Language Assistance Plan
for Implementation of
Executive Order 13166
Improving Access to Services for Persons with Limited English Proficiency
Revised January 2, 2003
Background
Executive Order 13166 (EO 13166), "Improving Access to Services
for Persons with Limited English Proficiency," was created to "...improve
access to federally conducted and federally assisted programs and
activities for people who, as a result of national origin, are limited
in their English proficiency (LEP)..." President Bush affirmed his
commitment to EO 13166 through a memorandum issued on October 25,
2001, from the Department of Justice (DOJ).
EO 13166 contains two major initiatives. The first is designed
to better enforce and implement an existing obligation: Title VI
of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits recipients of federal
financial assistance from discriminating based on national origin
by, among other things, failing to provide meaningful access to
individuals who are LEP. The Executive Order requires federal agencies
that provide federal financial assistance to develop guidance to
clarify those obligations for recipients of such assistance.
Second, the Executive Order sets forth a new obligation: Because
the Federal Government adheres to the principles of nondiscrimination
and inclusion embodied in Title VI, the Executive Order requires
all federal agencies to meet the same standards as federal financial
assistance recipients in providing meaningful access for LEP individuals
to federally conducted programs. Each federal agency must thus develop
a plan for providing that access.
Anything a federal agency does, including all contact with the
public, falls within the scope of federally conducted and assisted
programs or activities. The definition of federally conducted and
assisted programs is the same under EO 13166 as it is under Section
504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.
EO 13166 requires that all federal agencies take reasonable steps
to provide meaningful access to their own federally conducted activities.
Each agency must develop and begin to implement a plan of action
by December 11, 2000. The National Council on Disability's (NCD)
LEP plan was completed and posted
to its Web site on December 12, 2000.
The Coordination and Review Section of the Civil Rights Division
at DOJ has taken the lead in coordinating and implementing this
Executive Order.
National Council on Disability
The National Council on Disability (NCD) is a small independent
federal agency with a staff of 12. NCD's mandate is to make recommendations
to the President and Congress on disability policy. Therefore, its
primary audiences are the President and Congress. NCD's budget is
approximately $3 million annually, with a preponderance of it going
to administrative costs and overhead. As such, NCD will apply the
reasonable accommodation standard to LEP issues as it does for disability
issues. In order to avoid the risk of limiting or curtailing other
important policy work that will benefit all people with disabilities
and the larger community, agencies with smaller budgets will need
additional funding to carry out this mandate. NCD recommends that
the Administration ensure that small agencies receive adequate funding
to carry out this mandate.
The United States is a diversified nation. According to the Census,
there are more than 50 million people with disabilities in the United
States. However, this does not include those living in institutions.
The number of Hispanic Americans with disabilities (4,417,000) is
greater than the population of South Carolina (3,885,736). The number
of Native and Asian Pacific Americans with disabilities (1,446,000)
is greater than the population of Maine (1,253,040).
NCD's policy of outreach to people with disabilities who are culturally
diverse and LEP is long- standing. In 1995, NCD translated its brochure
National Council on Disability
At a Glance into Spanish.
In 1998, NCD conducted a public hearing in San Francisco. To encourage
the participation of people with LEP and specifically to ensure
input from the Asian/Pacific Islander and Hispanic communities,
the hearing was conducted simultaneously in Spanish, English, and
Cantonese. Then, NCD translated its 1999 report Lift
Every Voice: Modernizing Disability Policies and Programs to Serve
a Diverse Nation into Spanish
and Chinese.
Lift Every Voice was based on input from stakeholders at
a meeting in San Francisco. In Lift Every Voice, NCD highlighted
one recommendation to the President and Congress in particular that
has potential to enhance the impact of current policies and programs
for people with disabilities who are culturally diverse and LEP.
It reads:
NCD has learned from grassroots witnesses that the best way
to empower people from diverse cultures with disabilities and
their families to take full advantage of federal laws, programs,
and services is to provide them with easy-to-understand, culturally
appropriate information about what their rights are under various
federal laws (e.g., ADA, the Rehabilitation Act, IDEA, the Fair
Housing Act) and how best to exercise those rights when a violation
occurs.
To address this issue directly, NCD recommends that an interagency
team composed of representatives from the departments of Education,
Labor, Health and Human Services, Justice, and Housing and Urban
Development, along with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission,
Small Business Administration, and Federal Communications Commission,
develop and implement a large-scale outreach and training program.
The initiative will: (1) be targeted to people with disabilities
from diverse cultural backgrounds and their families; (2) involve
people with disabilities from diverse cultures in all phases of
planning and implementation; (3) provide information directly
to the target communities through a series of trainings across
the country; (4) include among those who provide training leaders
recognized within a cultural group; and (5) use training strategies
that are appropriate for specific communities and groups across
the country. These trainings should be repeated periodically
so that new people are trained each year and materials are routinely
updated.
This interagency team should work with disability communities,
diverse cultural communities, and a broad array of organizations
representing different types of disabilities, ethnic, racial,
religious, and other interests. The interagency team should invite
these representatives to participate in the development ofa workplan,
timetables, and appropriate stakeholder consultation as it begins
its work. In addition, NCD recommends that the interagency team
recruit, train, and contract with a core group comprised of people
with disabilities from diverse cultural backgrounds and their
family members to help (1) develop the written materials and programs
that will be used for the trainings; (2) translate materials into
many languages with sensitivity to cultural appropriateness of
terminology, and (3) conduct the trainings once the appropriate
materials are translated, field tested on sample groups, and produced
for dissemination in communities. The federal partners should
make efforts to include and accommodate often-overlooked groups
among the people to be trained and the core group of trainers.
