[Brl-monitor] The Braille Monitor, June 2015
Brian Buhrow
buhrow at lothlorien.nfbcal.org
Wed May 27 23:14:28 PDT 2015
BRAILLE MONITOR
Vol. 58, No. 6 June 2015
Gary Wunder, Editor
Distributed by email, in inkprint, in Braille, and on USB flash drive
(see reverse side) by the
NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND
Mark Riccobono, President
telephone: (410) 659-9314
email address: nfb at nfb.org
website address: http://www.nfb.org
NFBnet.org: http://www.nfbnet.org
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Letters to the President, address changes, subscription requests, and
orders for NFB literature should be sent to the national office. Articles
for the Monitor and letters to the editor may also be sent to the national
office or may be emailed to gwunder at nfb.org.
Monitor subscriptions cost the Federation about forty dollars per year.
Members are invited, and nonmembers are requested, to cover the
subscription cost. Donations should be made payable to National Federation
of the Blind and sent to:
National Federation of the Blind
200 East Wells Street at Jernigan Place
Baltimore, Maryland 21230-4998
THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND KNOWS THAT BLINDNESS IS NOT THE
CHARACTERISTIC THAT DEFINES YOU OR YOUR FUTURE. EVERY DAY WE RAISE THE
EXPECTATIONS OF BLIND PEOPLE, BECAUSE LOW EXPECTATIONS CREATE OBSTACLES
BETWEEN BLIND PEOPLE AND OUR DREAMS. YOU CAN LIVE THE LIFE YOU WANT;
BLINDNESS IS NOT WHAT HOLDS YOU BACK. THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND
IS NOT AN ORGANIZATION SPEAKING FOR THE BLIND-IT IS THE BLIND SPEAKING FOR
OURSELVES.
ISSN 0006-8829
© 2015 by the National Federation of the Blind
Each issue is recorded on a thumb drive (also called a memory stick
or USB flash drive). You can read this audio edition using a computer or a
National Library Service digital player. The NLS machine has two slots-the
familiar book-cartridge slot just above the retractable carrying handle and
a second slot located on the right side near the headphone jack. This
smaller slot is used to play thumb drives. Remove the protective rubber pad
covering this slot and insert the thumb drive. It will insert only in one
position. If you encounter resistance, flip the drive over and try again.
(Note: If the cartridge slot is not empty when you insert the thumb drive,
the digital player will ignore the thumb drive.) Once the thumb drive is
inserted, the player buttons will function as usual for reading digital
materials. If you remove the thumb drive to use the player for cartridges,
when you insert it again, reading should resume at the point you stopped.
You can transfer the recording of each issue from the thumb drive to
your computer or preserve it on the thumb drive. However, because thumb
drives can be used hundreds of times, we would appreciate their return in
order to stretch our funding. Please use the return label enclosed with the
drive when you return the device.
[PHOTO CAPTION: Palm-lined drive leading to front entrance to Rosen Centre
Hotel]
Orlando Site of 2015 NFB Convention
The 2015 convention of the National Federation of the Blind will take
place in Orlando, Florida, July 5-10, at the Rosen Centre Hotel at 9840
International Drive, Orlando, Florida 32819. At this time the Rosen does
not have any rooms during convention, but there is an alternative. There is
an NFB hotel block at the Doubletree by Hilton Orlando at Seaworld. Located
at 10100 International Drive Orlando, Florida, the Doubletree is less than
a mile from the Rosen Centre.
Rates at the Doubletree are $89 for the nights of July 7-9, $159 per
night for July 3-6, and $179 per night for July 10-11. Amenities at the
Doubletree include flat-screen televisions and microwaves in the rooms, a
swimming pool, and several on-property restaurants. To make a reservation,
call (800) 327-0363 and ask for group code NFB.
The schedule for the 2015 convention is:
Sunday, July 5 Seminar Day
Monday, July 6 Registration Day
Tuesday, July 7 Board Meeting and Division Day
Wednesday, July 8 Opening Session
Thursday, July 9 Business Session
Friday, July 10 Banquet Day and Adjournment
Vol. 58, No. 6 June
2015
Contents
Illustration: Federation Recognized at Concert
Decisions, Bad Choices, and Forgiveness
by Ronald Brown
The KNFB Reader Becomes the Property of the Nation's Blind
by Marc Maurer
Civil Rights and the Disabled: A Report from the Department of Justice
by Vanita Gupta
People with Disabilities: The Orphan Minority
by Fredric K. Schroeder
Once Upon a Time: Becoming a Teacher
by Harold Wilson
Our Latest Battle in the Right to Read: The Blind Strive for Access to 40
Million Titles
by Gary Wunder
The Federation at Twenty-Five: Postview and Preview
by Jacobus tenBroek
Human Rights versus Legal Rights
by Ed Vaughan
A Letter to the New Summer Interns
by Justin Salisbury
Federation Alphabet
by Joe Ruffalo
Recipes
Monitor Miniatures
[PHOTO CAPTION: Six Federationists pose with Stevie Wonder after his
concert. Next to Stevie on the right is Jenivieve White; behind them from
left to right are Mark Riccobono, Tony Olivero, Chris Danielsen, Amari
Lewis, and Scott White.]
