What do you think about this lawsuit?

Asked by JLeslie (65412) January 9th, 2017 from iPhone

I live in a retirement town of over 100,000 people. One perk in the area was a lifelong learning college. Very inexpensive fees and a variety of classes.

Recently, the college decided to close its doors after years of success, because a lawsuit was brought against the college stating it wasn’t meeting the needs of deaf people.

My experience in this community is people very much care about others in the community, and would want to accommodate when it’s at all possible. The overall system here is based on a tremendous amount of volunteering, all of the free classes in town (which are at recreation centers not the school) are led by volunteers. This for everything from Zumba, science lectures, discussion groups, sewing, musical instruments, the list goes on forever. The classes at the college were open to anyone, not only people who lived in town. ADA is taken very seriously here. Afterall, we are a town of primarily senior citizens.

My guess is interpreters did volunteer at times, maybe the school wasn’t always providing interpreters? I don’t know.

Is it reasonable for the deaf community to demand total accommodation for all classes available? Should the expense fall solely on the school, or on the deaf people? If the expense is on the school then fees for classes would have to increase.

What’s your take?

Here is a link to the school website so you can see some of the classes.

I had trouble finding the original articles on the topic, but I found commentary from one of the deaf people who participated in the suit, and a comment from someone who is frustrated with the suit.

I’m also interested to know if schools and colleges actually must provide accommodations for deaf people according to ADA?

I am suspicious that this was all part of the ADA lawyer scams going on all over the country. 60 Minutes recently did a report on it.