These include but are not limited to young adults with disabilities,
people in rural or isolated locations, including tribal communities,
people with mental disabilities, and people with limited English
proficiency. Finally, NCD recommends that Congress should provide
support (funding) to the federal sponsors of the trainings in
order to eliminate any potential financial barriers to participation
so that the population trained will truly represent the population
to be served.
In 2000, NCD translated its 500-page report Back
to School on Civil Rights into Spanish,
and provided language translators for selected regional briefings.
NCD also began translating and disseminating selected news releases
and media advisories into Spanish and Chinese.
As a continuation of its cultural diversity and LEP outreach in
2001, NCD added language translation software to its award-winning
Web page (http://www.ncd.gov).
This language translation function, known as Babel Fish, is a free,
automatic translation service that removes language barriers across
the World Wide Web. Babel Fish translates these language pairs:
English to French; English to German; English to Italian; English
to Portuguese; English to Spanish; French to English; German to
English; Italian to English; Portuguese to English; Russian to English;
Spanish to English; French to German; and German to French. The
addition of Babel Fish to the NCD Web site was an interim step in
anticipation of the implementation of EO 13166.
NCD translated into Spanish and Vietnamese its Reconstructing
Fair Housing report, which looks at the Fair Housing Amendments
Act of 1988 (FHAA) and Section 504 as they relate to one key federal
agency, namely, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
NCD added to its Web site a Spanish translation of its report The
Accessible Future, which is an appeal to the Federal Government,
private industry, and consumers to join forces to increase access
of electronic and information technology to people with disabilities.
NCD added electronic translations of its brochure National
Council on Disability At a Glance in Korean, Tagalog, Vietnamese,
and Chinese.
In 2002, NCD also translated into Spanish its National
Disability Policy: A Progress Report, December 2000-December 2001,
which reviews federal policy activities by issue areas, noting progress
where it has occurred and making further recommendations where necessary
to the executive and legislative branches of the Federal Government.
Implementation Plan for NCD Web Site
NCD recommends that the U.S. Government Printing Office, the agency
that hosts the NCD Web site and approximately 30 other federal sites,
provide advice on how translation software for DOJ recommended languages
of Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese, Tagalog, and Korean can be added
to all federal Web sites under GPO's purview. NCD recommends that
GPO purchase or create the necessary software and apply it to each
agency, thus creating a standard for more than 30 federal Web sites
that include:
Bureau of Land Management
Commission on the Roles and Capabilities of the United States
Intelligence Community
Congress of the United States
Davis-Bacon Wage Determinations
Department of Interior Office of Inspector General
Executive Office of the President
Council of Economic Advisers
Office of Management and Budget
Export Administration Regulations
Federal Labor Relations Authority
Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission
Food and Drug Administration
General Accounting Office
Merit Systems Protection Board
Millennial Housing Commission
National Archives and Records Administration's Office of the Federal
Register
National Commission on Terrorism
National Council on Disability
National Labor Relations Board
National Mediation Board
Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission
Office of Compliance
Office of Government Ethics
Office of Independent Counsel (Donald C. Smaltz)
Office of Technology Assessment
U.S. Capitol Police
U.S.-China Security Review Commission
U.S. Commission on National Security
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board
U.S. Trade Deficit Review Commission
United States Commission on Civil Rights
United States Supreme Court
The Supreme Court Fellows Program
Also, with regard to the NCD Web site, NCD will assess (1) the
number or proportion of LEP persons in the eligible service population;
(2) the frequency with which LEP individuals come into contact with
the program; (3) the importance of the service provided by the program;
and (4) the resources available to the recipient.
Using WebTrends, a Web site analytical tool, NCD is able to monitor
the number of downloads and visits to its translated documents.
Implementation Plan for Publications
As part of its standard LEP outreach practice, NCD will continue
to translate its reports, vital documents, and summaries and other
documents that will most likely impact LEP populations.
To that end, NCD will assess (1) the number or proportion of LEP
persons in the eligible service population; (2) the frequency with
which LEP individuals come into contact with the program; (3) the
importance of the service provided by the program; and (4) the resources
available to the recipient.
Implementation Plan for Public Meetings
Pursuant to Section 522b(e)(1) of the Government in the Sunshine
Act, (Pub. L. 94-409), and Section 10(a)(1)(2) of the Federal Advisory
Committee Act (Pub. L. 92-463), NCD publishes in the Federal
Register, notice of all meetings and advisory committee meetings.
As part of NCD's standard practice in those notices, NCD asks those
needing reasonable accommodations to notify and request those services
prior to the meetings. To that end, NCD will assess (1) the number
or proportion of LEP persons in the eligible service population;
(2) the frequency with which LEP individuals come into contact with
the program; (3) the importance of the service provided by the program;
and (4) the resources available to the recipient.
Beginning with its quarterly meeting in February 2001, NCD made
it standard practice to also ask those people with disabilities
who are LEP to request reasonable language translation accommodations
in advance of each meeting.
Implementation Plan for the NCD Office
NCD will provide language translation and assistance to any person
with a disability who is LEP and in need of assistance. This will
include telephone calls and office visits. NCD also uses language
identification flash cards to help in this effort. NCD will notify
staff on how to obtain needed services.
Conclusion
NCD has made every effort to fully comply with EO 13166. NCD will
apply the four-factor analysis and guidance developed by DOJ in
considering what constitutes reasonable steps to ensure meaningful
access. NCD is taking concrete steps to address the inadequacies
and unique needs of people who are culturally diverse and LEP, and
to work for their meaningful inclusion into society. NCD will monitor
the effectiveness of its LEP outreach and modify its plan when necessary.
NCD will procure its LEP services through contracts with the U.S.
General Services Administration. |