Federation Recognized at Concert
Recently six Federationists received tickets for Stevie Wonder's
concert in Baltimore and passes to meet the entertainer after the show.
Mark Riccobono, Chris Danielsen, Scott White, Jenivieve White, Tony
Olivero, Ryan Jones, and Amari Lewis enjoyed a wonderful evening. The whole
experience was made even more memorable by the fact that Stevie didn't just
speak to them and pose for a photo with them at the end of the night. He
actually opened his show saying, "I want to acknowledge that Mark
Riccobono, President of the National Federation of the Blind, is here
tonight. The Federation is headquartered here in Baltimore, and they are
celebrating their seventy-fifth anniversary. Congratulations!"
When they met him after the show, the Federationists presented Stevie
with an NFB mug with "Thank You" in Braille and a personal invitation for
him to attend our national convention in July.
[PHOTO CAPTION: Ronald Brown]
Decisions, Bad Choices, and Forgiveness
by Ronald Brown
From the Editor: Ron Brown is the owner of two businesses and has
been married to his lovely wife Jean for twenty-seven years. Together they
are the proud parents of two girls and the grandparents of six
grandchildren. He also serves as the second vice president of the National
Federation of the Blind and as the president of the National Federation of
the Blind of Indiana. But saying who Ron is doesn't begin to explain the
journey he has traveled to come to love the life he has or the events which
came close to keeping him from living, loving, giving, and prospering. Here
is his story:
When I started my senior year of high school, I didn't need a crystal
ball to chart my future. As the oldest son in a black family, my
responsibility was clear: After my father, I was the man of the house, and
my responsibilities included watching out for my brothers and sisters, who
ranged in age from three to twenty.
I had a plan for my life-or at least as serious a plan as a young man
in high school can have. When I graduated, I would learn a trade, and that
trade would be refrigeration and cooling. I would apprentice under my
uncle, because a man who knew cooling systems could command a good hourly
wage. With my personality and motivation it was likely I'd one day start my
own business.
These were the things I thought of in my more serious moments, when
becoming an adult was just one school year away. But for all the deep
thoughts about family, career, and my future, I was still a kid and felt
the joy of running and shouting and whooping it up with my fellow students.
I liked the girls, and they liked me. Within the limits of my family's
income, I was a fancy dresser and cut a pretty good figure if I do say so
myself.
Shortly after the start of senior year my friends and I were headed
home after a basketball game, when on an impulse we decided to take a
shortcut. Instead of walking on three streets, we decided to cut through a
field. With all the vigor and excitement of young men out of school, we ran
through that field, laughing and yelling as young men will do. I remember
hearing a friend yell, looking off to my left at him, and seeing a flash as
though someone was taking my picture using a flash bulb. Then I felt a pain
in my face I had never felt before; it felt like a thousand bees were
stinging me. Then I heard a loud pop, realized what had happened, and began
yelling "I've been shot! I've been shot!"
I continued to run but soon fell to the ground. My friends grabbed me
and helped me to the home of a neighbor who had come out of the house when
he heard my screams. My mother was contacted, I was taken to the hospital,
and I went immediately into surgery. After surgery my memory was vague, but
gradually I remembered running through the field, whooping and hollering,
with not a care in the world. As my memory returned, so did my new reality:
I was totally blind, and nothing the doctors could do would change that.
One bad decision-cutting through a stranger's field-meant I would never see
again. Where was the future that was to be mine? Who would do what I so
obviously could not?
My family believed in Jesus Christ, we attended church, we played by
the rules (or at least as much as imperfect human beings can). Why me? Why
would the God I loved let this happen? Was I being tested or punished? Was
this the hand of God, or was it really as simple as a bad choice, a stupid
decision, and the consequences that came from them?
No one was ever charged in the crime that took my sight. The man who
put that gun outside his window and fired that shot was not aiming at
anyone in particular. He said there had been damage to his property, he was
frightened by the noise, and he was just trying to scare off the kids. What
damage were we doing? We were just running home from school. Where was the
justice in this?
Being confined to that hospital bed with those thoughts running
through my mind was torture. I was grateful when at last they said I could
go home, but in many ways home wasn't any better. The flashy, independent
young man who was just that close to learning a trade, getting a job, and
becoming the head of the house had now changed places; and never was this
more apparent than when I would ask for something, and my three-year-old
sister would bring it to me. The baby in my family was now more capable
than I, so how could I ever provide for anyone? The future that had so
certainly seemed to be mine was gone as totally as my vision, so I did the
only thing I knew how to do: I sat, fretted, and grieved.
After a few weeks of patiently watching me feel sorry for myself, my
mother took things in hand and said I'd have to return to school and finish
my senior year. I asked her how a blind kid could go back to school. I
couldn't read; I couldn't write; I couldn't get around; and what would I do
with an education anyway? She said she didn't have all the answers, but she
had one or two, and that's where we'd start. She said that she had learned
of a school across town that had a program for the blind-a resource room
they called it-where I could go for special help. I objected, saying I had
never been to that school and had no idea how I'd get around. Her response
was to pick up the phone and call my friend Maurice. "Maurice, do you still
have that cane with the tuxedo you wore to last year's prom? Good, now
bring it over here for Ron."
