TedTalk illustrated the detriments audism has on the identity. His studied illustrated a connection between the lack of exposure to Deaf culture and a deaf person's self esteem.

Controversy

Activists in the Deaf community claim that audists harm Deaf culture by considering deafness a disability, rather than as a cultural difference. Some Deaf activists call cochlear implants the audists' tool of cultural genocide that is wiping out the Deaf community.

As many as 95% of deaf children in the US are born to hearing parents, and research shows that deaf children who listen and speak to communicate, but do not use sign language have better communication outcomes and social well-being than Deaf children who use sign language.

Advocates for audist ideology

Alexander Graham Bell – inventor of the telephone. An avid supporter of eugenics, he published the essay Memoir Upon the Formation of a Deaf Variety of the Human Race which condemned intermarriage between Deaf individuals. He championed the oralist movement, his associated endeavors including pushing for the removal of sign language from Deaf schools to be replaced with his own alphabet called "Visible Speech", and striving to cure deafness.

Horace Mann founded the first school for the Deaf in Connecticut but whose policies educational reform that pushed the oralist methods, such as a focus on lipreading and articulation in the education of deaf children.

Garrick Mallery studied Indian culture and sign language for the Bureau of Ethnology in the Smithsonian Institution. Although he recognized the validity of modal languages, he argued that signed languages were inferior to oral languages on the basis that they could not be written down.

Deaf culture

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Deaf culture is the set of social beliefs, behaviors, art, literary traditions, history, values, and shared institutions of communities that are influenced by deafness and which use sign languages as the main means of communication. When used as a cultural label especially within the culture, the word deaf is often written with a capital D and referred to as "big D Deaf" in speech and sign. When used as a label for the audiological condition, it is written with a lower case d.Carl G. Croneberg coined the term of "Deaf Culture" and he was the first to discuss analogies between Deaf and hearing cultures in his appendices C/D of the 1965 Dictionary of American Sign Language.

 

Members of the Deaf community tend to view deafness as a difference in human experience rather than a disability or disease. Many members take pride in their Deaf identity. Deaf people, in the sense of a community or culture, can then be seen as a minority group, and therefore some who are a part of this community may feel misunderstood by those who don't know sign language. Another struggle that the Deaf community often faces is that educational institutions usually consist primarily of hearing people. Additionally, hearing family members may need to learn sign language in order for the deaf person to feel included and supported. Unlike some other cultures, a deaf person may join the community later in life, rather than needing to be born into it.

Cochlear Implant - A surgically implanted device used by Deaf and hard-of-hearing people to improve hearing.

There are several perspectives on deaf people and Deaf culture that shape their treatment and role in society. From a medical standpoint, many encourage Deaf children to undergo surgery. Especially in the past, the medical perspective discouraged the use of sign language because they believed it would distract from development of auditory and speech skills. From a social standpoint, Deaf individuals are welcomed to participate in society in the same manner as any other individual. This view discourages the idea that those who are deaf or hard-of-hearing are sick and in need of a cure. The social view also encourages making accommodations for deaf people so that they can fully participate in society. Such accommodations include the use of interpreters or improved closed captioning systems. Many feel, however, that the social view fails to recognize the unique qualities of Deaf people and Deaf culture. They believe that this perspective asks Deaf people to fit and find their own way in a predominantly hearing society, instead of recognizing their own abilities and culture. Another perspective is referred to as the cultural-linguistic view. Supporters of Deaf Culture state that this perspective appropriately recognizes Deaf people as a minority culture in the world with their own language and social norms. This standpoint is believed to promote Deaf people's right to collective space within society to pass on their language and culture to future generations.

Being involved in the Deaf community and culturally identifying as Deaf has been shown to significantly contribute to positive self-esteem in Deaf individuals. The community can provide support, easy social interaction, and "refuge from the grinding frustrations of the hearing world." Conversely, Deaf individuals who are not a part of the Deaf community may not have the same support in the hearing world, resulting in lower self-esteem. Stereotypes, lack of knowledge, and negative attitudes about Deafness cause widespread discrimination. This could lead to a lower education and economic status for deaf people. 

