Super Bowl LVIII and the days following should have been a celebration of our culture, our language, and making progress. This was not the case.

Over the last two weeks, the NAD Board has been actively meeting with community members to address concerns prompted by the Super Bowl. There has been a lot of important dialogue that has contributed to the NAD Board's close examination of the concerns raised and the importance of upholding the trust that the community has in the NAD. It is clear that the communities care and we appreciate the feedback shared with us, both openly and privately.

The NAD Board values transparency and has begun an intensive review into our advocacy of access to the Super Bowl and the NAD’s endorsement and conflict of interest policies. We are also looking at how we can ensure transparency while we honor contractual agreements that require confidentiality. This requires time to gather all the facts and to put together a plan of action in order to make meaningful change. This review is a commitment to our mission, our communities, and to protecting the integrity of the NAD; its many decades of our advocacy for Deaf, DeafBlind, DeafDisabled, Hard of Hearing, and Late Deafened communities.

We recognize that restoring the communities’ trust begins with us being transparent on the outcome of this review. While we have certain confidentiality obligations, we are committed to sharing information. To move forward, we know that this means sharing our action plan to address what we’ve learned in the effort to support the NAD and keep the NAD accountable. As the NAD works through this, we will continue to share updates.

In the meantime, the NAD Board supports the NAD staff as we continue to provide important services to the communities such as policy, advocacy, youth programs, litigation, conference planning, and more – their work does not and cannot pause.