"What do I want with a black cane?" I asked.
My mother's response came without a trace of doubt: "Ron, you are
outgoing, you know how to make friends, and you know how to ask questions.
When you go to that new school, you carry that cane so that people will
know you need help, and when you need to find something, you call out, and
people will help you."
There was no use arguing that I didn't want to carry a cane, that I
didn't know how to use it, that it would make me look different, or even
that there was no reason for me to go to school. When my mother said I
could do it, this was more than an observation, more than a command: it was
a statement of belief-belief of a kind that I had always had in myself-
until the day I became blind. The questions I had about how I could go to
school or what difference it would make were nothing compared with the fact
that my mother still believed I was capable of meeting a challenge and that
inside I was still me. I had always known that tough guys don't whine;
tough guys don't make it by saying "I can't," but it was my mother who
reminded me that none of this had been changed by the flash from the gun
that took my vision.
So off to school I went, me and that little black cane. Pencil grip,
diagonal technique, two-touch technique, slide or tap, proper cane arc: all
terms used in describing how to use a cane-I had never heard of them. But
day by day I asked my questions, made myself some friends, and trusted that
my mother was right.
The superintendent of the school said my success would depend on
doing three things: learning Braille, learning to touch type, and
continuing to do the work in my regular classes. I met all of his
requirements, and, what do you know, I graduated on time. I had started my
senior year fully sighted and finished it totally blind, but my mother had
been right in telling me that I still was the same person I had been, that
I still had a future, and that I could still have a good life.
After graduating, I attended the Elkart Rehabilitation Center, where
I worked more on Braille, actually learned to use a cane, took college
preparation courses, and perfected other blindness skills. College was
something I had never considered before, but even at eighteen I could see
that this would create future opportunities for me and that one day I might
once again feel in control of that future.
I entered Ball State University in 1975, and it was there that I
first met former President Maurer and other members of the National
Federation of the Blind. They wanted to help the blind students at Ball
State start a student division. We didn't know much about the Federation or
the things it believed, but we were interested because we had heard they
had some good parties and that this would be a way for us to meet a lot of
girls. They told us we should start a fundraiser, so we bought some candy
to sell. We weren't very organized about it, though, and, being hungry
college students, we ended up eating it and paying for the candy ourselves.
As I experienced some success in college, my independent nature began to
reassert itself, my type-A personality once again pushed me forward, and
one thing was for sure: I had myself a goal and a challenge.
In 1979 I returned home after graduating with a degree in health
science and counseling. I immediately started looking for work. I wrote
letters applying for anything available that I thought I could do. I sent
more than one hundred of them and in response got a hundred rejections-
sorry, the job is filled; sorry but you don't have the requisite job
experience; thank you for your interest, we'll keep your application on
file. So here was the age-old problem: how could I get job experience
without a job, and how could I get a job without experience? Finally I
decided the only way I was going to get out of the house and get my foot in
the door was to volunteer my services. It wouldn't be paid experience, but
job experience it would be. I began by teaching daily living skills at the
Trade Winds Rehabilitation Center, and soon I was teaching six courses. The
volunteer work paid off, and I was hired. That first job paid me $9,000 a
year, and I really thought I was doing something.
Being restless and wanting to get away from home, I moved to DC with
the hope I would find a job there. Another move found me in Texas, but
again the expected job did not materialize. When I came back to Indiana in
1983, I was tired of looking for jobs and wanted to start my own business.
Folks suggested I begin by getting into the Business Enterprise Program for
the Blind. At that time there was no formal training program in the state,
so my food-service education consisted of job-shadowing two blind vending
operators. I worked at one place for a week and at a second for two weeks.
Then the agency gave me the key to my own facility, and I learned what
people mean when they say "baptism by fire." I survived the experience and
learned to run a business but would never encourage anyone to go into a job
with so little training.
It seemed that ten years had made all the difference. I had done a
good job learning the skills of blindness; had adopted many of the beliefs
about blindness held by an organization I was increasingly helping to grow;
had met the love of my life, Jean; and had a job. Not only was I now able
to assume my role as the head of the family, but soon Jean and I would
start one of our own. I was doing all right, but this was the external Ron
Brown; inside I still felt unsettled. I repeatedly kicked myself for
running across that field and still couldn't figure out why God had allowed
my sight to be taken from me. These were feelings I kept to myself, and
sometimes it even seemed I had reconciled myself to the Ron Brown who was,
rather than the Ron Brown who might have been.
In 1990 a second tragedy descended on my family. This time it fell on
my brother Preston. We always called him Moochie, though for the life of me
I can't remember how he got that nickname. He had grown up and moved to
Memphis, Tennessee, and, while out driving one evening with my cousin
Alvin, their car ran out of gas. They walked to the nearest filling
station, bought some gasoline in a jar, and, on their way back to the car,
were stopped by a gang who demanded to know what they were doing in their
neighborhood. The explanation about running out of gas was less important
to the gang members than their territory, and they started to fight my
cousin Alvin. When it was clear that Alvin was in trouble, Moochie put down
the gas and entered the fight. When the gang members turned their attention
to him, Alvin was able to run, but once Moochie was down, knocked
unconscious by the sticks and bats they carried, the gang doused him with
gasoline and set him afire. The blaze roused him, and as he ran through the
streets begging someone to help put out the flames, the gang members
followed and threatened to hurt anyone who tried to help him. Finally a
pregnant woman threw herself on Moochie and extinguished the flames, but he
had burns on more than 90 percent of his body, and he would not survive.
