Author: Amber Cecil

“Everyone is just one bad day away from needing accessible options the #ADA requires to help them get around,” tweeted Sen. Tammy Duckworth.

By Kaitlyn D’Onofrio / February 21, 2018

Rights for Americans with disabilities are under attack in a bill disguised as reform of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

HR 620, the ADA Education and Reform Act of 2017, requires people with disabilities to file a formal complaint with the Justice Department if they are denied access to a public place. The business in question has 60 days to acknowledge the complaint and then another 120 days to make “substantial progress” in correcting the ADA violation. They are not during this time required to actually fix the problem.

Only after this six-month period can people with disabilities take legal action — if the business has made no “substantial progress,” a subjective term that means the problem could remain unsolved forever. Businesses are left with no incentive to actually fix the problem — which never should have existed in the first place under the 28-year-old ADA.

No other civil rights statute imposes such requirements. But the House passed the bill 225-192.

Supporters of the bill say it will prevent people from filing frivolous lawsuits against businesses while allowing for a “notice and cure” period.

But defenders of civil rights for people with disabilities say the bill essentially lets businesses off the hook for complying with ADA, which has been in place for nearly three decades — while putting the burden of the real “reform” right on the group whose rights are supposed to be protected.

“The idea that places of public accommodation should receive a free pass for six months before correctly implementing a law that has been a part of our legal framework for nearly three decades creates an obvious disincentive for ADA compliance,” Democratic Rep. Jim Langevin of Rhode Island said during debate on the House floor.

Langevin, the first quadriplegic to serve in Congress, lives with the reality of a disability each and every day and has since he was 16 years old — before the ADA was enacted.

“Has the Congress really become so divorced from the human experience of the disability community that we’re willing to sacrifice their rights because it’s easier than targeting the root of the problem? Are people with disabilities, people like me, so easily disregarded?” he said.

Following the vote Langevin said in a statement that “justice delayed is justice denied,” adding that he is “saddened that Congress sent a message to people with disabilities that we are not equal, or worthy of the same civil rights protections as others.”

Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), who lost both her legs while serving as an air assault helicopter pilot in Iraq, posted a series of tweets ahead of the House’s passage urging Congress to vote against the measure.

“Ever since I lost my legs when an RPG tore thru the cockpit of my Blackhawk I was flying over Iraq, getting around has been difficult—even w/the #ADA, I can’t always enter public spaces & have to spend a lot of time planning how to get frm 1 place to the next,” she wrote.

“I understand that not everyone thinks about these things because for most of my adult life I didn’t either. But the truth is that everyone is just one bad day away from needing accessible options the #ADA requires to help them get around,” she added. “If you don’t live with a disability, you might not think of #ADA violations as significant at 1st glance, but I assure you they’re significant for those of us who do live with disabilities.”

Tom Ridge, former governor of Pennsylvania and chair of the board of the National Organization on Disability (NOD), also pointed out the negative impact this bill will have on businesses.

“The more than 57 million Americans with disabilities are an important customer base that businesses cannot afford to lose. Further, inaccessible businesses lose out on an enormous talent pool of employees with disabilities,” he wrote in an opinion piece for The Hill.

“In my work with the National Organization on Disability, I have had the opportunity to witness firsthand the benefits that leading companies reap from welcoming employees and customers with disabilities. This bill would rob businesses of the customers and the talent they desperately need,” he added.

“’Substantial progress’ is the same as ‘due process’ that was used as an endless stall tactic by the South to avoid legally mandatory desegregation,” said Luke Visconti, CEO of DiversityInc and vice chairman of the board for NOD.

Indeed, according to Nielsen (No. 32 on the DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity), the power of people with disabilities in the consumer market should not be underestimated: “More than one in three households in the U.S. has a person that identifies with a disability, representing spending power that exceeds $1 billion.”

Read on DiversityInc

Proponents claim that H.R. 620, called the ADA Education and Reform Act, is intended to strengthen the ADA and give businesses the opportunity to react prior taking legal action.

By KATHARINE KEANE | February 15, 2018

Today, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 225 to 192 to pass H.R. 620, a bill referred to as the ADA Education and Reform Act that—if passed by the Senate and signed into law by the president—would change and limit certain rights that were first afforded to disabled people 28 years ago under the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA).