The community may include hearing family members of deaf people and sign-language interpreters who identify with Deaf culture. It does not automatically include all people who are deaf or hard-of-hearing. As educator and American Sign Language interpreter Anna Mindess writes, "it is not the extent of hearing loss that defines a member of the deaf community but the individual's own sense of identity and resultant actions." As with all social groups that a person chooses to belong to, a person is a member of the Deaf community if he/she "identifies him/herself as a member of the Deaf community, and other members accept that person as a part of the community."

Deaf culture is recognized under Article 30, Paragraph 4 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which states that "Persons with disabilities shall be entitled, on an equal basis with others, to recognition and support of their specific cultural and linguistic identity, including sign languages and deaf culture."

Terminology

"deaf" and "Deaf"

In 1972, Professor James Woodward, co-director of the Centre for Sign Linguistics and Deaf Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong since 2004, proposed a distinction between deafness and the Deaf culture. He suggested using deaf (written with a lower case d) to refer to the audiological condition of deafness, and Deaf (written with an upper case D) to refer to Deaf culture.

A U.S. state regulation from the Colorado Department of Human Services defines "Deaf" (uppercase) as "A group of people, with varying hearing acuity, whose primary mode of communication is a visual language (predominantly American Sign Language (ASL) in the United States) and have a shared heritage and culture," and has a separate definition for "deaf" (lowercase).

This convention has been widely adopted within the culture and the scholarly literature in English, and to some extent in other languages. The two terms are also widely used to refer to distinct but partially overlapping groups of people: deaf people (those with significant hearing loss) vs. Deaf people (those who identify with Deaf culture and use a sign language as a primary means of communication). Not everyone makes this distinction, however; some point out that there are many ways to be "deaf" and a simple two-way distinction is too confining.

"People-first" language rejected

In Deaf culture, person-first language (i.e., "Person who is deaf", "person who is hard of hearing") has long been rejected since being culturally Deaf is seen as a source of positive identity and pride. Instead, Deaf culture uses Deaf-first language: "Deaf person" or "hard-of-hearing person". Capital D -Deaf is as stated prior, is referred to as a student who first identifies as that. Lower case d- deaf is where a person has hearing loss. Typically, those that consider themselves Deaf, first and foremost prior to any other identity.

"Hearing-impaired" and "hard of hearing"

Hearing people may use the term hearing-impaired, perhaps thinking it is more polite than "deaf", but Deaf people tend to reject it, for a variety of reasons. It is more likely to be used for people with a mild or moderate hearing loss or for people who have acquired deafness in adulthood rather than by those who have grown up Deaf. By contrast, those who identify with the Deaf culture movement typically reject the label hearing-impaired and other labels that imply that deafness is a pathological condition, viewing it instead as a focus of pride. Further, the term focuses entirely on the physical condition of deafness, while ignoring the linguistic and cultural distinction between those who sign and identify with Deaf culture, and those who do not. 

The term "hard of hearing" is preferred over "hearing-impaired" within the American Deaf community and accepted as a neutral term without negative or pathological connotations, with no implication about age of onset. It generally refers to people who depend primarily on a spoken language for communication or who have mild or moderate hearing loss. An ASL term hard-of-hearing exists and is roughly equivalent to the English term

Deprecated terms: "deaf-mute" and "deaf and dumb"

Various terms once used to refer to the deaf are no longer used and may be viewed either as out-of-date, or an insult, such as deaf-mute, or deaf and dumb. Formerly these terms were neutral, or at least, accepted, as can be seen by nicknames such as baseball player Dummy Hoy, or the former names of educational institutions, since renamed, such as Pennsylvania School for the Deaf (formerly Pennsylvania Institute for the Deaf and Dumb), Gallaudet University (formerly National Deaf-Mute College). 

Deaf-mute is a literal translation of the French sourd-muet which was already in use in France in the 19th century, in the works of the founder of the deaf school in Paris, as well as in the name of the school, the Institution Nationale des Sourds-Muets à Paris. Since some Deaf people can also speak, the term "deaf-mute" is not accurate. The word "dumb" had meant "speechless" for centuries in English, before it gained the sense of "stupid" as a secondary meaning in the 19th century, but since "stupid" has now become the primary meaning, even though the term is still widely understood in the secondary meaning in the particular expression, the term is now unsuitable to refer to Deaf people.

