[nfbcs] Fake Cover Letters Expose Discrimination Against Disabled

Sat Mar 12 03:03:22 UTC 2016

This is true, but it's frequently a little bit more complicated than 
what you're describing.

First, a hiring manager typically doesn't need to do anything to get a 
new employee standard equipment other than letting someone know I have a 
new employee starting on this date, Whereas, special equipment usually 
requires following a procurement process and might end up counting 
against the hiring manager's departmental budget. Even if the approval 
is pretty much a rubber stamp, it's more work for the hiring manager, 
probably involves getting some approvals and providing a justification 
and may count against a departmental budget meaning something else may 
not get purchased. Whether this is fair or not, it does put a blind 
candidate at a disadvantage.

Finally, special equipment may cost more than standard equipment. A copy 
of JAWS is going to cost a lot more than a monitor and a mouse. Plus, 
it's not like the company is going to know ahead of time that they don't 
need a monitor or a mouse for a blind employee. If a blind employee 
doesn't have a monitor on their desk that just means there's an extra 
monitor somewhere in the company. It doesn't mean the company actually 
save $100 by not buying a monitor. Besides, I've always had a monitor 
everywhere I've worked. I'm frequently asking someone to look at my 
screen to take a peek at some code, a document or some presentation.

On 11/03/16 10:59, Star Gazer via nfbcs wrote:
> 				John is absolutely correct here. Unless
> you're working as an independent contractor, employers purchase necessairy
> job materials all the time.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nfbcs [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of John G Heim via
> nfbcs
> Sent: Friday, March 11, 2016 10:37 AM
> To: NFB in Computer Science Mailing List <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
> Cc: John G Heim <jheim at math.wisc.edu>
> Subject: Re: [nfbcs] Fake Cover Letters Expose Discrimination Against
> Disabled
>
> 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
>>
>>
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