Per the current ADA rules, those who believe they are being discriminated against by architectural barriers in places of public accommodation—such as grocery stores, doctors offices, recreation facilities, private schools, and homeless shelters—are entitled to file suit for immediate legal intervention. (They can also speak directly with the business or file a complaint with the Department of Justice.) But under H.R. 620, complainants filing suit would first have to deliver a written notice identifying the issue, allow 60 days for the business owner make a plan to address the architectural barrier, and allow an additional 120 days for the business owner to “make substantial progress in removing the barrier.”

While some officials like representative and bill co-sponsor Ted Poe (R-TX-02) believe according to a Jan. 2017 press release, “the integrity of this important law is being threatened … [because] certain attorneys and their pool of serial plaintiffs troll for minor, easily correctable ADA infractions so they can file a lawsuit and make some cash,” others fear that loosening these restrictions deincentivizes business to proactively adhere to ADA regulations.

Former Pennsylvania governor and current chair of the nonprofit the National Organization on Disability Tom Ridge outlined this threat in an article for The Hill: “A business that did not comply would face no consequence until after it received a legal notice from a person with a disability who was harmed, detailing the specific violation of the law,” he writes. “And then the business would have six months to do something about it and would merely be required to make ‘substantial progress’ in removing barriers, instead of actually providing access.”

The American Civil Liberties Union shared similar fears, in a public document, and outlined new loopholes the law would create: “This bill would also effectively change Title III’s requirements from providing access to making ‘substantial progress’ in removing barriers. Progress is not access. Changing the standard under the ADA from access to substantial progress would not only harm the civil rights of people with disabilities but would also increase litigation due to uncertainties about what constitutes ‘substantial progress.’ ”

The bill also calls for the creation of a program to educate state and local governments, as well as business owners on strategies for promoting accessibility to public accommodations to those with disabilities.

Read on Architect Magazine.

BY FORMER GOV. TOM RIDGE (R-PA.), OPINION CONTRIBUTOR — 02/13/18 06:00 AM EST

When President George H.W. Bush signed the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) into law nearly 28 years ago, he eloquently declared, “Let the shameful wall of exclusion come tumbling down.” That was a watershed moment for our country. After decades of willful exclusion and benign neglect, people with disabilities finally secured the civil rights they deserved to be full participants in our great society.

President Bush observed that the disabilities law would:

“Ensure that people with disabilities are given the basic guarantees for which they have worked so long and so hard: independence, freedom of choice, control of their lives, the opportunity to blend fully and equally into the rich mosaic of the American mainstream.”

Those guarantees are now at risk. The House of Representatives will soon vote on H.R. 620, labeled the “ADA Education and Reform Act.” This bill could significantly reduce access for people with disabilities to stores, restaurants, hotels, doctors’ offices, social service establishments, private schools, and other places of public accommodation. In so doing, it would put a damper on opportunities for people with disabilities to participate as full and equal members of society.

The ADA, which passed in 1990 with overwhelming bipartisan support, was carefully crafted to balance the concerns of businesses with the need to ensure access for people with disabilities. It did not require costly retrofitting of buildings built before the ADA; businesses were required to remove barriers in those buildings where that could be done without significant difficulty or expense. But the law contemplated that businesses that could easily remove barriers would do so. They would be accessible when people with disabilities showed up at the door, to shop, to obtain services, and to work. If H.R. 620 were to pass, many more people with disabilities would encounter barriers when they showed up and getting in would require a long and arduous process.

That’s because H.R. 620 would eliminate any incentive for businesses to comply with the ADA proactively. A business that did not comply would face no consequence until after it received a legal notice from a person with a disability who was harmed, detailing the specific violation of the law. And then the business would have six months to do something about it and would merely be required to make “substantial progress” in removing barriers, instead of actually providing access.

Twenty-eight years after the ADA was passed, it is unacceptable to roll back the civil rights of people with disabilities. We should ensure access, not progress. We should expect businesses to know and comply with their obligations, not require our neighbors and colleagues with disabilities to shoulder the burden of informing and educating businesses about those obligations. We should not turn the simple business of everyday life into a complex and lengthy ordeal for people with disabilities.

H.R. 620 is also bad for business. The more than 57 million Americans with disabilities are an important customer base that businesses cannot afford to lose. Further, inaccessible businesses lose out on an enormous talent pool of employees with disabilities.

