Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, February 23, 1993 TAG: 9302230176
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: TUCSON, ARIZ. LENGTH: Short
COURT TO DECIDE WHO PAYS FOR DEAF STUDENT'S HELPER
The U.S. Supreme Court will give James Zobrest a sign-language interpreter to help him when the justices consider his case this week. He hopes the court will decide his public school district should have done the same - when he was in a church school.Zobrest, who is deaf, sued the Catalina Foothills School District because it wouldn't pay for interpreters to help him through four years of classes at Salpointe Catholic High School.
On Wednesday, the court will consider the 18-year-old college freshman's claim for repayment of about $35,000 his family spent for interpreters.
More importantly, he says, the court could guarantee other deaf students the option of attending church schools with the help of interpreters paid by local school districts.
"I have a good feeling that we're going to win," Zobrest said in sign language with his mother interpreting. "It'll help a lot of people across the country that have the same problems."
The justices are being asked to find that his First Amendment right to free exercise of religion entitled him to a publicly funded interpreter.
Under federal law, the Tucson school district would have paid for an interpreter if he had attended public school. But district lawyers maintain that providing the same service in a sectarian school would violate the First Amendment separation of church and state. The district did provide Zobrest's speech therapy while he attended Salpointe.
The case is one of two before the court that involve religion in schools. The other concerns whether Suffolk County, N.Y., school officials can deny use of public schools for religious purposes in non-school hours.