School For Deaf Students Excluded Other Disabilities, Suit Claims
By Dave Reynolds, Inclusion Daily Express
October 11, 2006

STANFORD, CALIFORNIA--In an unusual case that could affect a large number of California students, a federal judge has ruled that a 14-year-old can sue the California School for the Deaf in Freemont over claims that it discriminated against her and other deaf students with other disabilities.

In the suit, the student, identified only as "J.C.", claims that the publicly funded school excluded her because she has autism and an intellectual disability, according to a press release from the Stanford Legal Clinic's Youth & Education Law Project and the law firm Bingham McCutchen LLP, which are representing her.

After J.C. had attended CSD for 10 years, administrators placed the girl, who only communicates in American Sign Language, into a specialized class for hearing students with autism at another public school within the Fremont School District. They then informed her parents that she had never been formerly admitted to CSD in the first place.

"The policies of the California Schools for the Deaf are discriminatory and deny multi-disabled deaf children their legal right to special services," said William Koski, the Stanford clinic's instructor.

The case could affect at least five other children with multiple disabilities who have been removed or excluded from CSD, along with an unknown number of other school-age deaf children who have at least one additional disability, the press statement indicated.

Related:
"Press release -- Federal Judge Allows Discrimination Suit against California School for the Deaf"
http://www.inclusiondaily.com/news/06/red/1011c.htm

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Reproduced here under special arrangement with Inclusion Daily Express international disability rights news service.
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