Starting a new thread in response to a conversation about sign language interpreters... here's my hot take. Abolish undergraduate programs in sign language interpreting. There are many complex layers to my position on the subject. Twitter won't do justice but the outline here: 1/

Sign Language Interpreting is a bandaid for a gunshot wound. See @hildemh and @mdemeulder 's brilliant essay on the subject. While access via SLIs remain a important component of our rights as deaf people, the focus on training and providing SLIs allows the system to circumvent

the real reforms we need- educational policy, language policy, cutting off the blood supply to the medical industrial complex and so on. The hearing system has devised this as a tool of subjugation and control where deaf people must rely upon hearing people as points of access

Programs that focus on SLI rather than holistic work with deaf populations are rather unimaginative. The focus on SLI posits deaf people as dependent objects in need of assistance/charity. The grotesquery of helping professions and all that jazz. This critique comes from...

the fact that SLI undergrad programs here in the U.S. is not rooted in the mission of liberal arts education. For me, a major component of a liberal arts education is the pursuit of social justice. A liberal arts education endeavours to, among other things, instill into students

a sense of global citizenship, critical and analytical thinking, an appreciation of multiple and diverse perspectives, and seek truth. The ways that SLI undergraduate education is traditionally structured here in the U.S. does not accomplish any of those aims.

I note here, when @RID_Inc (why follow me, @RID_Inc if you never ever say anything back to me? Obviously hate following) passed the BA requirement for certification it was not explicit in saying it had to be a BA in Interpretation. This is because interpretation in itself is

a vocational skill. What happened is that a bunch of vocation oriented AA programs stretched out their coursework to fit a four year program without disciplinary frameworks and theoretical frameworks and without the ingredients of a solid four year liberal arts programs

So where in that four years do interpreting students learn critical thinking and analytical skills and perspective taking? These tend to be farmed out to the core requirements because ITP faculty do not have those skills themselves (again, not all) but many

My most recent program at @StKate had ONE deaf culture class. No linguistics class. A conversational ASL class that happened to touch upon some linguistics topics. Where's the Deaf theory? Where's Deaf Studies? Where's the disciplinary training and thinking that comes with a BA?

And the fucked up thing here is that the senior interpreting classes are taught in spoken languages, as well as the ethics class, which means language skills are not challenged, are not maintained, are not nurtured on a consistent basis (this is a policy issue & a common practice

The ASLIE program at NTID, when I was there, only required one deaf culture course. When I looked that up, it was a linguistics class. Meh. Cultural competency, disability humility, etc where? Then let's move on to the cultural and disability aspects-- SLI programs, without a

critical lens- Deaf, Disability, Race,..will reproduce audism, ableism, racism, etcetera upon the deaf communities they work within. Perfect ASL in the classroom and books then go out in the world, and whoah-- one handed signing! People with cerebral palsy signing!

Instead, I advocate for strong undergraduate programs in Deaf Studies with critical lenses- historians, anthropologists, linguists (all deaf or majority deaf) to prepare students holistically for work with and within deaf communities and signed languages. And if some of them

want to interpret, well go for a master's. I'm impressed with the EUMASLI program. Interpreting is hard work and a special skill, yes, but it is not a liberal arts degree program- at least not one that centers deaf people or critically examines the world deaf people exist within

So @graystorm asks what about deaf people teaching interpreting. They can do that. At the graduate level. And we need to expand more opportunities for deaf people at the undergraduate level by throwing out interpreter practitioners with outdated ideas about deaf people

and replacing them with deaf scholars. There should be BA programs in Deaf Studies in every university that offers ASL classes. Vocational concerns should be secondary (teacher training, interpreting, etc.)

