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Judge orders medical school to accommodate deaf student

Posted on July 23, 2014

 

Zachary Featherstone

Phone: 509-577-7728

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By Molly Rosbach / Yakima Herald-Republic

mrosbach at yakimaherald.com

Type-0/da910f84-70eb-45ee-9505-0fb861fc34cd

 

YAKIMA, Wash. — A federal judge has ordered Pacific Northwest University of Health Sciences in Yakima to accommodate a deaf student this fall after the

man filed a lawsuit claiming the school discriminated against him by withdrawing his acceptance.

 

In a preliminary injunction issued Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Salvador Mendoza said PNWU’s defense that accepting the student, Zachary Featherstone, would

be a fundamental change for the university was “wholly speculative” and lacking in merit.

 

“The patient safety and clinical program concerns raised by PNWU are unfounded, based upon the growing trend of successful deaf health care professionals,”

Mendoza wrote. “While PNWU is a small, new medical school, when they opened their doors to providing students an education, they, like other schools, have

to obey legal obligations that come with providing those services.”

 

The injunction was granted after oral arguments Tuesday in U.S. District Court, Eastern District, in Yakima.

 

One of Featherstone’s attorneys issued a news release applauding the decision.

 

In the release, Featherstone, a graduate of Brigham Young University described in his June lawsuit as “profoundly deaf,” said he is “overwhelmed and humbled

to be given the opportunity to prove himself and pursue his dream.”

 

Calls to PNWU President Dr. Keith Watson were not immediately returned Tuesday night.

 

Featherstone was initially accepted to PNWU’s osteopathic medical school after applying and interviewing last year, at which time the school provided an

American Sign Language interpreter. He was supposed to start in August 2013, and, at the school’s direction, applied for funds to pay for the captioning

devices for lectures and sign language interpreters for clinical settings he would need to attend classes with the rest of the medical students.

 

According to the lawsuit, school officials told him last year that they needed to defer his acceptance for a year because of uncertainty over their ability

to pay for the services he would require. In the meantime, the state agreed to pay for Featherstone’s accommodations.

 

But then in April, the lawsuit said, PNWU abruptly withdrew Featherstone’s acceptance entirely, saying it could not “in good conscience” allow him to become

a doctor, that interpreting for him would take too long in emergency medical situations, and that accommodating him would have a negative impact on other

students working with him as a team.

 

Featherstone sued on the grounds that the university violated anti-discrimination laws and broke a contract with him by reneging on his enrollment.

 

Tuesday’s U.S. District Court decision says that since PNWU is a public entity and receives federal financial assistance under the Americans with Disabilities

Act, it is in violation of the ADA by dismissing Featherstone based solely on his disability.

 

The court also found that Featherstone’s requested accommodations were reasonable, saying interpreters and captioning services are “quite common in the

educational environment.”

 

Featherstone was represented by attorneys from Portland, Bethesda, Md., and the National Association of the Deaf.

 

Source:

http://www.yakimaherald.com/news/yhr/wednesday/2357340-8/judge-orders-medical-school-to-accommodate-deaf-student