I was crushed by the death of my brother, a fun-loving and generous
soul who never tried to pick a fight or bully anyone. His murder was
unjust, unprovoked, and couldn't have happened to one of God's kinder or
gentler souls. I was devastated, heartbroken, and consumed by anger. I
started a campaign. I got friends to write to the prosecutor, to the judge,
and to the local newspapers. My message was harsh, but it said exactly what
I felt: these were not boys but men and should be tried as men; these young
men were animals-no-demons; they deserved to die; however the state
executed them would be kinder than they had been to my brother; if they
didn't get the death penalty, they should get terms long enough to ensure
that they would never again walk the streets. I carried on this campaign
for months, for years. I felt hate inside and could not reconcile myself to
such an unjust world. When someone would be bold enough to suggest that
there might be room for mercy and understanding, I shut them down, blocked
them out. I didn't want to hear that, certainly didn't feel it. I was busy
being consumed by the desire to see that those boys paid for what they had
done. Decisions had consequences. Hadn't that been true in my case? I had
made a stupid decision to cross a man's field, had gotten myself shot, and
wasn't I now living a lesser life because of that foolish act? Mercy? What
mercy had they shown my brother? What mercy had anyone shown me? Not a bit
so far as I could tell. For once our family deserved justice-an eye for an
eye and a tooth for a tooth. Maybe I couldn't get back the use of my eyes,
but I would do everything I could to see that those gang members felt the
teeth of the law!
Gradually the hate I focused on writing letters and making phone
calls wore me down. The legal process continued at its own glacial pace.
The young men who murdered my brother were charged, tried, and sentenced. I
was outraged that some of them got as little as two years, but there was no
longer anything to be done. Instead of looking outside for something I
could do in response to my pain and anger, I had to look inward and come up
with how to quench this fire that burned hot within me, a fire that was
making me angry, cynical, and bitter. Gradually I began to understand that
my desire to see those boys pay for what they did wasn't just because they
had done something so abominably terrible to my brother. I wanted them to
pay in the same way I was paying-paying every day for the rest of my life.
I wanted them to pay in a way that the man who had blinded me had not. I
was deprived of the freedom to see; they should be deprived of their
freedom. Forgive them: how could I forgive them when . . . when . . . and
soon it hit me: why should I forgive them, when I couldn't forgive myself.
My pain was more than the righteous anger at those young thugs: I was angry
at the person closest to me, that young high school senior who had tried to
take a shortcut, to take the easier way home, and who was having to pay the
consequences of his imprudent act. Why should they get off with mercy when
mercy was the last thing shown to me?
But the realization that I was not only mad at them but mad at myself
made me think hard about life, about choices, about my professed belief in
Jesus Christ and the power of love, and about the need that all of us have
for mercy. Slowly I began to realize that I had been given a second chance:
a chance for an education I could never have hoped to get before blindness,
a chance at a business opportunity that was becoming lucrative, a chance to
start and nurture a family with my bride, and a chance to help people
throughout the country.
On this long road to peace and freedom from my imprisonment by anger
and resentment, I have come to believe that in some of our life experiences
we suffer, that through our suffering we become enlightened, that when we
become enlightened we learn the truth, and that the truth can set us free.
Little by little, I stopped saying, "God, why me," and found myself
thinking, "With all I have to give, God, why not me?" Maybe my job on this
earth is to turn tragedy into triumph, to turn what was once adversity into
something that will inspire others to take back control of their lives; I
found my thoughts turning to what I had rather than to what I was missing.
Those boys had nothing to say about where they were born or that they
were expected to defend their turf. They made a terrible decision that day,
but I have come to believe that everybody deserves a second chance in this
life, just as I was given a second chance. I have forgiven those boys-now
long since men-and I have forgiven myself. Running through that field had
consequences, but with the help of God, the support of my mother and my
family, and the support of the National Federation of the Blind, I am a
happy man. I have a purpose: to be the best husband I can be, to be the
best father I can be, to be the best grandfather I can be, and to build and
strengthen an organization that has made a tremendous difference in my life-
my wonderful life. What more can a man ask and what more can his creator
give?
----------
[PHOTO CAPTION: Marc Maurer uses the KNFB Reader with his iPhone.]
The KNFB Reader Becomes the Property of the Nation's Blind
by Marc Maurer
From the Editor: Since the election of President Riccobono, Immediate
Past President Maurer has been working on a number of projects, one of the
most important being to secure our right to continue to develop the KNFB
Reader invented by Ray Kurzweil and the National Federation of the Blind.