In my work with the National Organization on Disability, I have had the opportunity to witness firsthand the benefits that leading companies reap from welcoming employees and customers with disabilities. This bill would rob businesses of the customers and the talent they desperately need,

Back in 1990, President Bush told the business community they hold in their hands the key to the success of the ADA, for it can “unlock a splendid resource of untapped human potential that, when freed, will enrich us all.” He characterized passage of the ADA as one of his proudest achievements. Let’s not undo that success.

Tom Ridge is founder and chairman of Ridge Global, as well as chair of the National Organization on Disability, a position he has held since 2006. He was America’s first secretary of Homeland Security and the 43rd Governor of Pennsylvania.

Read on TheHill.com

CNN Money highlights NOD Corporate Leadership Council member EY for their innovative approach to solving talent shortages by recruiting people with disabilities. 

In June 2017, Christopher Morris started work as an associate at Ernst & Young.

The 36-year-old is one of 14 people in the professional services firm’s “neurodiversity” program, which hires people on the autism spectrum to work on its accounting and analytics projects.

Over the next three years, Ernst & Young plans to bring dozens more people like Morris on board.

“We need the talent wherever we can get it. Whichever way it’s packaged. There is a shortage, particularly in our skills areas,” said Lori Golden, who is leading the charge at EY to hire more people with disabilities.

 

It’s not just Ernst & Young. With unemployment at a low 4.1%, fewer people are looking for jobs. As a result, many employers are having a hard time finding people qualified to fill the positions they have open.

 

That’s left an opening for people with disabilities, a group that’s broadly defined under the Americans With Disabilities Act. In addition to individuals with physical disabilities such as blindness, it also includes people who are struggling with addiction or have epilepsy, to name a few examples.

 

This demographic has always been underemployed. But Americans with disabilities have posted year-over-year gains in the job market for the past 21 consecutive months, according to an analysis by the Kessler Foundation and the University of New Hampshire.

 

“This is indicative of the economy reaching full employment, and employers reaching out to groups that they traditionally don’t reach out to,” said Andrew Houtenville, research director of the University of New Hampshire’s Institute on Disability.

 

Economic circumstances have helped speed up a broader cultural shift that’s been underway since the ADA became law in 1990.

 

Since then, businesses have started to talk about diversity as a value-add. A growing number of firms include people with disabilities in that discussion, said Janet Bruckshen, executive director of Washington Vocational Services, which works to match individuals with disabilities with employers who are hiring.

 

Economists and advocates for people with disabilities say a Labor Department rule change under the Obama administration has also helped spur the change. In 2013, the agency issued a provision requiring all federal contractors try to fill 7% of their workforce with individuals with disabilities.

Bruckshen said her organization used to pitch businesses by telling them that hiring someone with a disability is the right thing to do. Now, the script has evolved.

 

“It’s a business perspective. We go in and say retention is stronger for people with disabilities,” Bruckshen said.

 

Golden said that Ernst & Young believes it can produce better work by giving people with disabilities a seat at the table.

 

“By bringing people in who think differently, you’re bringing people in who look at problems differently,” Golden said.

 

For Morris, who works in Dallas, it’s meant building a career. He said he intends to stay at EY for the long term.

 

“I majored in computer science in college and I’ve always wanted to work in the tech sector. I’m really excited that I have now the opportunity to develop that expertise,” he said.

 

Technology has also made it easier for companies to channel changing attitudes into actual hiring. Remote work has become more common, and a greater number of processes are computerized in industries like manufacturing.

 

“Automation has taken away some of the barriers that may have prohibited someone with a physical disability from working in a steel mill,” Mary Daly, executive vice president and director of research at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, said in an interview last week. A lot of heavy work can now be done with the push of a button, she said.

 

These factors have collectively created a more hospitable environment for people with disabilities looking for work.

 

Danny Goodisman, 43, was hired as a contractor at Boeing in August 2017 after spending two years looking for work in the Seattle area.

“Paying bills is less painful,” said Goodisman, who has a rare degenerative disease that requires him to use a wheelchair. “Beyond that, a job is a big part of a person’s identity. Now I can introduce myself as a programmer.”

 

That sentiment was echoed by Cooper Marx, a 25-year-old who lives in Arlington, Massachusetts. He’s a brain tumor survivor who was hired at a local Whole Foods in October 2017.

 

Marx said the store lets him work four-hour shifts, which is the currently maximum amount of time he can stay on his feet.

 

“They were very willing to be accommodating,” he said.

