Miss-Delectable

Courthouse News Service

A deaf medical student whose hearing resembles "a poorly tuned, crackling radio station" says Creighton University refused to provide state-of-the-art simultaneous translation through hearing assistance technology for his lectures, labs and study sessions, and he wants a judge to order the college to do so.

Michael S. Argenyi is a first-year medical student at the Omaha-based university. He has been deaf since infancy but recently had surgery that allows him to hear slightly. In his complaint in Omaha Federal Court, he says he repeatedly requested accommodations before and after being admitted to med school. He says he was turned down and offered outdated and insufficient hearing assistance.

Argenyi says he asked school officials for Communication Access Realtime Translation for lectures, and a sound-amplification system and cued-speech or oral interpreters for labs and small groups. The school refused, saying that a student's use of a third-party interpreter violates the school's technical standards, according to the complaint.

Argenyi claims Creighton said he could sit in the front row during all his lectures and offered to provide a note-taker and an FM device that amplifies speech through a microphone or transmitter.

The school told Argenyi that "all medical students have access to the audio podcast of the lecture" available on the Internet, the lawsuit states.

Argenyi calls the school's accommodations "ineffective," claiming that only the assistance he requests will allow him "the same access to lecture information as other students."

Argenyi says the school's refusal to meet his requests violates the Americans with Disabilities Act. He seeks declaratory judgment and unspecified damages. He is represented by Dianne DeLair of the Center for Disability Rights, Law and Advocacy.

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Deafness

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deafdyke

Oh give me a break! Oralists have claimed that all we need is oral skills, and we'll be all set. I am SO sick of oral only students going " Oh we can't acheive 100% with oral skills."
That's exactly what we've been saying all along. If this person was ASL fluent he could take advantage of sign 'terps and not have this problem!

kokonut

Access to captioning is just as valid in requesting access via interpreters. Each of us have different needs and requirements to function.

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CJB

This is tricky because the ADA calls for reasonable accommodations but this could lead to an attempt to define what's "reasonable."

Lighthouse77

sorry, I don't see interpreter as a third party. I see it as an ear for the deaf since everyone else have ears.

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Good thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from.

deafdyke

YES!!!!! It's almost like.......remember when Jackie was posting here b/c she wanted absolute perfect acomondations for her kids? Her kids were ALREADY doing VERY well with stuff like notetakers and preferential seating....But she wanted them to get straight As and go to a really competitie college.
The med student has done well enough with minimal accomondations, that he's made it to med school........ He does not need intense accomondations.

shel90

Oh man, do I ever remember that!! Some crazy shit.

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Shel~

"A child educated only at school is an uneducated child." -George Santayana

DURAY

something wrong to play the deaf card? Look at the millions of dollars in diversity and minority programs many universities are paying and nothing for the deaf/HOH.

deafdyke

No Duray....we're saying that this person is playing the deaf card to get "high honors" straight As. He's obviously done OK without those accomondations.

mshel

You know, I went through all of nursing school without any accomodations...none! And i am deaf...total stone cold deaf. It was very very difficult. If I could have gotten some accomodations, I would have done exactly what this guy is doing in order to get them. An interpreter is NOT a third party. They DONOT violate any hippa laws or confidentiality rules... and I think that if the college has access to this type of equiptment, then the guy should be allowed to use it.

rockdrummer

maybe this will shake up the system a bit and set a new precedent. Why not take advantage of technology if it's useful for some.

faire_jour

I agree. He deserves appropriate accomodations, just like an ASL user.

jillio

Might want to read the ADA. It provides for "reasonable accommodations". If a student is doing well without transcription services, then those services are not deemed reasonable.

jillio

Yeah, it was.

jillio

They do take advantage of new technology when it is determined that technology is a reasonable accommodation to equal the playing field. But they will not provide the newest technology if it has been demonstrated that the student is functioning on the same level as his/her hearing peers without it. That is asking for an advantage, not an equal playing field.

jillio

Quite true. And if a student has been shown to function as well as their hearing peers without a particular accommodation, then that accommodation would not be deemed to be reasonable. The idea behind the ADA is equality in access. It was not intended to provide an advantage.

shel90

Maybe that was why I wasnt provided any accodomations at school growing up?

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Shel~

"A child educated only at school is an uneducated child." -George Santayana

jillio

Quite possibly. The ADA can be a double edged sword. It often punishes those that work extra hard to keep up when they don't have equal access.

I'm all for equal access, and will advocate with my dying breath for it. But it does bother me when someone uses their deafness to demand an advantage. It is like saying that the deaf can't compete with the hearing unless they are given an advantage. I believe that, with equal access, the deaf can compete with the hearing very well.

deafdyke

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Exactly! This is more along the lines of an overachiever type getting an IEP so they can take advantage of the advantages that an IEP offers kids with disabilites.
This doesn't surprise me that this is happening...... it does seem that this batch of oral deaf folks are from families who are the SAME ones who have helicopter parents or the families where it's expected that wittle Smashlie will attend Name Brand Univeristy.

faire_jour

I disagree. If a deaf person can not access 100% of the material through hearing, why shouldn't they be given it in a visual form (cued speech), so they can have access as well? How is this different than an ASL user wanting an interpreter?

jillio

He is not asking for just a visual form. He is demanding transcription services. That is the whole point.

faire_jour

Print is the visual form of English. He has also requested cued speech, with is a visual representation of the phenomes of spoken English.

jillio

i am well aware of what print and CS are, faire jour.

Perhaps you missed the part in the OP that stated he was requesting Realtime Transcription Services. There are other accommodations that will provide him visual access.

faire_jour

Real-time captioning would give him a visual representaion of the spoken English because he can not access the auditory information. I think this is an appropriate accomodation for a person with a hearing loss whose language is English. This is a way to make the field level, so that he has the same access as a hearing student.

Beowulf

I guess Realtime captioning at universities is only a matter of time. It is occassional during today's live broadcasts on news programs when it was non-existent just a few years ago. Man, I wish I had Realtime captioning when I was a college student, since it would have made a huge difference.

jillio

There are also other accommodations that provide a visual representation of the lecture material without having to use Realtime Captioning.

sallylou

Reasonableness is a matter of the available technology and how expensive it is. It's probably only a matter of time before this is offered. The question is how quickly.

My kid's school just got fancy technical white boards that instantly saves notes to the teacher's website. The teacher doesn't even allow the kids to take notes. You just log on to get the notes. Great for keeping up if you're absent. This school is well funded and not all of the schools get them. Eventually, all of the schools will have them.

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Happy holidays!

jillio

This is quite true. The interpretation of "reasonable accommodation" often is determined by funding for that particular institution.

shel90

I had realtime captioning when I was a student at ASU before I learned ASL. It was very very difficult to take in so much reading at such a rapid pace. I dont think I really processed the infomation well but if it works for someone else, great. Just cant imagine having to read all the medical terminology and have to process it all in such a short time.

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Shel~

"A child educated only at school is an uneducated child." -George Santayana

jillio

That is true. Keeping up with realtime captioning almost requires speed reading. And, given this is medical school, he no doubt would still require a notetaker and some other form of print of the lecture. So the captioning would be redundant.

We tried using realtime with films that are not closed captioned that professors sometimes use in classes. All my students said they would rather have a terp, or a synopsis in print.