The National Association of the Deaf holds its biennial convention every two years, and the Deaf community shows up in ways it shows up nowhere else — not just to gather, but to vote, debate, and decide what the country’s oldest civil rights organization stands for next. The 2026 convention opens June 30 in San Francisco. Here is the conversation happening before the doors open.
A Leadership Transition in the Open
The NAD entered 2026 with a new CEO, and the community is watching closely. Leadership transitions at anchor organizations rarely happen quietly in a community this interconnected — and they should not. The NAD sets policy positions, manages legal interventions, and shapes how Deaf Americans are represented in federal and legislative spaces. Who leads it, and what they prioritize, is a community-wide question.
The convention floor will be where members weigh in. That is the structure the NAD was built on: not a top-down announcement but a membership vote. For those who have opinions about the direction of Deaf advocacy — and most people in this community do — this is the moment that actually counts.
A Generation That Came Up on Video
Gen-Z Deaf adults are the first generation to have grown up with ubiquitous captioned video, accessible streaming, and Deaf creator communities on platforms that did not exist when the ADA was signed. Their relationship to Deaf identity, ASL, and advocacy looks different from prior generations — not less serious, but differently formed.
That shows up at conventions in the questions asked from the floor, the resolutions submitted, and the faces on the stage. NAD 2026 will be one of the clearest reads yet on how those generational perspectives are integrating into the formal structures of organized Deaf advocacy.
Policy on the Table
The convention comes during an active period for Deaf-related federal policy: the ADA Title II web-accessibility delay (public comment closed June 22), ongoing debates over the use of Video Remote Interpreting in medical and legal settings, and federal education-funding questions that directly affect schools for the Deaf. Convention resolutions passed by the membership carry weight in how the NAD engages Congress and federal agencies in the two years that follow.
DeafMonitor Will Be Watching
We will be covering NAD 2026 throughout the convention week. If you are attending and want to share what you are seeing — a resolution, a panel, a conversation on the floor — submit a tip at deafmonitor.com/submit-tip. If you cannot make it to San Francisco, our coverage will be on the site daily.
The ICS calendar link on our NAD 2026 page will keep the dates on your calendar.