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President Donald Trump listens during a swearing-in ceremony for Dr. Mehmet Oz as Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in the Oval Office of the White House on Friday, April 18, 2025, in Washington (AP Photo/Alex Brandon).
The National Association of the Deaf, a nonprofit organization, is filing a lawsuit against the Trump administration for terminating American Sign Language (ASL) interpretations of White House press briefings.
The lawsuit is not based on any official document or proclaimed policy. Instead, the plaintiffs claim there was an abrupt discontinuation of previously-provided ASL interpretations without any provided justification.
“[I]n January 2025, the White House inexplicably stopped using ASL interpreters for any of its public press briefings or similar events,” the lawsuit reads. “Consequently, Defendants are now denying hundreds of thousands of deaf Americans meaningful access to the White House’s real-time communications on various issues of national and international import.”
The 25-page complaint filed Wednesday in a Washington, D.C., federal court alleges the government violated the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 as well as the First Amendment guarantees of free speech and redress and the Fifth Amendment guarantee of equal protection.
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The complaint runs through relatively recent history regarding the provision of ASL services by the White House.
In 2020, the group filed a lawsuit against the first Trump administration that forced the government to provide such interpretations during COVID-19 press briefings.
“The Court found that closed captions did not provide meaningful access to White House press briefings for deaf persons who rely on ASL to communicate, and thus the National Association of the Deaf and several deaf persons had established a likelihood of success on the merits of their claim under federal law,” the filing explains.
By October 2020, the first Trump administration was providing ASL interpretation for all “COVID-19-related briefings,” the lawsuit notes.
Then, the Biden administration took the concept and ran with it.
“In early 2021, after the change in administration, the White House began providing in-frame, qualified ASL interpreters for all press briefings — not limited to just those addressing COVID-19,” the lawsuit goes on. “The ASL interpreters were visible on the White House’s official communication channels, including WH.gov/live, Facebook, Twitter/X, and YouTube.”
This was accomplished, the lawsuit explains, by using picture-in-picture technology, where the interpreter was filmed separately from the speaker and then superimposed on the video feed.
“The [Biden] White House’s efforts were groundbreaking,” the filing reads. “For the first time in history, deaf Americans who communicate via ASL had meaningful access to all White House briefings in real time.”
The Biden-era policy, for its part, was memorialized in an official policy document which called for “ensuring effective communication at Presidential briefings with people who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing.”
Then, in light of the Biden administration’s efforts, the group decided to voluntarily dismiss its original lawsuit — by way of a joint stipulation agreeing to certain terms.
“The White House successfully implemented this Policy for the remainder of President Biden’s four-year term,” the lawsuit continues. “An ASL interpreter thus appeared in hundreds (if not thousands) of hours of footage of White House press briefings, providing the deaf community with unprecedented and sustained meaningful access to the White House’s public communications.”
Later, the Biden administration developed “guidelines and best practices for providing ASL interpretation,” the lawsuit says.
Now, those policies are apparently being disregarded.
The lawsuit notes how President Donald Trump has held “numerous live events” while his press secretary Karoline Leavitt has delivered “at least” 26 press conferences — without ASL interpretation.
“It is apparent that the White House is not complying with the Policy announced and followed by the prior administration,” the lawsuit alleges. “It is also apparent that the White House does not follow any of the guidelines or best practices developed by knowledgeable White House officials.”
The filing says that even posted videos of such events lack ASL interpretation — though some do contain closed captions. And, the plaintiffs say, the closed captions appear to be “auto generated by YouTube without human editing or clean up.”
The lawsuit explains the drawbacks of this approach, at length:
For many deaf Americans, ASL is their primary and preferred language. ASL is a complete and complex language distinct from English. It has its own vocabulary and rules for grammar and syntax. It is not simply English in hand signals. Many deaf individuals cannot read or understand written English. Consequently, English closed captions are not an adequate substitute for ASL interpretation.
“Tone is also often lost in written captions,” the lawsuit continues. “By contrast, an interpreter can convey the tone and context of a message through facial expressions, sign choice, and demeanor. Moreover, those deaf individuals with limited knowledge of English may misunderstand captions because they are relying on their knowledge of ASL — a wholly different language — to make sense of the English captions.”
The filing alleges the government is violating a section of the Rehabilitation Act which created and extended civil rights for people with disabilities. The section cited in the complaint specifically says disabled people cannot be excluded from participation in, denied the benefits of, or subject to discrimination under any “program or activity conducted by any Executive agency.”
The group’s First Amendment claim relies on Supreme Court precedent from a 1976 case which established a “right to receive” speech, which “may be asserted” in court.
“This right to receive speech includes speech originating from Defendants, particularly where the speech is made available to the public but not to Plaintiffs and other deaf persons who rely on ASL to communicate,” the lawsuit argues. “Defendants’ refusal to provide in-frame, qualified ASL interpretation prevents Plaintiffs from accessing and receiving the communications provided by their elected representatives.”
An ancillary First Amendment claim alleges the lack of ASL interpretation has made it so that the plaintiffs, and others like them, “cannot fully know what to petition the government for.”
The Fifth Amendment claim is a more fundamental assertion that the Trump administration is simply treating deaf people differently from people who are not hard of hearing.
“Here, Defendants denied Plaintiffs equal protection under the law by treating them differently from others who were similarly situated (namely, hearing persons) and, on information and belief, Defendants did so intentionally,” the lawsuit goes on. “Defendants carried out this discriminatory treatment by refusing to provide in-frame, qualified ASL interpretation at White House press briefings and similar events.”
