Chris Soukup: Making Communication A Priority for Deaf Community

Welcome to Disability Matters with your host Joyce Bender. All comments, views, and opinions expressed on the show are solely those of the host, guests, and callers. Now the host of Disability Matters, here's Joyce Bender.

Hi everyone in the Americas and around the world. Welcome to the show. I am always so excited to say hello to my friends from the U.S. State Department, Richard Roberts in Brazil, and Carla, and I can't wait to come and meet you in person, Carla. I love Richard so much. So, thinking about you, Richard, and Gang Young Cho in South Korea, same thing. You know how much I love you. And everyone working in DC at the State Department, and in Japan, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Panama, all of these countries I've been to. Thank you everyone for your kindness and just dedication. And how about that we have all these new countries listening to the show? How about that? Because we have, have Russia and China, but now, you know, we have Saudi Arabia, we have all of these great listeners. Thank you, thank you. Hong Kong, thank you. So to all of our listeners everywhere in the world, no matter where you are, you're making a difference. And I have to have a shout out to my dear friend that I love so much, Yoshiko Dart. I always have a shout out to Yoshiko. And I also want to thank my sponsor, uh, Highmark lead sponsor. They are such a great company.

And you know what?

We have now been on the air on Voice America 21 years. 21 years with this great staff and with Tacey, the executive producer. Just such a great group of people. And I have to tell you, I'm really excited about the show today. My son through spirit, not my real son, but he's like a son to me, which is Greg Pawlik, told me, oh my goodness, you've got to have Chris on this show. You've got to have him on the show. He is an expert on the history of what happened with TTY and the deaf community, and Chris is with the CEO of Communication Services for the Deaf. And is it Soukup? How do you pronounce your last name, Chris?

Soukup.

Oh, okay, I'm right. Okay, good. I always like to have the name right. So, Chris, as I said, I'm so excited to have you on the show today. You're an expert in the history of accessibility and what happened in the deaf community. But as you just heard me thank people around the world for listening to the show, and oh, isn't that great, all those listeners? Ah, I love them so much. I want you to tell your story because here's what happens. People will get in touch with me and say, "Oh, tell us more about that person." And I think, well, I'll let that person talk about themselves. So how about a little bit about your childhood as a deaf boy and your education in high school and beyond. Would you share that with our listeners?

Absolutely. Well, first, it's such a pleasure to be here and really a delight to be a part of this program. I have a pretty eclectic background. I grew up— I have an extensive a deaf family. It goes back— deafness goes back several generations in my family, so aunts and uncles, grandma, grandpa, you know, it really— it's pervasive throughout my family tree, and so it was imbued in a big part of my identity. Growing up, I always saw myself as a person being from a deaf family, being part of the deaf community. I also had the experience of growing up in the mainstream and kind of moved between two worlds for a big part of my life, and so in the evenings and on the weekends where be immersed in a world of sign and be very active and involved in the local deaf community. And then during the week in school, you know, I'd be the only deaf student in the school and be in the process of kind of navigating those systems. And that gave me a really, I think, unique lens and perspective that I've carried with with me. And after graduating from high school, I had the opportunity to attend Gallaudet University and graduated from Gallaudet. And so coming from a mainstream education to Gallaudet University, which is the world's largest university for deaf students in higher education, that was such a transformative and defining experience for me that really solidified my identity as a deaf person and galvanized my motivation to be a part of the community and contribute back to the community. And it was kind of with those experiences really I took all of that with me into my professional endeavors with CSD, Communication Service for the Deaf. And so that's just a brief overview of my background and where I come from. I was born and raised in South Dakota and very— a blend of rural and city. You know, experiences. And so I have an affinity and a level of sensitivity for people that are in rural parts of the United States. And sometimes the isolation, the pockets of isolation that emerge in those parts of the country, particularly for people who are deaf and have disabilities. And so Really looking forward to this conversation, Joyce.

Well, me too, and that is such a— well, how can I say this? It would not be unusual to you being deaf because of the history of your family. It would just seem like anything else, I mean, and of course, in the hearing world it would be different. Did you experience problems as you were growing up with people in the hearing world, like at school or just in general?

