[nabs-l] rights as blind students and responsibilities of universities

[Anjelina]

Joseph,
Thanks for your honest advice and experience. It's not fair that you had 
your career derailed, but as you said your efforts have benefited future 
students. Where is the line drawn between what is reasonable accommodations 
and discrimination?
Although the self-service Banner site is not completely inaccessible, many 
of the elements such as links are not properly labeled. I had to have 
sighted assistance to accept financial aid awards. I am not opposed to using 
the JAWS cursor and trying to navigate the site but the design could be 
better. Do I have a plausible claim? How much time should I give the 
university to make changes?
Thank you all for your input.
-----Original Message----- 
From: T. Joseph Carter
Sent: Tuesday, July 12, 2011 9:29 PM
To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list
Subject: Re: [nabs-l] rights as blind students and responsibilities 
ofuniversities

Be prepared to document EVERYTHING.  Get it in writing, save every
email you receive or send out.  Come up with an indexing system now,
because you’ll need it later.  Don’t expect that just because you’re
facing discrimination that the NFB will come to your rescue with
legal help—I had email where the professors actively said they were
looking for a student teaching site that would ensure I failed, and
yet I had no support.

You may never get anything for your efforts, and your efforts may be
long indeed.  But you can pave the way for others, if you’re
determined to do it.  I was, and I did.  It ended my career before it
began though.  Others have benefited from my work, including one of
our scholarship winners this year.

Joseph


On Tue, Jul 12, 2011 at 09:20:51PM -0400, wmodnl wmodnl wrote:
>
>
>Get ready for retaliatory acts by your school.  Here in NYC at educational 
>institutions such as CUNY, they are good at that.  Your grades and 
>reputation will suffer.  I am unable to get into graduate school or get a 
>job since I have been blasted on websites and blogs for my advocacy 
>efferts.  My GPA went from a 3.9 to a final 2.6.  So much for trying to “”lives 
>the American dream." while helping others.  I dealt with this when the 
>economy was good; just, picture what you are against now that every 
>corporation blames the economy and current-day politics. This happens 
>regardless of the special funding that they receive superseding the current 
>economical situation.
>Sorry for the rant,
>Joe
>
>
>
>
>> From: bookwormahb at earthlink.net
>> To: nabs-l at nfbnet.org
>> Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2011 21:17:00 -0400
>> Subject: Re: [nabs-l] rights as blind students and responsibilities 
>> ofuniversities
>>
>> Anjelina,
>> There are some similar issues at Nova, northern Virginia community 
>> college;
>> I started a writing certificate there and ran into access issues. While 
>> the
>> site for grades, transcripts, etc wasn't inaccessible, I'd say it wasn't
>> very screen reader friendly.
>>
>> I complained about inaccessible stuff on the website like unlabeled
>> graphics. I also requested an update to jaws in the library.
>> I haven't seen much change; not to mention several violations of ADA to 
>> the
>> environment for those with physical disabilities; all doors should be 
>> wide
>> enough for wheel chairs and they need more push buttons for doors.
>>
>> Yes its reasonable to request jaws. Its about the same access; all other
>> students have the access to computers on campus and you should have 
>> access
>> to at least some of them. Your tuition covers technology access.
>>
>> I'd make a written complaint if I were you and go up the chain of 
>> command.
>> Mention in your complaint about how schools need to comply with section 
>> 508
>> regulations. I assume your school receives federal support and if they 
>> do,
>> they are bound by civil rights laws like ADA and section 508 of the rehab
>> act.
>>
>> Ashley
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Anjelina
>> Sent: Monday, July 11, 2011 8:36 PM
>> To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list
>> Subject: [nabs-l] rights as blind students and responsibilities
>> ofuniversities
>>
>> Hi all,
>> I hope all who attended convention had a great time. The stream was very
>> informative.
>> My University has gradually migrated to a system called Banner self 
>> service.
>> All students are required to use the system for scheduling, financial 
>> aid,
>> updating information among other functions. The site is not fully
>> accessible. Even with Safari and Voiceover, JAWS with Firefox and IE9 I'm
>> unable to activate buttons or links. I've contacted the ds office and the
>> tech office. This might be a silly question but I'm wondering how much 
>> time
>> is reasonable to give to see significant change?
>> AAs a blind student is it unreasonable to request JAWS in the library, or 
>> am
>> I responsible for providing a key? I've always just taken my laptop with 
>> me
>> when having to do group work which is a work around.
>> Thanks for your input.
>>
>> Anjelina
>> Sent from my iPhone
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Anjelina