[nfbcs] Fake Cover Letters Expose Discrimination Against Disabled

Fri Mar 11 15:32:21 UTC 2016

There are two issue here one with the ADA accommodation one but the other and more troubling to me is the actions of employers as described below. Such statements such as "how will you go to the bathroom" or the flat rejection of a disabled applicant solely on the basis of disability are clear violations of the Equal Employment Opportunity Act, just as the rejection due to race, sex, national origin and so on are.

When such happens you should at once ask to see the persons supervisor, upon meeting him or her you should recite exactly what was said, if they refuse to let you talk to the supervisor say the following to the person you have been dealing with. Inform them that such statement are a clear violation of federal, and likely state labour law and inform them that unless immediate regress is given you will file a complaint with the EEOC. If possible say this in a setting where others can overhear you. Then you must be willing to follow up that threat by doing so.

Now it is likely that you personally will never see any outcome from your filing but what you will be doing is having a mountain of paperwork fall down on the company in question. It is going to take the senior management many, many hours and considerable expense to deal with the issue and it is unlikely that they will ever again tolerate such behaviour from an employee screening applicants again. So while they may come up with more subtle was of not hiring the disabled they will have learned a hard and valuable lesson about what you can and can not ask and say a job applicant. You will be smoothing the path for the next person.

Commonwealth Braille & Talking Book Cooperative
Greg Kearney, General Manager
#320, 185-911 Yates Street
Victoria, BC V8V 4Y9
CANADA
Email: info at cbtbc.org
Web: www.cbtbc.org

U.S. Address
21908 Almaden Av.
Cupertino, CA 95014
UNITED STATES
Email: gkearney at gmail.com
Phone: +1 408-780-6535