Acquisition

Merikartano school for deaf students in Oulu, Finland (February 2006)

 

Students at a school for deaf students in Baghdad, Iraq (April 2004)

 

Historically, Deaf culture has often been acquired within schools for Deaf students and within Deaf social clubs, both of which unite deaf people into communities with which they can identify. Becoming Deaf culturally can occur at different times for different people, depending on the circumstances of one's life. A small proportion of deaf individuals acquire sign language and Deaf culture in infancy from Deaf parents, others acquire it through attendance at schools, and yet others may not be exposed to sign language and Deaf culture until college or a time after that.

Although up to fifty percent of deafness has genetic causes, fewer than five percent of deaf people have a deaf parent, so Deaf communities are unusual among cultural groups in that most members do not acquire their cultural identities from parents.

Diversity within Deaf culture

Educator and ASL interpreter Anna Mindess notes that there is "not just one homogeneous deaf culture". There are many distinct Deaf communities around the world, which communicate using different sign languages and exhibit different cultural norms. Deaf identity also intersects with other kinds of cultural identity. Deaf culture intersects with nationality, education, race, ethnicity, gender, class, sexual orientation, and other identity markers, leading to a culture that is at once quite small and also tremendously diverse. The extent to which people identify primarily with their deaf identity rather than their membership in other intersecting cultural groups also varies. Mindess notes a 1989 study, which found that "87 percent of black deaf people polled identified with their black culture first".

Education

In comparison to the general public, deaf people have lower levels of educational achievement. Advocates in deaf education believe that an improved recognition of American Sign Language (ASL) as an official language would improve education, as well as economic status. Some argue that by improving the recognition of ASL, better access to school materials, deaf teachers, interpreters, and video-telephone communication would take place.

Deaf culture is prevalent in schools for the deaf. There are k-12 schools for the deaf throughout the world and the United States, however higher education specifically for the deaf is more limited.

The "Big Three"

Gallaudet University's Chapel Hall

 

Three colleges within the United States are often identified as the best providers of higher education for deaf people. Referred to often as the "Big Three," these include California State University at Northridge (CSUN), National Technical Institute for the Deaf (part of Rochester Institute of Technology), and Gallaudet University. Gallaudet University is the first and only liberal-arts college for deaf students in the world.

International Colleges for the Deaf

Although the United States leads in higher education opportunities for the deaf, there are colleges across the globe. In Australia, there is the Victorian College for the Deaf. Brazil has several institutions, including Instituto Santa Tersinha and Escola para Crianças Surdas Rio Branco. China's deaf universities include Beijing Union University, Special Education College of Beijing University, and Zhongzhou University. Other notable universities for the deaf across the globe include Finland School for the Deaf (Finland), Institut National de Jeunes Sourds de Paris (France), Berlin School for the Deaf (Germany), and Northwest Secondary School for the Deaf (South Africa.)

Characteristics

Sign languages

Sign languages are an important part of Deaf culture. The American Sign Language (ASL) alphabet is shown here.

 

Members of Deaf cultures communicate via sign languages. There are over 200 distinct sign languages in the world. These include 114 sign languages listed in the Ethnologue database and 157 more sign languages, systems, and dialects. While the United Kingdom and the United States are both predominantly English speaking, the predominant signed languages used in these countries differ markedly. Due to the origins of deaf education in the United States, American Sign Language is most closely related to French Sign Language. 

Sign language is just one part of deaf culture. Deaf identity is also constructed around specific beliefs, values and art.

Values and beliefs

• A positive attitude towards deafness is typical in Deaf cultural groups. Deafness is not generally considered a condition that needs to be fixed.
• The term "Deaf Gain" is used by Deaf people, to re-frame the deafness to a gain to show how Deaf people do contribute in this world.
• The use of a sign language is central to Deaf cultural identity. Oralist approaches to educating deaf children thereby pose a threat to the continued existence of Deaf culture. Some members of Deaf communities may also oppose technological innovations like cochlear implants for the same reason.
• Culturally, Deaf people value the use of natural sign languages that exhibit their own grammatical conventions, such as American Sign Language and British Sign Language, over signed versions of English or other oral languages. Spoken English, written English and signed English are three different symbolic systems for expressing the same language.
• Deaf communities strongly oppose discrimination against deaf people.
• Deaf culture in the United States tends to be collectivist rather than individualist; culturally Deaf people value the group.

