[Ohio-talk] FW: My ADA Article

[NMPBRAT at aol.com]

Deborah,  James, and all, 
I  don't often comment but I would like to echo what James has written.   
Deborah......you  wrote a fantastic and eloquent article.  It is wonderful 
to know that  we have great people like you advocating and speaking about 
topics that are so  important to the disabled community.  The ADA has brought 
us so far.  
Like  James has expressed, I hope as we embark on the next 25 years of the 
ADA, that  much focus is put on the issues the disabled community faces in 
the area of  employment.  I recently read a blog written by retired Senator 
Tom Harkin,  who sponsored the ADA, in which he stated that the one 
disappointment he had  about the law was in the area of employment.  I believe there 
are actually  two areas that need addressed within the area of employment 
though...one being  getting people employed and the other being keeping people 
employed, including  enforcement of the ADA.  I think James shared a 
perfect and personal  example of first issue.  I'd like to touch on the second.  
I've been  employed for the past 13 years by the same employer.  For the 
first decade  or so, I had no issues and was provided any accommodations 
necessary.  For  the last couple of years, I have found myself in the fight of my 
life....a fight  to keep the job I had worked so hard to get and had 
dedicated myself to for many  years.   I have found that although there is some 
protection that  exists with the ADA, its implementation and enforcement is 
severely lacking at  best.  I feel like the law is only as good as the 
implementation and  enforcement of it.  I feel like it has fallen short in the area 
of  employment and that the very system that is there to protect me, is right 
now  failing me.  I am close to 2 years of having to deal with 
discriminatory  practices by my employer.  As a result of the exercising my rights under 
 the law, I have a huge target on my back while they secretly try to come 
up  with any way to justify drop kicking me to the side of the road....and 
yet, I  don't even have an investigator assigned to my case yet.  Who knows 
when  that will happen....and whether I will be able to "hold on" long enough. 
 I  know legal things can be messy and lengthy in nature.....but it is 
disheartening  that process has really not even yet begun.  There has to be a 
better way  and I hope in the next 25 years, we find those better ways.  Ways 
to get  people employed....which I believe involves better education and 
training of  employers.....and better ways to keep people employed, just like 
me.  I  look forward to celebrating those achievements at the 50th 
anniversary of the  ADA.   
Respectfully, 
Nicole
 
 
In a message dated 7/27/2015 12:33:03 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
ohio-talk at nfbnet.org writes:

