[nabs-l] Waver

[Sean Whalen]

Marc,

Here are some thoughts. I have taken your tack and entered comments in the
text as if it were a running dialogue.

SW,
Being blind, this class would present me with additional challenges and 
extra work not required of other students.
Therefore, I shouldn't have to take it.

Short argument, I know. Seems there must be a missing premise there 
somewhere, no? Maybe something like:

People shouldn't have to do things that aren't fair.

MW,
Not sure you've presented the argument as strongly as you could have.  How 
about:

Being blind, this class would present me with additional challenges and 
extra work not required of other students.
Being require to complete extra work not required of other students, solely 
because I'm blind, is a form of discrimination.
Students should not have to take classes that discriminate.
Therefore, I shouldn't have to take this particular class.

SW reply:
In fact, I'm sure I didn't present the argument as strongly as it might have
been presented, but, cut me some slack here, I wrote quickly and didn't know
Professor Workman would be coming through with his fine-toothed comb.
Seriously though, your formulation is more clear, though it still relies on
the commonsense proposition that we should not have to do things that are
unfair/unjust (I use the two interchangeably). We shouldn't have to do
things that are discriminatory, because those things are unfair, and we
shouldn't have to do unfair things.

MW,
Now, you'll probably disagree, but don't disagree with the above version. 
Instead, show me why the following one is wrong, or why the two cases are 
not the same.

Being a woman, this class would present me with additional challenges and 
extra work not required of other students.
Being require to complete extra work not required of other students, solely 
because I'm a woman, is a form of discrimination.
Students should not have to take classes that discriminate.
Therefore, I shouldn't have to take this particular class.

SW reply,
Actually, I agree with the argument in both cases. I shouldn't have to take
classes that require more work of me solely because I am blind. Nor should a
woman have to take a class, God knows what it might be, that would require
more work of her solely because she is a woman. I recognize that my initial
post reads as if I take issue with the claim that "people shouldn't have to
do things that are unfair," or the parallel from your reformulation,
"students shouldn't have to take classes that are discriminatory," but that
is not the case. In an ideal world, such injustices would not exist. What I
take issue with is people making the jump from "I shouldn't have to" to "I
am right to not." The mere fact that, in a perfectly just world, one would
not have to do something, in no way means that, in the world as it actually
exists, doing that thing is not the right thing to do. I think that the path
toward justice in the classroom lies, in particular, in making information,
which is frequently presented in a visual fashion, more readily available to
blind students, and, in general, in teaching courses with an eye toward
reaching as many students as possible, and not in granting students waivers
or exemptions. I would suspect that you agree with me here, as you have
basically said as much.

One other question you can get at by thinking about other parallel arguments
is this: What if you take characteristics like sex or visual acuity out, and
substitute instead characteristics that have more to do with academic
success. Should dyslexics, in a just world, not be forced to take lit
classes? Should those who struggle with math, in an ideal world, be exempt
from math courses? It seems obvious to me that the answer is no, so what is
the difference? Is calculus not discriminatory to somebody who lacks the
facility to deal with numbers? Is there something more fundamental to the
education of a person about math than art?

MW,
The point I would make is that a college that requires all students to take 
very visually oriented classes as part of completion of a degree has been 
badly designed.  It has been designed on the assumption that only sighted 
students will be attending the university.  And that is unfair, it's unjust,

and it should be challenged.

SW reply,
I largely agree with you. What should be challenged is the way the
information is presented, not what information is required to be learned. As
Arielle has rightly pointed out, math, science, statistics, economics, and
many other courses in which material is traditionally presented visually are
by no means inherently visual. We should absolutely fight for better access,
but in the time being, while access is still what it is, we have to choose
between two less than perfect options. 1) Skip the class, miss out on the
content, which obviously the university felt important, and send the message
that we cannot compete, or 2) deal with the injustice of having to do extra
work compared with that which we would have to do if we were sighted
versions of ourselves. I'll pick number 2 any day.



SW,
If we say we want to be treated like anybody else, we have to mean it. The 
"when it suits me" Caveat undermines the whole stance.

MW,
If we say discrimination is wrong, we have to fight against it, in all its 
forms, including those cases where blind students are forced to do extra 
work simply because they are blind.

SW reply:
Yes, we do have to fight it, but while we are fighting it, we have to get by
the best we can. As I say, neither skipping the class nor taking it and
doing extra work are ideal, but unless we wish to suspend our academic
careers until the battle is won, that is the choice we are left with, and
you know where I come down.

SW,
Wouldn't it be easier, and maybe more fair, to just have you skip the 
optional trip?"

MW,
Don't see how this would be more fair.  Perhaps if there were an argument 
showing that this really would be more fair, then you'd have something, but 
without this, I think the analogy fails.

SW reply:
That was kind of tongue in cheek. Clearly there is no argument from justice
or fairness on the part of the school here. What I was driving at was the
fact that, to a given individual, what is fair or just often conveniently
coincides with what would be best for them. Also, as I'm sure you recognize,
an argument's not being a good one rarely stops people from making it, and
often with considerable effect. Surely if I had a class waved, and later
wanted to do something that my school didn't want to let me do, the waiver
would come back to bite, or at least attempt to bite, me in the ass.


SW,
Fortunately, we in the NFB are working together to make things less 
difficult, and through our collective work we have built, and continue to 
build, a brighter future for all blind people. I will, however, assure you 
that none of our progress was ever attained by requesting a waiver.

MW,
It sort of depends on what you mean by a waver.  The NFB has asked for 
things to be altered for the benefit of the blind.  I read Walking Alone and

Marching Together not that long ago, and if I recall, one of the early goals

of the organization was to make it so that blind people could earn money in 
the market place without having welfare benefits cut back.  Is this not a 
kind of a waver? Everyone else gets their benefits cut when they earn a 
certain income, but this shouldn't happen for blind people? This is one 
example that readily comes to mind.  I think pretty much any time a change 
has been requested that is designed to make things easier for blind people 
and will lead to differential treatment, this can be construed as a kind of 
a waver.

SW reply:
When I say we haven't made progress by "requesting a waiver" I, of course,
do not mean it literally. Taken literally, it doesn't make much sense at
all. Read "requesting a waiver" as "taking the easy way out," which taking a
waiver certainly is. 

MW,
I think if more energy were spent fighting the discriminatory design of 
products, services, and institutions, and less time spent coming up with 
clever ways of getting along within these badly designed systems, all blind 
people would be a lot better off, not just the clever ones.

SW reply:
Thinking about the ought and knowing the ideal are very useful, and, in
fact, necessary if one wants to change things for the better, but it is
dangerous to fixate on how things ought to be to the point where one becomes
unwilling to deal with what actually is. Of course, full access and
universal design are laudable goals. I share them with you. I agree that
time and energy should be devoted to changing the system rather than
exclusively to figuring out how to get along within the broken one we have,
but at the same time, if we don't figure out how to get along in the world
we inhabit, we will never amass the power to change it. Both approaches are
necessary.

Thanks for the interesting thoughts and forcing me to clarify my own
thinking.

Take care,

Sean