So I was very fortunate, and, you know, 90% of deaf children are born to hearing families, and the families that have had no prior exposure or engagement with the deaf community, and so their experience tends to be much more challenging in terms of their sense of identity and their development and the support that they get at home and how that counterbalances with the challenges they might experience in school. So I was very, very fortunate to have a strong foundation at home. Lots of challenges in the mainstream being the only deaf child in school and everything from social interaction to engagement in the classroom and just feeling connected to the academic environment that I was in. Lots and lots of challenges there. Long periods of insularity where I felt disconnected from my peers and lots of— it was a very challenging experience to go through. And I was successful in part because of the level of support that I had from my family. In navigating those experiences. And so my heart goes out to deaf children that are in the mainstream that don't have that same level of support from their families or that same level of understanding. And it's a very difficult situation for a child to— a deaf child to experience.

Yeah, yeah, that is because with that, unfortunately, with that comes bullying and isolation and just be, you know, just being set aside. And all we have so much to talk about. But right now we're going to get ready to go to break. And if you just joined us, we're talking to Chris Soukup, the CEO for communication service for the deaf and just a great person. This is Joyce Bender, America's Voice, where disability matters, at voiceamerica.com. Don't go away, we'll be right back.

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You're listening to Disability Matters. If you have a question or comment, call in toll-free at 1-866-472-5788. That's 1-866-472-5788. 888. Now please welcome back the host of Disability Matters. Here's Joyce Bender.

Hey everyone, welcome back to the show. We're talking to Chris Soukup, the CEO of Communication Services for the Deaf, CSB.

Um, well, Chris, this is what I've been really interested in hearing about, and that is what was it like for the deaf community before TTY, which I can't imagine how people function, but what was it like prior to TTY? Like, how do people use any type of telecommunications, you know, to get in touch with someone, to call home, so to speak? What did people do?

Well, in I think some of the experiences of the deaf community, I think what was prevalent prior to TTY continued to be the case in a lot of instances, in a lot of situations, and I'll explain why. But before TTY, deaf people really had no way to to make a phone call. They had no way to use telecommunication systems at all and were completely dependent on neighbors, family, and friends to make calls for them. And a couple of examples, when my grandmother, who was deaf, was in labor, she had to walk next door to a neighbor and ask the neighbor to call the hospital for her because that was the only means available to her. And so, the community really relied on very close-knit social networks And they established what were known as deaf clubs, and people would gather and meet at deaf clubs, and that was where deaf individuals got all of their information, and so where to get— who was hiring, where to get a good deal on a car, where you could get a loan, You know, all of the information exchange network for the deaf community really permeated out of those deaf clubs in the 1940s and the 1950s. And then in the 1960s, that's really when the early rudimentary PTYs first became available.

You know, I would really be interested in a study of healthcare during this time period for people from the deaf community. For example, your grandmother could have died. If you have epilepsy, as I do, you could have died. You wouldn't have that way of immediately calling 911. And I'm thinking to myself, oh my goodness, what happened to people during that time period? And I'm also thinking about what would happen if you lived in a rural area, because just as you said how your grandmother, you know, how you had these houses next to each other, your grandmother went to her neighbor But what about people that lived like isolated?

That's exactly right. I mean, so many challenges. I think that that is why before, in the 1940s and 1950s, there are a lot of the deaf communities in the country would cluster around schools for the deaf and would cluster around companies that were hiring deaf individuals. And so you would see these sort of magnet populations emerge across the country where deaf people would kind of move or they would stay near their schools for the deaf and the primary or principal employers of deaf individuals. And for that reason, because of access, because of quality of life, because of the capacity to have friends and to be able to socialize and to be able to have a support network.

Right. I mean, it's just, I have to say, people who are deaf, obviously, very resilient and very able to think outside the box, those people going through all that. I mean, it's unbelievable when you think about it, which brings me to my question about ADA Title VI, Chris. What is it and what did it do for the deaf and those with speech difficulty in the community?