Behavioral patterns

• Culturally Deaf people have rules of etiquette for getting attention, walking through signed conversations, leave-taking, and otherwise politely negotiating a signing environment.
• Deaf people also keep each other informed of what is going on in one's environment. It is common to provide detailed information when leaving early or arriving late; withholding such information may be considered rude.
• Deaf people may be more direct or blunt than their hearing counterparts.
• When giving introductions, Deaf people typically try to find common ground; since the Deaf community is relatively small, Deaf people usually know some other Deaf people in common. "The search for connections is the search for connectedness."
• Deaf people may also consider time differently. Showing up early to large-scale events, such as lectures, is typical. This may be motivated by the need to get a seat that provides the best visual clarity for the Deaf person.

Reliance on technology

• Like all other people, Deaf individuals rely on technology for communication significantly. In the United States, video relay services and an array of freestanding and software-driven video phones are often used by deaf people to conduct telephonic communication with hearing and deaf businesses, family and friends. Devices such as the teletype (known as a TTY, an electronic device used for communication over a telephone line) are far less common, but are used by some deaf people who are without access to high-speed Internet or have a preference for these methods for their telephonic communication.
• Technology is even important in face-to-face social situations. For example, when deaf people meet a hearing person who does not know sign language, they often communicate via the notepad on their cell phones. Here, technology takes the place of a human sense, allowing deaf individuals to successfully communicate with different cultures.
• Social media tends to be of great importance to deaf individuals. Networking sites allow deaf people to find each other and to remain in contact. Many deaf people have deaf friends throughout the entire country that they met or maintain contact with through online communities. Because the deaf community is so small, for many deaf people, the stigma of meeting others online does not exist.
• Closed Captioning must be available on a television in order for a deaf person to fully appreciate the audio portion of the broadcast. Conflicts arise when establishments such as restaurants, airlines, or fitness centers fail to accommodate deaf people by turning on Closed Captioning. Movie theaters are increasingly compliant with providing visual access to first-run movies through stand-alone devices, glasses and open caption technology which allow deaf people to attend movies as they are released.
• Alert systems such as fire alarms and alarm clocks must appeal to different senses in order for a deaf individual to notice the alert. Objects such as vibrating pillows and flashing lights often take the place of the noise-based alarms.
• Lack of understanding about technological accessibility for the deaf causes conflict and injustice for the deaf community. For example, a significant number of deaf individuals in the UK admit that they are dissatisfied with their banks because of their heavy reliance on telephone banking and lack of assistance to deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals.
• Architecture that is conducive to signed communication minimizes visual obstructions and may include such things as automatic sliding doors to free up the hands for continuous conversation.

Literary traditions and the arts

A strong tradition of poetry and storytelling exists in American Sign Language and other sign languages. Some prominent performers in the United States include Clayton Valli, Ben Bahan, Ella Mae Lentz, Manny Hernandez, C. J. Jones, Debbie Rennie, Patrick Graybill, Peter Cook, and many others. Their works are now increasingly available on video.

Culturally Deaf people have also represented themselves in the dominant written languages of their nations.

Deaf artists such as Betty G. Miller and Chuck Baird have produced visual artwork that conveys a Deaf worldview. Douglas Tilden was a famous Deaf sculptor who produced many different sculptures in his lifetime. Some Deaf artists belong to an art movement called De'VIA, which stands for Deaf View Image Art. 

Organizations such as the Deaf Professional Arts Network or D-PAN are dedicated to promoting professional development and access to the entertainment, visual and media arts fields for individuals who are deaf or hard-of-hearing.

Daily Moth was established by Alex Abenchuchan in 2017 to make the news accessible for Deaf ASL users.

History

In the United States, the Cobbs School, a deaf school in Virginia, was established in 1815. This school lasted only one and half years due to financial setbacks. American Deaf Community recounts the story of Laurent Clerc, a deaf educator, coming to the United States from France in 1817 to help found the first permanent school for deaf children in the country now named American School for the Deaf in Hartford, Connecticut. American School is the first official school for the deaf.

