Hello and welcome to the Disability Law Lowdown. My name is Danny Warthling and I am your host. I'm glad that you found us and we hope you enjoy the ASL series of podcasts.

Today’s podcast is about your rights, under the ADA, as a student at a college or university. If you are a student who is Deaf or hard of hearing, then the college or university you attend must provide the necessary auxiliary aids, for example interpreters, transcribers, notetakers, closed captioning or other services. This applies to all of the activities of the college, including extracurricular activities.

Of course, colleges and universities are concerned about the cost of complying with the ADA. The United States Department of Education says that colleges and universities can usually meet this obligation by assisting students in using existing resources, such as state vocational rehabilitation agencies and private charitable organizations. It’s all right for colleges to encourage eligible students to take advantage of any benefits that are available. The most common benefit is vocational rehabilitation.

But the college may not require the student to apply to the vocational rehabilitation program. The college may not tell the student they have to sign up with vocational rehabilitation in order to get auxiliary aids. If the student requests services, they must be provided. There is no question that, even if the student does not get vocational rehabilitation support, the college or university must still provide interpreters and other auxiliary aids and services.

When it comes to determining which kind of auxiliary aid or services should be given to a student, the U.S. Department of Justice says that the college or university must “give primary consideration to the requests of the individual with disabilities.” The Office of Civil Rights has published the three components of effective communication – timeliness of the delivery, accuracy of the translation, and provision of communication in a manner and medium appropriate to the significance of the message and the abilities of the individual with the disability. A Deaf or hard of hearing person has a right to this. And of course, the college or university cannot charge the Deaf or hard of hearing individual for interpreters or auxiliary aids.

Up until now, we have been talking about auxiliary aids, and those are important because they provide you with effective communication. But there is one other right I want to discuss– service animals. Service animals must be allowed to accompany a person with a disability. This includes any guide dog, signal dog, or other animal trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of an individual with a disability, including alerting individuals with hearing loss to intruders or sounds. This regulation applies to all colleges and universities. Unlike auxiliary aids, of course, the service animal does not have to be provided by the college or university. But if you use a “hearing dog,” then the working animal will be allowed to accompany you on the college campus and into the classrooms. One last thing – as soon as you apply for entrance into a college or university, contact the office that assists students with disabilities. The counselors there can help you with your requests for auxiliary aids and services, which will, in turn, help you to have a more successful learning experience.

Thanks for taking part in this ASL podcast on your rights as a deaf or hard of hearing student at a college or university. For more information, call 1.800.949.4232 – voice and TTY, or visit our podcast website at ASL.DisabilityLawLowdown.com



I hope you enjoyed watching this ASL video podcast. You can subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode. You can subscribe for free through iTunes or by going to ASL.DisabilityLawLowdown.com The Disability Law Lowdown is sponsored by a network of ten ADA Centers around the country. The ADA Centers provide training and technical assistance on the Americans with Disabilities Act and other disability-related laws. You can call us at 1-800-949-4232. The ADA Centers are supported by NIDRR.