Dear  Deborah and all,
Thank you for sharing this article with us, and I found it  to be very 
well-written and on point. I hesitate to raise any criticisms,  and I 
know that space limitations play a major role and how much any  article 
can cover. I would only like to mention that a discussion of the  still 
very low rate of employment of working age adults with  
disabilities--according to Department of Labor statistics, two-thirds of  
working age adults with disabilities remain outside of the  
workforce--may have been helpful here. The ADA has barely moved the  
needle on employment, and I think it is worth asking whether an  
anti-discrimination law by itself is sufficient to achieve that goal.  
Even now, it seems that many employers consider job candidates with  
disabilities to be more expensive to hire and accommodate than is often  
the case, and rather than ensuring that all software and workplace  
equipment is accessible out of the box, they wait until a disabled  
employee faces an inaccessible environment and then plead poverty rather  
than implementing the necessary changes. Perhaps people with  
disabilities are still widely considered to be a resource drain rather  
than a resource in their own right, and the ADA is viewed as a series of  
onerous mandates imposed for their own sake by a regulation-happy  
federal government, regulations with which compliance is at times  
grudging and very uneven. My own search for employment is a good example  
of this problem. I have a Ph.D. in Political Science, have published  
articles in several peer-reviewed publications, and nevertheless have  
not been able to secure full-time employment in my field; I happen to be  
totally blind and have generally provided most of my own accommodations  
at little or no cost to my employers. I am now about to start law school  
at Ohio State with the intent of working in some area of disability  
advocacy and policy, and I hope to contribute to solving this serious  
underemployment problem for people with disabilities. I hope that this  
is taken not as an attack on your piece, which I like very much, but  
simply as a point that needs to be incorporated into the conversation  
about the ADA's effectiveness and limitations.
With all best  wishes,
James
On 7/27/2015 6:04 AM, Deborah Kendrick via Ohio-talk  wrote:
>   
>
> I think most of you know that I  write a regular column on disability 
rights for the Columbus  Dispatch.
>
> Thought you might like to see what I wrote for ADA  day, July 26.
>
>   
>
> This is my column  from Sunday’s Dispatch, my happy ADA day tribute.
>
> Sent from my  iPhone
>
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> Date:  July 26, 2015 at 11:13:55 AM EDT
> To: Deborah Kendrick  <dkkendrick at earthlink.net>
> Subject: ADA Article
>
>  Deborah Kendrick commentary: Disabilities Act was drafted with uncanny  
foresight
>
> 07/26/2015 5:00 AM
>
>  From coast  to coast, in cities large and small, in state capitols and 
campus conference  centers, Americans are celebrating the 25th anniversary of 
the Americans with  Disabilities Act today.
>
> I’m celebrating, too, (although  tangible plans made long ago have me in 
a remote location with a few friends,  who either don’t know much about this 
birthday or celebrate another one  because they are from the United 
Kingdom).
>
> Like any “elder”  reflecting on a given commemorative date, I’ve been 
thinking about this day  for a long time, and my reflections are fragmented, 
at best.
>
>  First, there’s the sparkling memory of the signing ceremony  itself.
>
> I received two invitations, actually. I made the  “advocates” list by 
virtue of involvement with a number of grass-roots  disability-rights 
organizations. More thrilling by far, however, was that I  made the journalists list.
>
> For four years already by July  1990, I had been writing a weekly column 
on disability rights. Far from being  deemed a respectable beat, disability 
didn’t even make the daily papers much  in those days, aside from the sugary 
heart-wrenching tales of inspiration  that, regrettably, are still alive 
and well in our media.
>
> I  was trying to do something else, something a bit more substantive and  
tough-minded, and I believe that every once in a while I  succeeded.
>
> Convincing my editor at the time that the event was  sufficiently 
newsworthy to warrant my covering it was no small feat. The  publisher, however, 
thought I should go. And so I did. And sent back a Page 1  story.
>
> The images vie for centerstage in my brain. The  gorgeous weather, the 
palpable energy, the deliciously merged swarm of people  with their crutches 
and canes and wheelchairs, hands flying through the air  with American Sign 
Language, guide dogs sneaking a sniff from a canine  colleague under one of 
the folding chairs.
>
> As President George  H.W. Bush spoke of that wall that needed to tumble 
down, the joy in that crowd  on the White House South Lawn was such that it 
would have surprised none of us  had someone begun to fly. The air was 
redolent with hope and promise and a  future shining with true equality for 
everyone.
>
> As euphoric as  the occasion was, however, I think now that I really saw 
it as a gift to my  friends who used wheelchairs and scooters.
>
> Other than the  occasional miscreant who thought my lack of physical 
eyesight translated as an  inability to enjoy or have a right to enjoy the 
simplest of pleasures, my own  life seemed pretty standard issue.
>
> I had a job, a young  family, a niche in my church and neighborhood.
>
> Laws in every  state already allowed my guide dog entrance to public 
transport and  facilities.
>
> We didn’t have the Internet yet, and my then  state-of-the-art technology 
gave me access to various information databases  and facilitated 
transmission of email messages and other data via phone  lines.
>
> There were a few audible traffic signals being  installed here and there, 
and if movies were too visually complex to follow  audibly, we were used to 
poking our friends or family in the ribs with  incessant variations of “
Hey! What’s happening?”
>
> Of course,  there was no Braille signage on hotel rooms, offices, or 
elevators and, yes,  that led to more than one “funny” story involving entering 
the wrong restroom  or sleeping space. But the issues seemed less 
insurmountable than being  excluded from a building altogether due to imposing 
stairways.
>
>  What was most thrilling that day was the spirit of the ADA — the 
president of  the United States saying that none of us should be excluded from what 
it means  to be an American, that attitudes needed to change.
>
>  Discrimination from my perspective came in the form of a ticket 
attendant at  the Cherokee museum who wouldn’t accept my admission money because I 
couldn’t  see the exhibits, or the server who thought my 4-year-old should 
pour my  coffee. And it took a delicious turn that July 26 afternoon when a 
fellow  journalist tried to hide his astonishment that I was queued up to get 
the same  quotes he was, rather than as a grateful supplicant.
>
> Of  course, the foresight written into the law, which made it apply to  
technological components not yet conceived, is what renders the ADA to people 
 of all mental and physical differences an essential passport to equality 
in  America.
>
> Today, accessing a website with needed information is  as critical as 
entering any brick-and-mortar building, and without laws, many  of us would 
have no hope of traveling those paths.
>
> Today,  movies are so complex that, without captioning and audio 
description, those of  us with vision or hearing disabilities would be completely 
left out of this  component of our culture.
>
> The ADA, hailed then as the most  comprehensive piece of civil-rights 
legislation since 1964, was no panacea,  but its promise was dazzling.
>
> We have a long way to go. I  still encounter doubt and disbelief in the 
company of strangers, people who  see me as less-than because I have a 
disability. I still encounter web sites,  touch kiosks and intersections I can’t 
navigate.
>
> But the  promise of the law is still alive and well.
>
> I celebrate the  passage of the ADA and I celebrate its 25th birthday. 
With greater  anticipation, however, I celebrate the promise of inclusion yet 
to  come.
>
> Deborah Kendrick is a Cincinnati writer and advocate for  people with 
disabilities.
>
>  _______________________________________________
> Ohio-talk mailing  list
> Ohio-talk at nfbnet.org
>  http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/ohio-talk_nfbnet.org
> To  unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for  
Ohio-talk:
>  
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/ohio-talk_nfbnet.org/jtfetter%40yahoo.com


_______________________________________________
Ohio-talk  mailing  list
Ohio-talk at nfbnet.org
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/ohio-talk_nfbnet.org
To  unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for  
Ohio-talk:
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/ohio-talk_nfbnet.org/nmpbrat%40aol.com