[blindlaw] IQ Testing

Mon Nov 10 21:40:36 UTC 2008

Well this is what I have been pointing out that the testing facilities are
not designing tests that accommodate the blind.  They are only concerned
with Section 508 compliance and not a whole solution. You and I know that
Section 508 is rather meaningless unless they actually care enough to test
their form or page using a real screen reader.   I just received an email
from the Access Board where they were commenting on the Accessibility of the
EAC, the Elections Assistance Commission where they managed to find some
features of the EAC website to be accessible to the blind according to
Section 508 and they seemed pleased with that accomplishment.

But Accessibility is not solved by fixing only a few items.  It is an either
or situation, not step by step.  You are either accessible or you are not.

The feeling that I find in government is that the blind should be happy with
what they have, that the blind are a class of sub humans that should be
happy with whatever scraps they receive from the table. This is appalling
but I see it in the previous discussion on going to law school.  Where you
are requesting that they make the testing accessible as if there should be
some sort of delay, that the technology does not exist to do it now.  Oh
please Mr law school please be nice.  You should be demanding that they do
this or CLOSE THEM DOWN under Section 504.  Take their federal money. No
more student loans. No more grants,  CLOSE THEM DOWN!  This is a disgrace.
 Stop this wimpy attitude and get them!

The laws are on the books, this behavior is wrong.  Who here has the guts to
stand up for the blind?  Where are you, what is this garbage!

The technology exists.

There is no excuse.

Stand up and be counted and fight these people and force them into
compliance!

This little kid is being labeled mentally deficient because some bureaucrat
refuses to obey the law.

 I faced this same type of problem when I was a kid, I was on crutches for
the first 15 years of my life and the State of New Jersey had no provision
for the disabled and so their solution was to fail all the disabled kids
from Gym. The Gym teachers were idiots who regularly made fun of
the disabled students and the teachers did not have the brain capacity to
realize that we were capable we just need the curriculum changed.  Yes
this was illegal, cruel, but nobody enforces the law because everyone who is
capable of enforcing the law are wimps.  Fortunately my college figured out
that the state bureaucrats of new jersey were neanderthals and they accepted
me into college.

If your kid was Hispanic and they refused to give that kid the test in
Spanish you could sue them because of the status of the Hispanics under the
Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act.  They are a class of people to
be protected from this type of discrimination.

So why is it OK for the blind to be discriminated like this?  And why are
you lawyers all laying down and not doing anything about it?

If you are under the impression that the technology does not exist, it
exists, they just refuse to use it.  And notice that the states are not
concerned about the costs of changing documents and forms into spanish but
they are concerned for the blind.  This is just discrimination, that's all
it is!

In this past election, none, I repeat none of the voter registration forms
were accessible to the blind.  There are 10 million blind people who are
eligible to vote according to Jim Dickson of the American Association of
People with Disabilities.  The states were required to be accessible to the
blind in every law passed on voting rights and accessibility rights for the
past 35 years. Each of these laws required specifically that voter
registration be made accessible to the law, and it is written into 6 laws so
clearly they have never complied and Congress had to write it into law 6
times.

So why are the blind not a class to be protected under the Voting Rights
Act?

 The consequences of non compliance is the removal of electors for the
states, for both the electoral college and the House of Representatives  and
the redistricting of the states.  The States would go ape if they there
forced to redistrict let alone loose members of Congress.    They would do
anything to comply.  It is all there in the law all you have to do is go
before the DC US District Court a three judge panel is set up to hear these
cases in an election.    This is the same law that was used to punish the
southern states under Reconstruction and that was because 4 million people
were denied the right to vote.  It is the same law, the 14th Amendment
Section 2.

We could not bring this before the election day because the states are
discriminating in the election and they were not guilt of the crime until
all the votes were cast.  This is because many states have voter
registration on election day.  But you can attack this now before the
electoral college meets because the crime is still active it can still be
fixed.  It will not make a difference to the outcome, but it will cause the
states to Integrate the Blind.