Another well-known event is the 1880 Second International Congress on Education of the Deaf in Milan, Italy, where hearing educators voted to embrace oral education and remove sign language from the classroom. This effort resulted in strong opposition within deaf cultures today to the oralist method of teaching deaf children to speak and lip read with limited or no use of sign language in the classroom. The method is intended to make it easier for Deaf children to integrate into hearing communities, but the benefits of learning in such an environment are disputed. The use of sign language is central to Deaf identity, and attempts to limit its use are viewed as an attack.

Shared institutions

Women's art class at State School of the Deaf, Delavan, Wisconsin, c. 1880

 

Deaf culture revolves around such institutions as residential schools for deaf students, universities for deaf students (including Gallaudet University, South West Collegiate Institute for the Deaf, and the National Technical Institute for the Deaf), deaf clubs, deaf athletic leagues, communal homes (such as The Home for Aged and Infirm Deaf-Mutes, founded by Jane Middleton, in New York City), deaf social organizations (such as the Deaf Professional Happy Hour), deaf religious groups, deaf theaters, and an array of conferences and festivals, such as the Deaf Way II Conference and Festival and the World Federation of the Deaf conferences. 

Deaf clubs, popular in the 1940s and 1950s, were also an important part of deaf culture. During this time there were very few places that the deaf could call their own– places run by deaf people for deaf people. Deaf clubs were the solution to this need. Money was made by selling alcohol and hosting card games. Sometimes these ventures were so successful that the building used by the club was able to be purchased. However, the main attraction of these clubs was that they provided a place that deaf people could go to be around other deaf people, sometimes sharing stories, hosting parties, comedians, and plays. Many of today's common ABC stories were first seen at deaf clubs. The clubs were found in all of the major cities, New York City being home to at least 12. These clubs were an important break from their usually solitary day spent at factory jobs.

In the 1960s, deaf clubs began their quick and drastic decline. Today there are only a few spread-out deaf clubs found in the United States and their attendance is commonly small with a tendency to the elderly. This sudden decline is often attributed to the rise of technology like the TTY and closed captioning for personal TVs. With other options available for entertainment and communication, the need for deaf clubs grew smaller. It was no longer the only option for getting in touch with other members of the deaf community.

However, others attribute the decline of deaf clubs to the end of World War II and a change in the job market. During WWII there was high demand for factory laborers and a promise of high pay. Many deaf Americans left their homes to move to bigger cities with the hope of obtaining a factory job. This huge influx of workers into new cities created the need for deaf clubs. When World War II ended and the civil rights movement progressed, the federal government started offering more jobs to deaf men and women. People began switching from manufacturing jobs to service jobs, moving away from solitary work with set hours. Today, deaf clubs are rare, but deaf advocacy centers and other deaf organizations have become widespread and popular.

Deaf African-American institutions

The National Black Deaf Advocates was established in 1982 "to promote the leadership development, economic and educational opportunities, social equality, and to safeguard the general health and welfare of Black deaf and hard-of-hearing people."

Deaf LGBT institutions

The Rainbow Alliance of the Deaf is a nonprofit established in 1977 to, "establish and maintain a society of Deaf GLBT to encourage and promote the educational, economical, and social welfare; to foster fellowship; to defend our rights; and advance our interests as Deaf GLBT citizens concerning social justice; to build up an organization in which all worthy members may participate in the discussion of practical problems and solutions related to their social welfare. RAD has over twenty chapters in the United States and Canada." There is also the American deaf resource center Deaf Queer Resource Center (DQRC), the Hong Kong Bauhinias Deaf Club, and the Greenbow LGBT Society of Ireland.

Deaf religious institutions

There are deaf churches (where sign language is the main language), deaf synagogues, deaf Jewish community centers, and the Hebrew Seminary of the Deaf in Illinois. In 2011 the Conservative Movement unanimously passed the rabbinic responsa, "The Status of the Heresh [one who is deaf] and of Sign Language," by the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards (CJLS). This responsa declared that, among other things, "The Committee on Jewish Law and Standards rules that the deaf who communicate via sign language and do not speak are no longer to be considered mentally incapacitated. Jews who are deaf are responsible for observing mitzvot. Our communities, synagogues, schools, and camps must strive to be welcoming and accessible, and inclusive. Sign language may be used in matters of personal status and may be used in rituals. A deaf person called to the Torah who does not speak may recite the berakhot via sign language. A deaf person may serve as a shaliah tzibbur in sign language in a minyan whose medium of communication is sign language."