The legal skills of our former president have served us well, and, with
this legal hurdle behind us, so too will his creativity and ability to make
what we dream fit into software we carry in our pocket. Here is what Former
President Maurer has to say about the reader we developed and will continue
to support and enhance:
On April 22, 2015, all of the papers became complete to transfer the
KNFB Reader from its former owner to the KNFB Reader LLC, a wholly owned
subsidiary of the National Federation of the Blind. In 2002, shortly after
the groundbreaking for the National Federation of the Blind Jernigan
Institute, the National Federation of the Blind entered into an agreement
with Ray Kurzweil and his colleagues to create a handheld reading device-a
reading machine that could be carried in a pocket. The first of these
commercially available reading systems came onto the market in 2006,
released at the convention of the National Federation of the Blind. The
reading system consisted of a personal data assistant attached to a digital
camera through a case that incorporated electronics. A personal data
assistant is a small computer-based device that has in it an electronic
calendar, a calculator, and a number of other electronics. This combination
could read print aloud with software developed by the K-NFB Reading
Technology Company. The cost for the reader at its release was $3,495. The
reader would fit in your pocket, but it had to be quite a large pocket.
As cellphones continued to get smaller and more powerful, and, as
they began to incorporate high quality cameras, the K-NFB Reading
Technology Company contemplated modifying the K-NFB Reader Mobile to become
an application that would run on a cellphone. The application was optimized
for the Nokia N82, which incorporated a central processor powerful enough
to run it and a digital camera with sufficient capacity to provide the
proper image. The K-NFB Reader operating on the N82 became available in the
winter of 2008.
The problem with the reader on the phone is that cellphones last only
for a few months. The devices themselves could continue to operate for an
extended period, but the new phones are released by the manufacturers every
fifteen to eighteen months. Thus the older systems are no longer supported
within a few years, and the software to run on them must be modified
continually to be compatible with newly devised operating systems and
hardware. The K-NFB Reader for the N82 outlasted the hardware for which it
was designed.
When the Apple company adopted a policy to provide accessibility for
disabled people within its products, the iPhone incorporated
characteristics making applications on the device usable by the blind. Many
users of the K-NFB Reader wondered why the application could not be
operated on the iPhone, but its camera could not be modified to capture a
proper image. By the end of the summer of 2014, the obstacles presented by
the iPhone camera had been overcome, and the KNFB Reader was released on
the iPhone in September. The price at release was $99.99-about thirty-five
times less expensive than it had been eight years earlier.
Between the first release of the K-NFB Reader in 2006 and the KNFB
Reader for the iPhone in 2014, the K-NFB Reading Technology Company
developed accessible reading software for digital books known as the Blio.
This accessible book reader has been built into software used by libraries
to distribute digital versions of books to patrons, and those books are
accessible not only to sighted patrons but also to the blind. At one time
or another during the development of Blio, this accessible digital reading
system has made millions of books available to blind readers. Furthermore,
the Blio and other products developed by K-NFB Reading Technology
demonstrate that accessibility for the blind can readily be built into
software products designed for distribution of digital materials. The
accessibility to the blind of Blio and other iPhone book applications have
created accessibility to the blind as a demonstrable and readily achievable
goal for software developers. That these products exist has helped to move
the industry much closer to accessibility for the blind, and it has
stimulated development of accessibility to individuals with other
disabilities as well.
Although the KNFB Reader works beautifully on the iPhone, the K-NFB
Reading Technology Company was not generating sufficient revenue to
continue in business. In the fall of 2014, very shortly after the release
of the KNFB Reader for the iPhone, the National Federation of the Blind
indicated that it wished to become the owner of the KNFB Reader. Although
the National Federation of the Blind had invested in the K-NFB Reading
Technology Company, other investors had also put funding into the company.
The National Federation of the Blind owned only a portion of K-NFB Reading.
Negotiations for the KNFB Reader began in October 2014 and continued
until April of 2015. In a complex agreement a wholly owned subsidiary of
the National Federation of the Blind acquired full rights to the KNFB
Reader. This wholly owned subsidiary is named KNFB Reader LLC.
The company that built the Reader, the K-NFB Reading Technology
Company, made an agreement with Sensotec NV, a Belgian company, to create
the user interface for the iPhone version of the Reader. The transfer of
this Reader to KNFB Reader LLC is subject to the agreement with Sensotec.
Therefore, the Reader that can be found in the Apple App Store is a product
jointly owned by KNFB Reader LLC and Sensotec NV. It still sells for
$99.99, and it fits in a much smaller pocket.
Having this phase of the operation complete is noteworthy, but more
developments are in the future. We will make the technology work on other
platforms. The KNFB Reader can read inaccessible PDFs. This is a
demonstration that we can surmount some of the barriers of present-day
technology. We are planning to build into our Reader a function that will
permit it to better-interpret flat screen operating devices. We will dream
about what we want the technology to do, and we will set our minds to
inventing the enhancements that will make the Reader even better than it is
today. The exciting part is that this reading system belongs wholly to us
and that how it behaves in the months and years ahead will be determined by
the imagination we bring to it.
----------
[PHOTO CAPTION: Vanita Gupta delivering the keynote address at the 2015
Jacobus tenBroek Law Symposium]
Civil Rights and the Disabled: A Report from the Department of Justice
by Vanita Gupta
From the Editor: The Jacobus tenBroek Law Symposium brings together
leading disability rights advocates from around the country, and among the
speakers at this year's symposium was Acting Assistant Attorney General
Vanita Gupta. She delivered the keynote address on March 26, and here is
what she had to say:
Thank you for having me. It's an honor to speak to such a committed,
smart, and creative group of advocates. While I am relatively new to the
Civil Rights Division and to the disability rights movement, we at the
Civil Rights Division-and I in particular-are proud to be your partners in
the ongoing fight for civil rights for people with disabilities. The
division really is energized to do disability rights work, and it is one of
my highest priorities.
