The Indiana Court Interpreter Program is the result of an interim recommendation made to the Supreme Court by the Indiana Commission on Race and Gender Fairness. At the request of the Supreme Court, in 2000, the Indiana General Assembly funded the Indiana Supreme Court Commission on Race and Gender Fairness to investigate ways to improve race and gender fairness in the courts, legal system among legal service providers, state and local governments, and among public organizations.

As part of its research, the Commission conducted public hearings throughout Indiana during the summer of 2001. While citizens voiced numerous race and gender-related concerns at these hearings, the issue raised most frequently was the lack of a court interpreter system in Indiana. The Commission heard reports of fraudulent conduct by persons acting as interpreters, reliance upon friends and family members untrained in the law and not well educated in either language, in whose hands were entrusted the property and liberty interest of non-English speaking litigants who had to go to court. Of even greater concern were reports of police officers serving as interpreters in criminal court proceedings because of lack of funding for trained and qualified interpreters, despite their obvious conflict of interest.