American Sign Language (ASL) is a beautiful language with important roots in Deaf culture — so why is UCI’s access to ASL education so limited? To encourage inclusion on campus and equity among students, UCI must expand its available ASL coursework.
Currently, UCI only offers three quarters of ASL instruction. One of the graduation requirements for those in the School of Humanities is demonstrating proficiency in a language other than English at the 2C level, which requires six quarters of instruction. This means humanities majors cannot even take ASL to meet their foreign language mandate. Offered ASL credit is sufficient for students from other divisions, but their fluency and confidence is still extremely limited by the short time frame provided.
UCI also lacks an ASL exemption test. Deaf students and Children of Deaf Adults cannot use their fluency to test out of the language other than English requirement, an effect compounded by ASL’s exclusion from AP or IB testing. This is a problem for many uncommon languages, but the barrier to earning credit is a particular challenge for Deaf students who must organize testing modifications through the Disability Services Center in order to take spoken language classes.
ASL’s inability to meet certain graduation requirements is only one of many reasons to add a second year of ASL instruction to the course catalog. Offering more ASL instruction would also open the door to linguistic and experiential diversity that students in all fields can benefit from.
ASL is a unique language with the potential to enrich linguistic education for UCI’s students. It has its own grammar rules that make it unique from English, including rules about body language and facial expressions. It also includes a significant focus on conceptual communication instead of strict vocabulary memorization. These unique aspects of the language require a different approach to learning that can demand more individualized attention and require more time to learn. Thus, a second year of ASL instruction would directly improve the fluency and learning experience of UCI’s students.
In addition to the strictly practical and inclusive aspects of expanding ASL education, adding more ASL classes would create a larger platform for students to learn about Deaf culture. This curriculum could overlap with countless humanities majors, like global cultures or history. The School of Social Sciences already offers a certificate in ASL for students in the Department of Language Science, and the Deaf community has a rich history of unique and expressive art relevant to arts degrees. An expanded ASL education would fit right in with UCI’s existing educational focuses.
ASL education also forms more inclusive mindsets necessary for living in the United States. Over 11 million people in the U.S. are deaf, and about 15% of American adults report having some trouble hearing. However, decades of oralism — the discriminatory prioritization of teaching Deaf children to speak instead of sign — have decreased access to ASL education for both Deaf people and students as a whole. Activist efforts have sought to fight this educational inequity at all levels, including collegiate education.
Institutions like UCI are specially positioned to model pathways to better representation. California has a strong Deaf presence, and Orange County is home to an active Deaf community. UCI is also a top public school, giving it a national stage to promote ASL. If Irvine displays a shift towards substantiating sign language education and its many benefits, other institutions could be encouraged to follow.
Clearly, UCI has an undeveloped opportunity to better serve both its students and the local Deaf community. Perhaps one day UCI could become the first UC campus to offer a Deaf Studies degree. But work towards that admirable goal begins with adding a second year of ASL coursework and allowing humanities majors to pursue the language without fear of jeopardizing their graduation.
ASL and Deafness are complex topics with immense educational and cultural value. UCI should do its part to make that value accessible.
Ruby Goodwin is an Opinion Intern for the winter 2026 quarter. She can be reached at regoodwi@uci.edu.
Edited by Casey Mendoza and Riley Schnittger