Deaf women's institutions

There are 15 chapters of Deaf Women United throughout the United States; its mission is, "to promote the lives of Deaf women through empowerment, enrichment, and networking." There is also Pink Wings of Hope, an American breast cancer support group for deaf and hard-of-hearing women.

Libraries and the Deaf community

Deaf people at the library have the same needs as other library patrons, but they often have more difficulty accessing materials and services. Over the last few decades, libraries in the United States have begun to implement services and collections for Deaf patrons and are working harder every year to make more of their collections, services, their communities, and even the world more accessible.

The American Library Association considers disabled people, including the Deaf, as a minority that is often overlooked by library staff. However, in the last few decades, libraries across the United States have made improvements in library accessibility in general and to the Deaf community specifically.

One of the first activists in the library community working toward accessibility for the Deaf was Alice Hagemeyer. When disabled communities began demanding equality in the 1970s, Hagemeyer decided to go back to school for her master's degree in library science. While she was studying there, she realized that there was not very much information about the Deaf community at her library or at the libraries of any of her classmates. She soon became an activist for Deaf awareness at her library, and she became the first "Librarian for the Deaf Community" from any public library in the nation. Hagemeyer also constructed a manual of resources for Deaf people and those associated with them called The Red Notebook. This notebook is now an online resource, which is available at the website of the Friends of Libraries for Deaf Action. Hagemeyer was one of the first library activists to make strides for the Deaf community.

Australian librarian Karen McQuigg states that "even ten years ago, when I was involved in a project looking at what public libraries could offer the deaf, it seemed as if the gap between the requirements of this group and what public libraries could offer was too great for public libraries to be able to serve them effectively." There was a dearth of information for or about the Deaf community available in libraries across the nation and around the globe. 

New guidelines from library organizations such as International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) and the ALA were written in order to help libraries make their information more accessible to people with disabilities, and in some cases, specifically the Deaf community. IFLA's Guidelines for Library Services to Deaf People is one such set of guidelines, and it was published to inform libraries of the services that should be provided for Deaf patrons. Most of the guidelines pertain to ensuring that Deaf patrons have equal access to all available library services. Other guidelines include training library staff to provide services for the Deaf community, availability of text telephones or TTYs not only to assist patrons with reference questions but also for making outside calls, using the most recent technology in order to communicate more effectively with Deaf patrons, including closed captioning services for any television services, and developing a collection that would interest the members of the Deaf community.

Over the years, library services have begun to evolve in order to accommodate the needs and desires of local Deaf communities. At the Queens Borough Public Library (QBPL) in New York, the staff implemented new and innovative ideas in order to involve the community and library staff with the Deaf people in their community. The QBPL hired a deaf librarian, Lori Stambler, to train the library staff about Deaf culture, to teach sign language classes for family members and people who are involved with deaf people, and to teach literacy classes for Deaf patrons. In working with the library, Stambler was able to help the community reach out to its deaf neighbors, and helped other deaf people become more active in their outside community.

Deaf libraries

The library at Gallaudet University, the only Deaf liberal arts university in the United States, was founded in 1876. The library's collection has grown from a small number of reference books to the world's largest collection of deaf-related materials with over 234,000 books and thousands of other materials in different formats. The collection is so large that the library had to create a hybrid classification system based on the Dewey Decimal Classification System in order to make cataloging and location within the library much easier for both library staff and users. The library also houses the university's archives, which holds some of the oldest deaf-related books and documents in the world.

In Nashville, Tennessee, Sandy Cohen manages the Library Services for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (LSDHH). The program was created in 1979 in response to information accessibility issues for the Deaf in the Nashville area. Originally, the only service provided was the news via a teletypewriter or TTY, but today, the program has expanded to serving the entire state of Tennessee by providing all different types of information and material on deafness, Deaf culture, and information for family members of Deaf people, as well as a historical and reference collection.