This year we will celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the fortieth anniversary of the
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). We've made a lot of
progress since then. But, as President Obama once said, "As long as we as a
people still too easily succumb to casual discrimination or fear of the
unfamiliar, we've still got more work to do."
As you know, disability discrimination is alive and well in this
world. We at the Civil Rights Division and you in this audience take on
flat-out discrimination every day of the week. We also take on more subtle
forms of discrimination that have effects just as devastating as the more
obvious forms of discrimination. And regardless of the form disability
discrimination takes, it damages not just those it directly affects, but
our entire community. As a community we cannot afford not to include people
with disabilities in every aspect of life.
Some of the obvious examples of discrimination that we still confront
include:
. Banks like Wells Fargo refusing to accept relay calls from deaf
customers. The Justice Department's settlement required Wells Fargo
Bank to adopt effective communication and nondiscrimination policies
and provide $16 million in monetary relief for customers nationwide.
. We recently reached a settlement with the Law School Admission
Council to reform its testing accommodation policies and stop
"flagging" LSAT scores of test-takers with disabilities who get the
accommodation of extra time. That settlement requires nearly $8
million in monetary relief as well as a $55,000 civil penalty.
. We settled with the Louisiana Bar to stop asking intrusive and
unnecessary mental health questions on its bar application and to
stop imposing conditional admission requirements on people with
mental health conditions just because of their disabilities.
. And our Barrier-Free Healthcare Initiative continues to find
doctors, hospitals, and other health care facilities that
discriminate against people with disabilities-whether refusing to
provide sign language interpreters, not offering accessible
facilities, or denying service to people with HIV. We have reached
seven agreements with health care facilities this year to address
those issues.
Some more subtle examples of discrimination happen in some of the
most important areas of life-parenting, the internet, education, criminal
justice, community living, and employment:
. Parenting has frequently been found by courts to be a fundamental
right. Yet a report by the National Council on Disability recently
noted significant overrepresentation of parents with disabilities in
state child welfare systems and concluded that much of that
overrepresentation was due to bias. We recently saw just such bias
in the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families's (DCF)
decision to remove a two-day-old infant from her mother who has an
intellectual disability.
. Although DCF's policies support reunification and DCF had a number
of services available to help with reunification, DCF didn't offer
that family all the services it offered other families, didn't
accept that the child's grandparents wanted to take guardianship and
help raise the child with their daughter in their home, didn't
consider that the mother was taking parenting classes and pursuing
her high school diploma, and didn't appear to consider it a serious
possibility that the child could ever be returned to her mother-just
because the mother had an intellectual disability. DCF finally moved
to terminate the mother's parental rights.
We investigated and, together with the Department of Health and Human
Services, found that DCF was violating the ADA in discriminating against
the mother because of her disability. We demanded they provide the
reunification services available to all other parents, as well as any
services needed as reasonable modifications and compensatory damages. Two
weeks ago, after over two years of separation, the grandmother was awarded
guardianship, and the child was returned to her family. Our discussions
with the state are continuing.
As you know, the growing reliance on the internet and other
technologies for access to everything from groceries to education to
employment has great potential to be an equalizer for people with
disabilities-but only if those technologies are built accessibly. The
National Federation of the Blind, Disability Rights Advocates, Lainey
Feingold, the National Association of the Deaf, and others in this room
have been leaders in demanding accessibility of websites and other
technologies from the beginning, and we are proud to have joined in that
work. We're addressing accessibility of technology in settlements with
colleges like Louisiana Tech, which will now buy only instructional
technology that's accessible, and with public accommodations like Peapod
online grocery delivery service, which will make its website accessible.
We've also recently included reviews of state and local governments'
websites in our Project Civic Access compliance review programs, requiring
jurisdictions like Nueces County, Texas, to make their websites compliant
with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0. And, in compliance
reviews of public entities' hiring practices, we've made them stop asking
pre-employment questions about disability in their online job applications
and required them to make those online applications compliant with WCAG
2.0.
We recently reached agreement with Quinnipiac University for placing
a student on mandatory medical leave after she considered suicide, without
considering other ways of accommodating her education while she sought
treatment, such as allowing her to take classes-in person or online-and
live off campus.
We're also transforming how police departments and prisons deal with
people with disabilities. You've heard a lot in the news lately about
police response to young black men, racial profiling, and excessive force.
We do those cases. But what you may have heard less about is police
response to people with mental illness and other disabilities. It has been
reported that half the shootings by police each year are of people with
disabilities.
We have taken on this issue in our ADA enforcement because too often
we've found police coming to help someone with mental illness, but the
person is in crisis and can't follow directions. Too often police officers
do not have the training to respond to people with mental illness. As a
result officers called to help someone may end up injuring or killing the
person because of the tragic confluence of circumstances. So last year we
reached agreement with the Portland, Oregon, Police Bureau to reform its
response to people with mental illness.
