White House sued for discrimination over lack of ASL interpreters at media briefings: 'Against the law'
WASHINGTON, DC: The White House is reportedly facing a lawsuit by a deaf advocacy group which has accused it of not providing American Sign Language (ASL) interpreters at press briefings and other public events.
The National Association of the Deaf (NAD) in its filing on Wednesday, May 28, against the official residence and workplace of the president alleged that Donald Trump stopped having ASL interpreters after joining the office for the second time in early 2025, as reported by NPR.
Lawsuit accuses White House of acting 'against the law' by not having ASL interpreters
The lawsuit, filed in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, mentioned Donald Trump, Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, WH Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, offices for the president and vice president as the defendants, accusing them of breaking Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 — a “national law that protects qualified individuals from discrimination based on their disability.”
It claimed, “The White House's failure to provide qualified ASL interpreters during public briefings, press conferences, and related events is against the law.”
“Federal law unequivocally prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities and requires them to have meaningful access to the federal government's programs and services. Failing to provide ASL interpreters deprives deaf people meaningful access to the White House's press briefings,” the suit noted.
Derrick Ford and Matthew Bonn are complainants in the suit
Two deaf men — 36-year-old Derrick Ford from Anderson, Indiana, and Matthew Bonn, 48, from Germantown, Maryland — are the participants in the lawsuit.
The filing claimed Ford is dependent on ASL interpreters, making him worried about “missing information about executive orders; diversity, equity, and inclusion ('DEI'); Social Security; Medicare, the economy; and issues impacting Americans in general.”
Bonn also “wants information about the economy, Medicare and Medicaid changes, and executive orders on gender issues” but a lack of ASL interpreters has created difficulties for him as he’s not able to understand closed captions.
In a statement, Bobbie Beth Scoggins, interim chief executive officer of the NAD, said, “Deaf and hard of hearing Americans have the right to the same access to White House information as everyone else. Such information must be provided not only through captioning but also in American Sign Language.”
Trump administration faced similar lawsuit in 2020
This was not, however, the first time Donald Trump's White House had been sued by the group.
In 2020, the office faced a similar lawsuit because ASL interpreters were missing during the time of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Later, a federal judge ordered that "defendants shall include a qualified ASL interpreter in the WHCA feed for all White House coronavirus briefings, as defined in paragraph 1 above, either by including in the frame a qualified ASL interpreter located physically near the speaker, or by including in the frame a separate video feed of a qualified ASL interpreter being filmed in a remote location using a picture-in-picture (PIP) format."
The Joe Biden administration began involving ASL interpreters in 2021 for all briefings and even hired the office's first full-time interpreters in 2022, NPR reported.
"The president is committed to building an America that is more inclusive, more just and more accessible for every American," Jen Psaki said at the time.