So maybe as a— just a brief prelude to the ADA and Title IV, you know, maybe talking about, just for a moment, about TTY. So when TTYs became available, I mean, they're essentially— a TTY stands for teletypewriter. So it's essentially a typewriter-like device machine that you connect to a phone line and you use it to call another TTY. And so the limitation of that is that TTYs were only effective if the person you were calling also had a TTY. And so that really limited the capacity for deaf individuals to make calls. And that was exacerbated by initially there was no way to alert somebody. That a call was being made. And so the deaf person calling another deaf person or another TTY user would have to schedule times in advance, and the people they were calling would have to be waiting in front of the TTY ready to take the call as soon as it came in. And so it wasn't until later that innovations allowed for alerts and flashers which allowed a deaf person to not have to be sitting directly in front of their TTY. They would get a signal, their lamp would flash, and that would tell them that a TTY call was coming in. And that gave him— that gave them a little bit more autonomy and flexibility. But you were still limited in that you could only communicate with other TTY users. And so that was for many years the barrier to access is that deaf people could only talk to other TTY users. So that was why telecommunications relay services, which was a mandate of the ADA, became so transformational. It required the adoption and facilitation of relay services that would allow a TTY user to call a contact center, and an agent would be available at that contact center able to receive the TTY inbound, and it would make a voice call outbound to anybody that the deaf individual wanted to call. And so that was so liberating. For the deaf community to be able to, for the very first time in its history, be able to make calls anywhere using the relay service as a facilitator. And so that's really created a highway of innovation for the deaf community that, you know, has supported all of the communication advances since that. And so ADA Title IV was very, very important to the deaf community and ushered in a completely new era of communications access.

Yes, thank goodness for Title IV.

As a matter of fact, in my office is a copy of the ADA, because what happened is when, uh, EEOC Commissioner Evan Kemp died. His wife, Janine, at a dredef, uh, gala, auctioned off this shadow box that had the ADA, uh, the pen that the president gave out that day to the people up on the, uh, dais with him.— to, what else, the ticket, the ticket to go on the White House lawn, a pin. All of these things are in the shadow box. So I see that ADA every day because it's up on the wall behind my desk. But just think, what would have happened without the ADA and without Title IV? Can you imagine how terrible it would have been?

Definitely. You know, I still remember when I was growing up, I mean, this was in the years leading up to the ADA, my grandfather would come over, and my mom is CODA, so she's hearing. She's the only hearing person in our family, and so she became an interpreter very, very early in her life. And my grandfather would come over with a list of calls, and he would need to make a call to the utility company, or he would need to make a call to the bank, and he would come over once a week like clockwork with a list of calls, and my mom would sit there and make those calls for him. And so this is the late '80s, and so it really wasn't, you know, until the era of relay services that, you know, the deaf community could for the very first time make those calls on their own without having to rely on family and friends.

Yes. Yeah. I'm sure you remember them when the ADA was signed in 1990.

Oh, definitely. Definitely. You know, what I remember, I actually remember writing about it and presenting about it in school, and I remember going to community events And my dad was very active with the National Association for the Deaf, which was part of a coalition of disability organizations that were involved in advocating for and working with the members of Congress that were involved in making ADA possible.

Yeah, yeah, well, I'm friends with Tony Coelho, who is the author of The ADA, but I'm also a close friend of King Jordan, who is a champion of the ADA time period when you think of that rebellion at Gallaudet. So, so many great people involved in so many things, but right now On the half hour, we have to go to the news with our news break from the wonderful news anchor I have, Perry Jude Radesant.

Hi Joyce.

Hi Perry.

How are you?

I'm good. How are you today?

I'm doing great. Thank you.

Our listeners are always happy to hear your voice, Perry.

Well, thanks, Joyce. I appreciate that, and I appreciate your listeners. They always pitch in and help when it's time to respond to really important critical issues.

Yes, that's right. You are the radio advocate.