 

Despite these gains, the gap between employed people with disabilities and the general population remains sizable.

 

When looking at employment for people with disabilities, economists typically look at the proportion of the working age population with jobs, or the employment-to-population ratio, instead of the unemployment rate.

 

The employment-to-population ratio for working age people with disabilities hit 30.8% in December 2017. For working age people without disabilities, it was 73.3%.

 

But experts say the current job market could yield improvements.

 

“This is a moment,” said Carol Glazer, president of the National Organization on Disability.

 

Read article on CNN Money.

Accessible Olli was designed from the ground up to help people with disabilities get where they need to go.

By Ben Fox Rubin | January 26, 2018 5:00 AM PST

Jay Rogers stood a few feet from his company’s futuristic-looking shuttle bus, called the Accessible Olli.

The all-electric, partially 3D-printed, autonomous vehicle, sitting in the middle of the bustling Las Vegas Convention Center during the CES tech show, packs features to help people with disabilities and the elderly get around.

There’s a retractable wheelchair ramp, software that can process sign language, and displays inside offering simplified information and reminders for people with cognitive disabilities like memory loss.

“We did this with a lens of of accessibility to show that what people would’ve called niche can lead,” Rogers, the radio-announcer-voiced CEO and co-founder of Local Motors, said earlier this month while wearing a bow tie and a zip-up Local Motors jacket.

The bus, which Rogers said will be on the road in a few months in places including Copenhagen and Buffalo, New York, offers a new approach to mass transit, in which a driverless shuttle could someday pick you up at any hour of the day and you wouldn’t need to own a car. It’s part of a broader trend of companies dabbling in self-driving vehicles as a new form of transportation. At CES, Toyota unveiled its e-Palette autonomous shuttle, while the French company Navya is manufacturing the Arma shuttle, too.

The difference with the Accessible Olli is that it can provide many more capabilities to help people with disabilities get to work, attend school or do errands. And it may be able to do all that much faster than a typical bus system or paratransit service. It may also address transportation needs that have been overlooked, since the shuttle was developed with the input of people with disabilities.

The nonprofit National Organization on Disability, which has been tracking the gaps between people with and without disabilities since the 1980s, said it’s found that transportation options are often lacking for people with disabilities, which results in severely limited job opportunities for them.

“We are eager to learn more about the Accessible Olli because it seems to have the potential to close that pervasive gap,” NOD President Carol Glazer said in a statement. “We particularly like that the shuttle was designed by people with disabilities, for people with disabilities.”

Hannah Rankin, director of growth at Incight, which help people with disabilities with their education and employment, said many public bus and light rail systems offer wheelchair ramps and scheduled routes, which can be useful. But people can’t expect every bus driver to know sign language. That’s where the Olli may be able to provide more uniformity to help people communicate, Rankin said.

On the CES show floor, Rogers walked me through the compact Accessible Olli. Inside, digital displays fill nearly every inch of window, showing map directions and messages to prospective passengers, like “Katherine, this is your stop.” There’s cushy seating all around that fits up to 10 people. But most noticeably, the interior looks something like a tiny room, not a vehicle, since there’s no steering wheel or space for a driver.

The first iteration of the Olli shuttle, which doesn’t have accessibility features, debuted in June 2016. Local Motors, which was founded in 2007 and recently moved its headquarters from the Phoenix area to San Francisco, used crowdsourcing to work with more than 200,000 volunteer designers, engineers and customers to create the Accessible Olli. The startup also partnered with IBM and the charitable arm of the Consumer Technology Association, which runs CES, on the project.

IBM built its Watson artificial intelligence software into Olli to communicate with passengers and hopes to use Olli as a way to bring its AI into more people’s lives and show the software’s benefits.

“When you get in a car that doesn’t have a driver, you have to establish trust, so you need to know that Olli understands what you want and it gives you feedback along the way,” Bret Greenstein, IBM’s vice president of the Watson Internet of Things business, told me earlier by the Olli. “We have to make Olli, or any other self-driving car, feel like a trusted driver.”

Ideally, the things IBM and Local Motors learn from helping people with disabilities will benefit anyone using an Olli.

“My hope, as we continue to learn about all the accessibility use cases, is we’re learning all the other ways we can better understand people and support them,” Greenstein said. “People shouldn’t have to learn how to talk to machines.”

 

Read the article on CNET.