The University of Maryland’s Byrd Stadium is the target of a lawsuit by the NAD over the football program’s failure to provide easily accessible captions of announcements.
The National Association of the Deaf, a Maryland-based nonprofit civil rights organization dedicated to protecting the rights of deaf and hard-of-hearing Americans, has filed suit against the University of Maryland. The suit alleges that UM violates the rights of deaf and hard-of-hearing students by failing to provide easily accessible closed captions of football game announcements by referees and PA announcers.
Many college and professional football stadiums display captions of announcements on massive lit screens situated next to or near scoreboards. UM isn’t one of them, however, and that makes it tough for hearing-impaired students and fans to fully enjoy football games. University officials argue that a live stream of captions is accessible via smartphone and that the school supplies loaner smartphones for students who don’t own them. But the NAD and others counter that the live stream isn’t enough. After all, they and similar devices require the use of at least one hand, which limits students’ ability to sign while trying to read captions.
“The failure to provide and display captioning for the announcements made over the public address system discriminates against deaf and hard of hearing University of Maryland sports fans,” says attorney Joseph B. Espo of Brown, Goldstein & Levy, LLP, which represents the NAD in the suit. “The University and its employees have known about this for years and did nothing. Deaf and hard of hearing fans are tired of being left out of the game.”
This isn’t the first time that the NAD has taken legal action against football programs. The organization also has battled Ohio State University’s athletics program and the NFL’s Washington Redskins in similar suits and won, forcing the programs to provide captioning and other auxiliary aids and services to make the game-day experience fully accessible to deaf and hard of hearing fans.
Many hearing-impaired football fans are finding a hero of sorts in Seattle Seahawks Running Back Derrick Coleman. Deaf since age three, Coleman communicates largely by speech reading and actually credits his hearing loss with making it easier to concentrate in loud football stadiums.
If you’re a sports fan who believes that everyone should have an equal chance to enjoy the excitement of competitive athletics, consider a career as a closed captioning specialist – a field that, along with court reporting, is expected to grow 18 percent from 2008 figures by 2018, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. The Stenotype Institute, a nationally renowned court reporting and closed captioning school in Jacksonville, FL can help you prepare. Call 800-273-5090 to speak with an enrollment specialist today.
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