Well, Joyce, today we're going to continue our, our look at some of the recent regulations and guidance that have been issued by federal agencies. This time we're going to look at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. They have officially released final guidelines on workplace harassment. These guidelines are not like the regulations we normally talk about. These are considered a sub-regulatory document. I know this is a lot of policy wonk, Speech, but the subregulation guidance is more of an informal guidance provided by government agencies such as the EEOC to clarify existing laws and regulations without going through the formal rulemaking process. It's not legally binding like regulations are, but it does help all of us to understand how better to comply with the law as the EEOC views the law. So what are these new guidelines? Well, they aim to provide employers and employees with clear strategies to identify, prevent, address, and combat harassment in the workplace based on all the protected classes: race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, age, or genetic information. And these guidelines were written by the EEOC Office of General Counsel with public input, and they were approved by a vote of the EEOC. Here's a statistic from, from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Between 2016 and 2023, more than one-third of all discrimination charges that were received by the EEOC also not only included a discrimination charge, but they also included an allegation of harassment based on race, sex, or disability. So that's a lot of the discrimination charges also including harassment charges. These are some of the key highlights of these final guidelines. One, the EEOC gives us an explanation or clarifies when they see harassing conduct in the workplace that violates the law. They give us an explanation of what a hostile work environment is. They give us some examples of what harassing conduct is based on a legally protected characteristic. And here are some on the basis of disability. It would be mimicking a person's disability mocking a person's accent, asking intrusive questions about a person's intimate body parts. It could be displaying offensive material to a person with a disability or threatening a person's job or offering preferential treatment in exchange for, honestly, sexual favors. So it's not just sex, but it's also disability. Uh, the EEOC gives us steps employers can take to prevent harassment. So there's a lot in this guidance from the EEOC. For those who may not know, the EEOC is a government body responsible for enforcing federal laws that make it illegal to discriminate on the basis of disability, race, religion, when someone is a job applicant or an employee. Joyce Bender, we know advocacy matters. The EEOC's final guidelines on workplace harassment is absolutely a step forward to combat harassment and promote workplace equality in our country. They do that by providing clear and actionable strategies for prevent— protection and response to these really important issues. We have a lot of information about this on our Disability Rights PA website, so I want your listeners to go to disabilityrightspa.org for links to this guidance, and even more important, if you need a quick read, a summary of the key provisions, and they do that in a question and answer format. Go to disabilityrightspa.org, click on today's advocacy matters segment, about the middle of our home page, and you'll find all of this information as well as a summary of the key provisions and a copy of the new enforcement guidance on harassment in the workplace.

Wow. Now, this is enforceable right now? Kari?

Absolutely. It always has been enforceable. But from time to time, agencies want to update their regulations or guidance to bring all of that information to the public, to employers, to employees that is based on maybe new court cases or to combat harassment because, again, the EEOC is seeing a third of all discrimination complaints include a complaint also based on harassment.

Why I'm saying that is, I'm very, very sorry to say that in the workplace, I know from my own employees that people have made fun of them or mocked them, the things you said. And I guess they thought that was okay. To do that, but with, with this regulation, no, it's not okay.

No, there are statutes, there are regulations, and now this sub-regulatory guidance that all make it clear that mocking an individual when it rises to the level of harassment in the workplace is an illegal form of discrimination, and individuals who believe they are a victim of harassment can file a complaint with the EEOC just on harassment.

Yeah, because I've had people tell me how they were mocked because they stutter, you know, and how the person— which, of course, I went through the roof even though I was not involved with this company. But, you know, I just want everyone to listen. Please go to disabilityrightspa.org. Please go read this. Go to that page, Advocacy Matters. And when you think something has happened, you've got to speak up. Don't be afraid. You've got to speak up. You're important. You have rights. And Perry will tell you, in every state there is a protection and advocacy group. Is that correct, Terri?

Absolutely. So it doesn't matter if you're in a territory of the United States like Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam, Northern Marianas, or in a state, uh, there is a protection and advocacy system usually called Disability Rights, like Disability Rights Pennsylvania, and we are there to provide people information on their rights and help them with their complaint to the EEOC.

And how do they find it in their state?

So you would go to ndrn.org, that's the National Disability Rights Network, ndrn.org, and you would click on, uh, find your P&A in your state.

There you go. Uh, well, Perry, thank you so Thank you so much for that great— keep us up to date, Perry. Keep us up to date.

I will, Joyce.

Okay, thank you. Wow, great news. Take care.

Talk to you later.

What great news. What do you think about that, Chris?

I think that these resources are incredibly important and discrimination is something that the deaf and broader disability community is confronted with on a daily basis. And unfortunately, the barriers to employment and sustained employment continue to be a pervasive challenge. And so I'm proud and incredibly appreciative and thankful that we have organizations that are working side by side with the disability community to overcome and address and confront some of those barriers, to confront experiences of discrimination, and to navigate the different barriers that people have to successful outcomes in employment.