This is why I'm very keen on what some programs are doing to respond to contemporary challenges (and frustrations among deaf people) like CSU Long Beach's ASL & Deaf Culture BA that also has a track for interpreting. But essentially, why not get language students in the right

"head space" in using sign language, using it in all ways, in developing their full semiotic repositories ( @AnneliesKusters !) before we have them start thinking about HOW they are going to interpret and mediate two or more different languages

I appreciate everyone's engagement on this thread! I want to respond to a few concerns raised by readers. The central concerns seem to be cost factors, further marginalization of already marginalized folx interested in interpreting, & a bit of misunderstanding of my aim--

Before I respond to @thevulvasaurus and @leesonl re their questions, I'd like to preface this with an explicit recognition that racism, ethnocentrism, ableism, and all forms of systemic oppression are perpetuated by sign language teachers too- deaf and hearing both- and so,

any conversation addressing the marginalization of BIPOC, disabled, queer, trans, folx within interpreter education has to include the sign language part of the equation. That alone requires its own thread and discussion. My focus here, is on the interpreting part of the equation

and furthermore, I speak from a US perspective- some ideas or possibilities may not necessarily translate to the realities confronted in non-US contexts. Now, onto the question of race and costs...

The money question is an easy one for me to answer. Questions about the burden of the costs should not be placed upon deaf people. Society decided to be inaccessible. Society needs to fix that. If society valued inclusion & access, then affordable pathways would be made possible.

I'm all for affordable (free) higher education and across-the-board student loan forgiveness in the US. Instead of telling deaf people that our expectations & needs for equal access is too expensive, we should be working in solidarity for affordable interpreter training & ed.

On that point, I recognize our reality here in the US. We aren't going to have that anytime soon. For that reason, I support multiple pathways to interpreter training. Language fluency takes 7 years, all right, but all of this 7 years does not need to take place in the classroom

Some have the impression I think interpreting requires a master's degree or a postgraduate degree. I'm advocating for the abolishment of undergraduate interpreting degrees. That's it. Interpreting training can take place in many venues but whatever they are, deaf led & centered

I believe that undergraduate liberal arts degrees enriches an interpreter tremendously- but that degree can be in any field. Interpreters with undergrad degrees in philosophy, gender studies, history, would be rock stars. And this is where I circle back to @jmhenner 's question

Do interpreters need specialized skills for specific contexts like elementary schools or higher ed interpreting? Yes. Deaf people are diverse and the ways we language & think are diverse. We are better served by having a diversified body of interpreters.

Everybody learning the same signs from the same (racist) curriculum following the same old school 1990s vocational model (also racist) shoehorned into a "liberal arts" degree without doing the actual liberal arts work... is not going to serve this diverse deaf community.

And now onto this diverse deaf community. We need a diversity of interpreters. And again, we need to work on our own racism towards interpreters of color. See @NaomiSheneman 's tweet on this subject. But focused on IEPs, we acknowledge that A) the academy is a hostile place

for disabled, queer, trans, and non-white folx. Generally. So they should have pathways to interpreting outside the academy. and B) interpreter education programs are especially a hostile place for disabled and non-white folx. Would it be better for aspiring Latinx interpreters

to major in something where they felt affirmed because they had the right faculty or content or institutional context then seek pathways within their communities to becoming interpreters? Would it be easier to endure postgraduate studies in interpreting? Would we have a better

field if we had more interpreters who had diverse academic backgrounds rather than everyone being produced by the same old racist system? In a field dominated by white hearing women (85%), I guarantee you that those programs inevitably reproduce, refract, and reflect racism

and ableism. Unquestionably. We have enough narratives from non white and disabled folx about the horrors of undergraduate interpreting programs. And our narratives about pathways to interpreting have led to attrition of interpreters of color rather than suggest multiple paths

One of you said that knowing Deaf culture doesn't necessarily make an interpreter better. I say that depends on how it is taught. Is it taught with the intent of building critical consciousness, anti-ableist and anti-racist stances, access intimacy, and disability humility?

Personally, I find that the best interpreters are those who have developed that critical consciousness. Maybe it was that B.A. in history. Maybe it was that they loved to read black feminist autotheory in their spare time. Maybe it was because they were a Coda born into our world

The best interpreters I've had were community raised or graduate trained. But that fits ME. My goal of abolishing undergrad ITP boils down to creating more paths for marginalized folx to work with deaf people in multiple ways- not only as interpreters, while developing a more

critically conscious class of interpreters, educators, and anyone else who wants to work with deaf people. The current set up is simply a wasted opportunity stuck in ableist ways of thinking about deaf people's place in the world.