> On Mar 11, 2016, at 7:15 AM, John G Heim via nfbcs <nfbcs at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 
> I don't know  ... In the example I gave, I stood up when my name was called, the woman saw that I had a guide dog and said she didn't want to interview me. I don't care how good you are at interviewing, you're not going to over come that. Tracy's story is similar. I've been in interviews like that too. When all they want to know is how you are going to get to the bathroom, no amount of interviewing skill is going to talk them out of it. These things are called prejudices  for a reason. They've made up their mind ahead of time.
> 
> Take those comments from the woman who said it only makes sense to hire the non-disabled person since they'll be cheaper. Do you think you could talk her out of that during an interview? I really doubt it. People do tend to hire the candidate they hit it off with rather than the most qualified. But I think the vast majority of people like the woman who made that comment would say, "Wow, that blind guy was really great. Too bad we can't hire him."
> 
> On 03/10/2016 10:14 PM, Christopher Chaltain via nfbcs wrote:
>> I've heard arguments on both sides of the debate as to whether to disclose or not disclose. For me, I think I do well at face to face interviews, so my whole goal during the job search is to get that face to face interview. That being said, I don't hide the fact that I'm blind on my resume, in my job applications or on my social networking sites. I also don't volunteer that information if it comes up during a screening interview over the phone, but I'm prepared to address it and talk about my accommodations if it does come up.
>> 
>> As far as accommodations go, I'm at a point in my life where I don't have a problem purchasing my own accommodations. If laying out a few thousand dollars is the difference  between being employed or unemployed then I consider that money well spent. I understand not everyone is in my financial situation, so I'm not saying this applies to everyone.
>> 
>> I haven't had to put this to the test yet. My previous job was at a company that used Linux, so I was able to do my job using Ubuntu, Orca and other free access tools. My current job is with the state government, so I had no qualms expecting them to provide me a screen reader.
>> 
>> On 10/03/16 16:21, Steve Jacobson via nfbcs wrote:
>>> John,
>>> 
>>> I think you raise some interesting points.  When I started working some
>>> forty years ago, it was common thought that the agency for the blind
>>> provided the equipment for a job.  Often this was a one-time thing, and of
>>> course that has changed.  However, particularly with the coming of ADA, but
>>> even before that, it became the employer's responsibility to provide needed
>>> equipment as a reasonable accommodation.  Whether it should be considered or
>>> not, that makes us more expensive to hire for the same return, unless, as
>>> you say, we can convince an employer that we will produce more. However, I
>>> am somewhat uneasy with the concept that we produce more to justify our
>>> extra equipment because it may not be that easy to achieve.  A lot of our
>>> reasonable accommodation needs are really pretty small for a large company,
>>> but they can be an "Undo burden" on a small company which is where many jobs
>>> are.  Also, many large companies budget at a department level and one's
>>> equipment may need to be paid for by the department that does the hiring.  A
>>> small expense for a large company might be much more substantial at the
>>> department level.  come
>>> 
>>> I don't claim to have answers, but I believe this problem needs to be
>>> considered.  Still, can one really claim discrimination if someone else is
>>> hired who does not have reasonable accommodation needs?  I know that some
>>> job applicants are told to iron out their reasonable accommodation needs
>>> right away, and there is a case to be made for that.  One needs to know if
>>> they can do the job for one thing.  But it really exposes one's hand, so to
>>> speak, very early in the process.  Another employee who does not require any
>>> reasonable accommodations but who had a family situation that causes them to
>>> require time off, for example, won't reveal any of this until they have been
>>> hired.  We need to look for answers to some of this as blind people because
>>> we are the ones most effected.
>>> 
>>> Best regards,
>>> 
>>> Steve Jacobson
>>> 
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: nfbcs [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of John G Heim via
>>> nfbcs
>>> Sent: Thursday, March 10, 2016 10:51 AM
>>> To: NFB in Computer Science Mailing List <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
>>> Cc: John G Heim <jheim at math.wisc.edu>; Tracy Carcione <carcione at access.net>
>>> Subject: Re: [nfbcs] Fake Cover Letters Expose Discrimination Against
>>> Disabled
>>> 
>>> It'd be funny if it wasn't about putting bread on the table.
>>> Another thing in the comments that I think is of interest is that some
>>> people blasted the research study saying it was stupid to disclose that
>>> you are disabled in the cover letter. But both of our examples show how
>>> futile it is to not disclose it.  You're going to end up at a lot of
>>> interviews where you have absolutely no chance at the job. There is
>>> always some chance you'll wow the interviewer into giving you a chance,
>>> I suppose. Is it worth it? Just my opinion but I don't think so. I think
>>> you are better off weeding those people out in the first place.
>>> 
>>> The last time I was applying for jobs, I made myself out to be Super
>>> Blind Guy in my cover letter. Of course, I didn't actually use that term
>>> in my cover letter but I made a point of emphasizing the things I could
>>> do. I have competed in triathlonns, landscaped the front of my house,
>>> done a lot of woodworking. For what it's worth, it seemed to work.
>>> 
>>> You know about Super Blind Guy, right? He and his faithful guide dog
>>> companion  go around righting wrongs with his razor sharp mind, super
>>> hearing, echo location, and super sensitive touch. "Ah ha!" says Super
>>> Blind Guy, "I knew the bill was counterfeit because it was dated 1936
>>> and Andrew Jackson didn't appear on the twenty until 1938."
>>> On 03/10/2016 10:10 AM, Tracy Carcione via nfbcs wrote:
>>>> I once interviewed for a job, taking a bus, a train, and walking several
>>>> blocks in Manhattan, only to find the interviewer could not be convinced I
>>>> wouldn't need someone to lead me to the bathroom.  Grrrr.
>>>> Tracy
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: nfbcs [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of John G Heim via
>>>> nfbcs
>>>> Sent: Thursday, March 10, 2016 11:03 AM
>>>> To: NFB in Computer Science Mailing List
>>>> Cc: John G Heim
>>>> Subject: [nfbcs] Fake Cover Letters Expose Discrimination Against Disabled
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>> http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/11/02/upshot/fake-cover-letters-expose-discri 
>>>> mination-against-disabled.html
>>>> 
>>>> I think I have talked on this list about wanting to commission a study
>>>> similar to the one mentioned in this article except with a blind applicant
>>>> applying for IT jobs. The study has people with spinal injuries and
>>>> Asperger's Syndrome applying for accounting jobs. They found disabled
>>>> applicants were 26% less likely to get a call back. Of particular interest
>>>> are some of the comments.
>>>> 
>>>> "Given two candidates of roughly equal qualifications the rational
>>> decision
>>>> would be to hire the one without disabilities. It's going to be less
>>>> expensive, on average . [...] So statistically, a disabled job applicant
>>>> would need to be sufficiently better qualified for the job to overcome the
>>>> disability to be the 'correct' choice."
>>>> 
>>>> Long time readers of this list will know I've speculated about this effect
>>>> for years. My guess is that this factor is much greater for blind
>>> applicants
>>>> than it is for the types of disabilities in the study. A blind person
>>> does,
>>>> in fact, have greater challenges to over come. But I suspect that even
>>> worse
>>>> is the lack of understanding about just how much a blind technologist can
>>>> do. A perspective employer once flatly refused to interview me when she
>>> saw
>>>> that I was blind. She essentially accused me of faking my resume and
>>> simply
>>>> would not believe a blind person could use a computer.
>>>> 
>>>> 
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>>>> 
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>> 
> 
> -- 
> --
> John G. Heim; jheim at math.wisc.edu; sip://jheim@sip.linphone.org
> 
> 
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