We're seeing the results already. Just a month or so ago, according
to the local Portland paper, police officer Zachary DeLong was called to a
burglary report. He found a man on the ledge of a hotel five stories up. He
opened the window of the hotel room, and here's what he said:
"I peeked around the window, and he was right there, less than twelve
inches away from my face," DeLong said. "It actually made me jump back a
little bit." "The man was crying, sobbing," DeLong said. That's when
DeLong's crisis intervention training kicked in, he said. There was no
crime being committed; it was time for compassion.
He began to calmly talk to the man, assuring him from the start that
he was not in trouble. "I told him, 'We just want to help you out, but to
do that we need you to come inside.'" The back-and-forth seemed to work.
The man inched closer to the open window, while DeLong repeatedly assured
him that he and Hall were there to help.
Slowly the man moved closer to the open window until he was close
enough to touch. Both officers reached out, each grabbing an arm, and
pulled the man into the room through the window. The rescue couldn't have
lasted more than a minute or two, DeLong said. Once inside, it became clear
the man was clearly in a mental health crisis and also intoxicated.
Paramedics from the Portland Fire Bureau were also in the room and
later took the man to a hospital for mental health treatment, police
officials said. He was not charged with any crime. "He was at the point
where he wouldn't have lasted very much longer on the ledge," DeLong said.
Hall and DeLong later learned that the man had crawled out on the narrow
ledge on the building's west side and then side-stepped his way nearly one
hundred feet around to the building's south side. "It's scary to think
about what could have happened," DeLong said.
Just a year ago, that call might have ended very differently. Just a
year ago, many calls in Portland just like that ended up with the person on
the ledge injured and in jail, or dead. But our settlement has helped
prevent needless tragedies because it requires the Crisis Intervention
Training that Officer DeLong relied on to help successfully resolve this
situation.
In prisons we've long challenged unconstitutional conditions of
confinement. We've also recognized the importance of ADA compliance in
prisons and jails, particularly regarding the treatment of prisoners with
mental health conditions or other disabilities. So in Pennsylvania we've
issued a letter of findings identifying the state's use of solitary
confinement and failure to provide treatment for people with serious mental
health conditions as both unconstitutional and violative of the ADA. And
we've challenged the overuse of solitary confinement on juveniles with
disabilities in California and Ohio.
You may have heard about our Olmstead enforcement work. The Justice
Department is very committed to the civil rights principle of community
inclusion for people with disabilities. The ADA requires state and local
governments to provide services to people with disabilities in the most
integrated setting appropriate for each person. Olmstead has been called
the Brown v. Board of Education of the disability rights movement. It says
separate isn't equal, and unnecessary segregation is discrimination.
I'm proud to say the Justice Department and disability advocates and
lawyers across the country are transforming the paradigm of services that
states provide to people with disabilities from one that assumed that
people with disabilities were not capable of living in, benefiting from,
and contributing to the outside community and that assumed that it would be
cheaper to serve everyone in one place. Because of those assumptions, state
systems were set up so that people with disabilities had to go to an
institution-and be segregated and interact only with other people with
disabilities-or they had to go without.
But those assumptions about how best to serve people with
disabilities are wrong. First, the cost assumption is wrong-community-based
services cost less than institutional ones. And we can serve just about
everybody, no matter how complicated their needs, in the community. Second,
we know that people with disabilities benefit from community inclusion.
Community involvement helps people with disabilities-it avoids learned
helplessness, stimulates intellectual growth, develops social skills, and
increases self-esteem. This shouldn't surprise us. A person learns to live
in the community by living in the community. And we all need supports-
family, friends, guides, maps, Google-but we don't learn the community by
staying in our room. Integration of people with disabilities also helps the
community. Community members learn to accept differences, improve
communication skills, and learn from the diversity of experiences of people
with disabilities.
So, through our Olmstead enforcement, we're transforming state
service systems from ones that force people into institutions to ones that
focus on services provided in a person's home-whether it's their family's
home, or their own home, or a small group of roommates.
Since 2009 we've reached transformative settlement agreements with
the states of Georgia, Delaware, Virginia, New York, New Hampshire, and
North Carolina. Under these agreements the states must develop community-
based services for people with mental health and developmental disabilities
and transition people from institutions into the community. These
agreements are helping approximately 46,000 people with disabilities
reenter or stay in their communities.
At first our Olmstead work focused on where people live. But
community integration doesn't end at the door to your apartment. The fact
that a person sleeps in the community at night will not mean much if they
spend their days in an institution. So we are now applying the community-
integration lens to other areas of life, including school, work, and day
programs. Last year we reached an agreement with the state of Rhode Island
to transform its employment and day services for people with intellectual
and developmental disabilities from one that sent people to sheltered
workshops to one that supports people with disabilities in real jobs for
real wages.
You can read about Stephen, Pedro and Louis, some of the people who
have benefited from our Rhode Island settlement, on our Faces of Olmstead
page on <www.ada.gov/olmstead>. Louis just completed his probation period
at work. He earns far more than minimum wage, receives full benefits, and
is a union member.
And you can read about Peter Maxmean on the front page of the Sunday
New York Times from December 7, 2014. That article tells how, since leaving
the sheltered workshop, Peter found a good-paying job, learned to drive,
got his license, bought a car (and got his first parking ticket on the day
of our press conference), got engaged, and got married.
