From a recent legal article, pointing out how the American Disability Act uses 'reasonable access' to prioritise disabled and deaf job applicants, even those who could be put at risk and maybe not qualified for the job they apply for.
'Deaf can do everything except hear', even jobs that are based on an essential hearing ability ? or jobs that require qualifications they don't have ? While it is right they give equal consideration where equal qualifications are apparent, that doesn't mean advantages to gain jobs they cannot effectively do.... or does it ? So much gets lost in the volatile discrimination issues, realities being one of them.
The end of the article then offers up discrimination AT hearing applicants who assist deaf people, ergo they should not be allowed to do it, only other deaf should, is this deaf discrimination in action ? What if that maxim was applied to translators the deaf are utterly reliant on ? Just how does an employer assess a persons real capability when the threat of litigation is always there if they decide against a disabled or deaf applicant ? Does this not take away the right of an employer to hire who they want ?
There’s a lot to say about the ADA (and I will say it in the many future posts that I will devote to it). Today, however, I will focus on deafness as a disability solely because, for reasons I don’t know, there are so many recent cases that involve this disability.
Less than two weeks ago, the EEOC announced that it had sued a California telecommunications company for allegedly denying a deaf employee his request for a sign language interpreter, “an accommodation that would allow him to interact meaningfully in the course of his work.”
On the flip side of this, the EEOC settled a case where a Texas cellphone repair facility was alleged to have denied employment to two hearing-impaired applicants. The company became aware that they were hearing-impaired after observing them in a group interview using American Sign Language (“ASL”).
And as much as the ADA leads to some interesting cases, it also leads to some strange ones.
Earlier this year, an Ohio employer settled a case in which it was alleged that it refused to hire an applicant “because she is deaf and cannot speak. [She] applied for the site manager position at one of the [housing service provider’s] housing communities. Despite its being an apartment complex that gives preference to deaf residents, [it] required the successful job candidate to be a hearing individual.”
Hard to believe – a housing community that “gives preference to deaf residents” refused to hire a deaf site manager.
And just last month, the EEOC sued a company because it allegedly refused to hire someone for a warehouse position because of his deafness.
The reason?
The company site manager said it in a text message: “we have determined that there is no job that we can offer that would be safe for you. There is just too much equipment traffic in our work areas and being able to hear a horn or equipment in operation is paramount for safety. I would not want to put you in a dangerous position.”
So the manager made a decision on his own as to the applicant’s disability and safety?
The EEOC noted that the company “never asked [the applicant] about his ability to perform any of the essential functions of a warehouse position, with or without reasonable accommodation.… the ADA requires employers to undertake a rigorous assessment of whether a disabled employee poses a safety threat in the workplace.”
Takeaway
You can’t refuse to hire someone who is hearing impaired without an individualized assessment of their condition and whether they can perform the essential functions of the job with or without accommodations. And you cannot speculate about the disability.
Oh, and you must engage in an interactive process with the applicant (or employee) to determine if there is a “reasonable accommodation.”
At 64 years of age, Meerschaum Vale resident, Pam Moreland, decided to contact the SCIC Cochlear Implant Program to find out how a cochlear implant could change her life for the better.
