Cornell Student Assembly Pushes University to Accept American Sign Language for Foreign Language Requirement

The Cornell Daily Sun reports:

The Student Assembly unanimously voted to call upon the University to expand course offerings on American Sign Language and allow students to place out of their foreign language requirements using ASL proficiency in a Thursday meeting.

If approved by President Martha E. Pollack, the resolution will “allow for American Sign Language to fulfil a foreign language requirement” by expanding ASL course offerings and hiring the faculty necessary to evaluate ASL proficiency of students seeking to opt out of their language requirement.

Eighty-two percent of the student body said that ASL should “satisfy the foreign language requirement at Cornell” in a 2016 S.A. referendum, while a 2016 poll conducted by Cornell University Deaf Awareness Project indicated that 57 percent of the respondents would want to take an ASL course according to the resolution addendum.

Whatever happens next, it's  brilliant to see that big a vote in favour.