[nfbcs] Fake Cover Letters Expose Discrimination Against Disabled

Fri Mar 11 15:37:21 UTC 2016

But employers pick up the tab for employees equipment all the time. 
Imagine a sighted person getting hired at a company that made 
accessibility tools. Everybody else who works at the company is blind. 
They sit him down in front of a computer with no monitor, just a 
headset. He says, "I'm going to need a monitor." And the boss says, "Are 
you kidding? You expect me to go out and spend my own money on some 
stupid visual device just for you?"

On 03/11/2016 07:02 AM, Gary Wunder via nfbcs wrote:
> I have a reasonable understanding of the ADA when it comes to how reasonable
> accommodation is interpreted, but I would argue for any client who pressed
> the state agency to provide the initial equipment for a job. It is one thing
> to demonstrate to an employer that I have worth and then expect him to pick
> up the same cost that he does for others, but I think it is a very different
> thing for an employer who doesn't know me or much of anything about blind
> people to be told that I will need screen reading software, a notetaker, and
> perhaps a scanner and some additional software. For the agency to drop the
> ball after carrying it 90% of the way seems foolish to me.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nfbcs [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Steve Jacobson
> via nfbcs
> Sent: Thursday, March 10, 2016 4:21 PM
> To: 'NFB in Computer Science Mailing List'
> Cc: Steve Jacobson; 'Tracy Carcione'
> Subject: Re: [nfbcs] Fake Cover Letters Expose Discrimination Against
> Disabled
>
> 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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John G. Heim; jheim at math.wisc.edu; sip://jheim@sip.linphone.org