A Marathon Hearing on Language Access … And Next Steps
On July 1, 2015, the DC Council held a joint public hearing on the Language Access for Education Amendment Act of 2015. The 75 public witnesses on the witness list included: Attorneys who have helped clients to bring language access complaints after being denied language access under the law; Law professors who supervise student attorneys who have written reports on the state of language access in the District, and who have worked with clients whose language access rights were violated; Community members who have brought language access complaints and received favorable determinations through the process at the DC Office of Human Rights, only to continue to have their rights violated afterward; and Students at DC schools who have had to interpret for their parents at parent-teacher conferences, despite the schools’ legal obligation to provide interpretation.