Right, yes, I agree with you. Well, listen, we're talking about a lot of things, but it would certainly be remiss to not talk about CSD. So let's hear all about CSD and what, what you do. And you mentioned you were founded by your own father, so let's hear all about it.

So in the 1970s in South Dakota, one of the principal employers for the deaf community, where lots of deaf people went to work, was a meat processing plant called John Morell, and the work at John Morrell was risky, and it was very messy and dangerous work, but it paid well, and it allowed deaf people with limited options to employment to be able to provide for their families. And so there was a sizable workforce contingent of Deaf individuals working at John Morrell in the 1970s. And one day they were sitting around during their lunch break and somebody pulled out their pay stub and there was a deduction that they didn't understand. And they spent the lunch hour kind of going back and forth trying to understand what the company had done. And it was kind of out of that meeting that the discussion kind of turned into, well, we— the deaf community really needs to have an organization that will fight for us, that will work to make information more accessible, will work with companies to provide interpreting services and to create better access to information and opportunity for their deaf employees. And so it was like, you know, there's something here. And so they brought that to the political organization, the South Dakota Association for the Deaf. And the South Dakota Association for the Deaf thought it was an incredible idea.. And so they approached the State of South Dakota, and the State of South Dakota gave them a $12,000 grant. And with that $12,000 grant, Communication Services for the Deaf was born. And from those very, very humble beginnings, CSB has worked over the years to to really transform the quality of life for the deaf and the broader disability community. And we've done that through a broad continuum, a constellation of products and programs and services that we've delivered throughout the country and around the world. And the catalyst for growth really was the ADA. And when relay services became mandatory, telecommunications companies sought out organizations that were pioneers, that were experts in the delivery of services to the deaf community. And so CSD entered into a very historic partnership with Sprint Corp., now T-Mobile, and became the dominating prevalent provider of telecommunications relay services in the 1990s into the 2000s. And so we grew from— in 1990, when the ADA was passed, CSD had 30 employees. 10 years later, in 2000, we had 3,000 employees. And so the growth and the scale of the organization evolved very rapidly. And CSD parlayed a lot of its success in delivering TTY relay services into this relentless idea that there are better— there's another tier that we've not reached. There's a greater level of accessibility possible. Let's not stop with TTY. Let's keep going. Let's keep innovating. And so in the late 1990s, CSD did the first video relay service trials. And the limitation of TTY relay was that it was incumbent on the— it's a very inefficient way to communicate. You're typing on a keyboard to a communication assistant who then is relaying what you're typing to a hearing caller, and that goes back and forth. And the efficiency of that exchange is wholly contingent on typing speed. You've got some some individuals that type with two fingers, and so you can imagine that that's not the ideal way to communicate. And so we said, what if we made it possible for deaf people to call into a call center and connect with a sign language interpreter who would make that outbound call? Well, video technology just wasn't there in the 1990s, so it was very, very cutting edge, and we did state trials in the state of Texas and the state of Washington to show how much better video relay services were in terms of the communications efficacy and the overall quality of the communications experience, and we took all of that data We took all of that data and brought it to the Federal Communications Commission, the FCC, and we said, look, you have got to make video relay service a part of the TRS program and give the deaf community the option of using either a TTY or connecting through video to a sign language interpreter. The FCC looked at all of the data from the pilots and they agreed. And so in 2002, CSD became the first nationwide provider of video relay services.

That's incredible.

And that is a mindset that we've never lost. We continue to kind of challenge the conventional thinking around what's possible and to confront barriers and to relentlessly pursue better accessibility, better access to opportunity, and a greater quality of life for deaf and disability communities. And so we've diversified in some significant ways over the past 10 years and have a a special venture fund that is focused on making investments in deaf individuals that aspire to start their own business. And so that social venture fund has to date invested in almost a dozen different businesses. And these deaf entrepreneurs, they become successful. They, you know, I think we incrementally start to confront the bias and the misperception about what deaf and disabled people are capable of. And so when you see a successful deaf-run business, whether it's a restaurant or it's a manufacturing business or it's in some other industry, that's, I think, an impactful moment somebody outside of the disability community, somebody that hasn't had exposure to deaf and disability populations to see that. And that awareness, that realization that there is infinite talent and capability and ideas and inspiration the ability to positively affect and impact our world that resides within our community. And so I'm so proud of those success stories and the role that CSD has played in supporting them. But in general, I mean, we have done more than 50 different types of community-based programs and services. And have innovated in a number of different ways to try to confront that bias, to change that perception, to make the world more open, and to not just from the disability side facing the mainstream, but altering the way the mainstream perceives and welcomes and embraces the richness within the deaf and disability communities.

