A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to bring back American Sign Language interpreters for White House briefings after the president’s team admitted he didn’t like “sharing a platform.”
The National Association of the Deaf sued President Donald Trump, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt in May, arguing that the administration’s failure to provide ASL interpreters at press briefings violates the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. The federal law prohibits discrimination conducted by an “executive agency.”
Since January 2021, when Joe Biden became president, the White House has provided ASL interpreters at every conference, making them visible on official channels.
But after Trump returned to office this year, the White House “inexplicably” stopped using ASL interpreters, the non-profit’s legal team wrote in the complaint.
On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Amir H. Ali granted a preliminary injunction, mandating that the White House "immediately" start providing a "simultaneous and publicly accessible feed” with ASL interpreters at briefings by Trump and Leavitt.
The Independent has contacted the White House and the National Association of the Deaf for comment.
Trump’s attorneys had previously argued that it was too great an ask for the president to share a stage with interpreters.
“Requiring the president to share his platform with ASL interpreters every time he or his Press Secretary communicates with the nation is a major incursion on his central prerogatives,” his attorneys wrote in a June court filing.
The president has the authority to “shape his Administration’s image and messaging as he sees fit,” it stated.
The judge called Trump’s argument “puzzling,” saying his legal team didn’t make clear what they meant by “major incursion” and instead provided “only coded language about wanting to present their ‘message and image in a particular way.’”
Judge Ali also poked holes in Trump’s concerns. ASL interpretation does not require a speaker to “share his platform” with anyone, the judge said, adding that the administration “can readily implement remote ASL interpretation without an interpreter present in the same room as the speaker.”
Ali noted that the administration was “likely violating” the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 by failing to provide ASL interpreters.
“Given the nature of the programming at issue here—regularly scheduled briefings on critical topics implicating markets, medicine, militaries, and myriads of other issues—the court finds that denying deaf Americans access to and the benefit of it presents a clear, present, and imminent harm,” Ali wrote in the Tuesday order.
The administration must provide a status report on November 7 to show compliance with the order.
The National Association of the Deaf sued the first Trump administration in August 2020 when Trump failed to provide ASL interpreters when giving Covid-19 updates. The judge in that case also ordered a preliminary injunction requiring the White House to provide interpreters at all pandemic briefings.
When Biden took office, both parties agreed to settle. The Biden administration then issued a new policy — “Communication Services for People Who Are Deaf or Hard of Hearing at Presidential Briefings” — that stated qualified interpreters would be provided at official briefings conducted by the president, vice president, and other key administration officials.
“Deaf and hard of hearing Americans have the right to the same access to White House information as everyone else. Denying them ASL interpreters is a direct violation of that right, and the NAD will continue to fight for their full inclusion in the democratic process” Dr. Bobbie Beth Scoggins, Interim Chief Executive Officer of the NAD said in a statement. “Such information must be provided not only through captioning but also in American Sign Language.”
On his first day back in the White House this year, Trump ordered the termination of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility programs, calling them “radical and wasteful.”
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