The lawyers who would normally use this law represent one side or the other
 in the political debate, and they have no vested interest in bringing the
discrimination case of the blind to this court. This is because the
consequences of violating the Voting Rights Act is to remove elector, remove
members of Congress from ALL the states and the last thing they want to do
is upset their political clients.

So this has to be done by YOU the blind lawyers.  That is if you really want
to Integrate the blind, or if you want to do things piece-meal  and rely on
ADA law to do this bit by bit in the states.

Or you can have three federal judges do a sweeping action which would
probably result in the reconstruction of the Access Board, cause each state
to create an auditing agency of their Section 508 compliance which would
audit their IT people to determine if they actually know what they are
doing, Change section 508 to include testing with real world solutions like
JAWS and Window Eyes and bring everyone into W3c compliance and it will
enable legislation to integrate the blind into the private sector and expand
accessibility nationwide.

And of course you the blind lawyers would be involved in actually
integrating the blind all over this nation with real solutions and not all
this little stuff of trying to get government agencies to make things
section 508 compliant.  Do you like begging for access that is a right for
everyone else in our society.

If the states are willing to deny the right to vote to the blind, then this
shows just how much contempt they have for the law in every other aspect.
You all see this, it is about time we demand change!  Who here is willing to
fight the fight?

Or you can continue to beg for the scraps under the table.

You need evidence, I fought the fight and I have correspondence from the EAC
and the states where they refuse to integrate the blind. Where the state of
Washington actually put it in writing that they were not required to make
voter registration forms accessible to the blind.

There is just too much money in not solving the problem.  The Rehabilitation
Act set up a huge government agency whose sole existence is to solve
accessibility and they will continue to solve it for a thousand years
because there is no incentive to actually fix anything, only to  try to fix
the problem.  If they fix the problem then the agency disappears.  I want
the agency to disappear, we need to solve this once and for all!

There is just too much money in keeping the problem alive.  The result is
the involuntary servitude of 10 million people.  This is a national
disgrace.

Sincerely

James G. Pepper
214-360-0622
PS if you don't want to fight the fight, do you all know anyone with any
guts in France or Britain?

On Mon, Nov 10, 2008 at 10:40 AM, Prevost, Ann Marie <APrevost at sidley.com>wrote:

> Hello-
>
> I am an attorney in NYC and the mother of a 4 year old visually
> impaired/legally blind daughter. She is also a triplet which makes this
> interesting. I have recently had all three tested for a particular Gifted
> and Talented program in the City. The results have come in. I am not
> surprised - however - I am angry. The boys tested within 2 points of each
> other and will very easily make the cut-off for at least some of the G&T
> programs in the City. My daughter's score was more than 20 points less then
> the boys. Yes they supposedly made accommodations - a few enlargements I
> believe. However the test is geared toward children with vision. No matter
> how bright she is she has a disadvantage in that she does not receive her
> information the same way. Maybe when she is older these tests will even out
> - but as a 4 year old I don't think they can possibly be accurate. If she
> had been 5 or 10 points behind I wouldn't be so upset - but not 20.
>
> My daughter is lucky because she is set to go to the public school my older
> son is already in. However, that is not the point. What upsets me is that we
> are supposed to accept this score instead of insisting on a test for the
> visually impaired - which don't seem to exist. Heck, I would like to test
> all the other children who took the test on the things she knows and
> does!!!!!!
>
> What I am more worried about is the future when she needs to take other
> tests which do not adequately reflect her ability.
>
> Has anyone had any experience with this?
>
> I can't thank you all enough. Being on this list serve has been so helpful
> to me.
>
> Ann Marie Prevost
>
> Ann Marie Prevost
> Sidley Austin LLP
> 787 Seventh Avenue
> New York, New York 10019
> aprevost at sidley.com
> 212-839-5408
>
>
>
>
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