Yeah, that is really awesome. That is so true about disability-owned businesses, you know, entrepreneurs changing the way people think. So that is great you have that venture fund. I think that is so awesome. But I also know you are very involved with the CTVA bill. So, what is it and how are you involved?

So, the— there's a critical piece of legislation that was passed in 2010, and that was called the Communications Video Accessibility Act. And so the CVAA was intended to be essentially an update of Title IV in the ADA. So because the world is changing really fast and new technologies are emerging and there's all kinds of innovation happening, and so it's so essential to anchor, you know, that innovation and accessibility principles and to ensure that that innovation is inclusive. And so from 1990 to 2010, I mean, so much change happened in the world, and there was all this new technology and expansive new capabilities. And so the CDAA was passed to address issues like captioning,— and video descriptions and the accessibility of internet-based user interfaces, so using websites and apps. And so that was a critical piece of legislation that updated the ADA. Now fast forward to 2024, we're 14 years beyond the CDAA and we're 34 years beyond the ADA. And we're now in the age of AI, and there's all of this rapid change that is happening, you know, in different industries. And just the technology that we're using and interfacing with on a daily basis is changing so quickly. So there's a need to, again, come back to gaps and deficits in legislation that don't adequately address the emerging technologies that are coming. And so that's the fundamental purpose of the CVTA and will continue to kind of underpin expectations for the deaf community around real-time captioning, will include ASL interpretation for video on various platforms. It'll include new accessibility features in communications devices. And increasingly, we'll look at— what we're asking is that our laws are forward-looking. And so there's an expectation that companies that are developing technology and are supporting the communication systems that we use every day fundamentally have an obligation to make them inclusive from the beginning. And so that's the intent and the underlying premise of the— the TDTI.

That is so exciting, so exciting. Chris, you have done so many wonderful things at CSD, such as 988. What is 988, Chris?

So 988 is, um, it's part of a consortium family of crisis hotlines. And I want to— I want the audience to just imagine for a moment that you're an individual that is experiencing hardship or personal crisis and you make a decision to call a hotline. To reach out and to ask for support. And for most people, you know, the experience of connecting to another human, to hear their voice, to make that connection is incredibly powerful and healing and in many situations life-saving. The challenge for the deaf community is that those hotlines are not accessible, and the only way to reach those hotlines is through the use of relay services, and that's a very different dynamic to be a deaf individual who is distressed, who is navigating crisis, to call to a hotline through a TTY agent or through an interpreter, you don't get that same sense of connection, that same, that level of empathy. You're not able to receive the same kind of support. And so, we have argued for years that and have advocated for a very long time to make call centers, especially call centers that provide a public service that are life-impacting, that are essential to the well-being of our deaf communities, that individuals have the ability to call in directly and connect with somebody in ASL. And so 988 is the culmination of that effort.

Well, that is absolutely awesome. Oh my goodness, I have so much more to talk about, but we've come to the end of the show, which means, Chris, we'll have to have you back on again because we have questions for you. We have so much, but We've come to the end of the show. So thank you, Chris, for being on with us.

It was my pleasure. And I'd be delighted to continue this conversation, Joyce Bender.

All right. We're going to hold you to that. Well, we end every show with a quote. And the quote for today is this: Own your deafness. Love your deafness. Love who you are in the world, said Niles DiMarco. This is Joyce Bender, America's Voice, where disability matters, at voiceamerica.com. Talk to you next week, and remember, in the words of Mary Brooker, when you go out today, when you get up in the morning, Remember, choose joy.

Voice America would like to thank you for tuning in. Please join us next Tuesday at 11 AM Pacific time and 2 PM Eastern time for another installment of Disability Matters right here on the Voice America Variety Channel. We are the leader in live internet talk radio. VoiceAmerica.com.