We at the Civil Rights Division understand that our enforcement work
alone can't change the world. For that reason we're working with other
agencies to address disability discrimination through guidance and
coordination of federal programs. In November 2014, together with the
Department of Education, we released a Dear Colleague Letter to public
schools across the country explaining that the effective communication
requirements of the ADA are not subsumed within the special education
requirements of the IDEA. That guidance made clear that in some instances a
school may need to provide auxiliary aids and services to ensure equally
effective communication to a student with a disability that are not
required under the IDEA.
In our employment-related work we are also working closely with other
agencies. The Civil Rights Division is co-leading the Curb Cuts to the
Middle Class Initiative, which is a group of eleven agencies working
together to coordinate and leverage resources across the federal government
to increase middle class employment for people with significant
disabilities. Already the Curb Cuts Initiative has helped organize a White
House Champions of Change event and a White House Summit on employment of
people with disabilities. Over the next few months, the initiative will be:
. developing online tools to help bring federal resources to job
seekers with disabilities and the companies that want to hire them;
. implementing job-driven strategies to help people with disabilities
develop the skills they need for today's and tomorrow's high-demand
careers; and
. increasing collaborations among American Job Centers, educational
institutions, labor unions, vocational rehabilitation (VR) agencies,
veterans' organizations, independent living centers, and others to
offer career path employment supports.
We have some unprecedented opportunities before us right now to level
the playing field for people with disabilities in all areas of life. But it
will take all of us working together. Working with all of you, as well as
with other federal agencies, service providers, and the private sector, the
Civil Rights Division stands ready to do its part to break down the
barriers faced by people with disabilities.
Mother Teresa said, "I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast
a stone across the waters to create many ripples." I rarely encourage
people to cast stones, but I look forward to creating ripples-even waves-of
equal opportunity with all of you. Thank you.
----------
[PHOTO CAPTION: Fredrick K. Schroeder at the 2015 Jacobus tenBroek Law
Symposium]
People with Disabilities: The Orphan Minority
by Fredric K. Schroeder
From the Editor: Fred Schroeder is one of the most reflective and
intelligent people I know. He has been a significant leader in the National
Federation of the Blind for decades, helped to promote the acceptance of
blind travel instructors when that profession was thought to be exclusively
for those with sight, and served with distinction as the head of the
Rehabilitation Services Administration during the presidency of Bill
Clinton.
What follows are remarks that he delivered at the eighth annual
Jacobus tenBroek Disability Law Symposium:
The Civil Rights Movement
March 25, 2015, marked the fiftieth anniversary of the third and
final Selma to Montgomery Civil Rights March of 1965. The first was held on
March 7, and is, perhaps, the most infamous of the three. The march came to
be known as "Bloody Sunday" after six hundred demonstrators were turned
back less than a mile into the march at the Edmund Pettus Bridge when state
troopers and county posse attacked the unarmed marchers with billy
clubs and tear gas.
The demonstrators had set out to walk the fifty-four miles
from Selma to the Alabama state capital of Montgomery to draw attention to
pervasive racist practices that unlawfully and unfairly limited the right
of African-American citizens to exercise their constitutional right to
vote. While the demonstrators paid a high price to win their rights, their
efforts proved effective. Their sacrifices were rewarded when the Voting
Rights Act was adopted by the Congress later that same year. But that was
1965.
Just one year earlier the Congress had passed the Civil Rights Act of
1964. So why were African-American people demonstrating for voting rights?
Did not the Civil Rights Act of 1964 already protect them?
Civil rights leaders, including the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King,
Jr., understood that the attainment of equality is not an event but a slow
and often agonizing, frequently discouraging struggle of people working to
emerge from subjugation to equal status. It is the process of changing the
hearts and minds of the dominant society. It has transformative moments,
but neither its beginning nor its end is fixed in time. In Dr. King's
words: "Let us therefore continue our triumphant march to the realization
of the American dream."[1]
Unquestionably, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a pivotal event in
the struggle of African-Americans to attain their civil rights; however, it
was by no means the first nor only federal action taken to end racial
discrimination and its malignant and corrosive consequences.
It can be argued that the slow and torturous journey to gain civil rights
began a century earlier with the abolition of slavery. On January 1, 1863,
President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation and
declared: ...all persons held as slaves within the rebellious states are,
and henceforward shall be free.[2] But, paradoxically, the Emancipation
Proclamation did not free everyone. Slaves were granted freedom, but
freedom was only for slaves living in states that had seceded from the
Union. In the loyal Border States the right of white people to hold black
people in bondage continued.
The struggle for equal status began when American slaves were freed,
but it took over a century before the inherent equality of African-American
people would be affirmed in law. The Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 and
the Civil Rights Act of 1964 were not unrelated, dissociated independent
events; they marked distinct, transformative moments in a social evolution,
the painstakingly slow social awakening of the human consciousness and
conscience to face injustice and to acknowledge the humanity of all people.
The Emancipation Proclamation was not the end but the beginning. Soon
thereafter, on December 6, 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment to the
Constitution of the United States of America abolished slavery and
involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. Eight years later
the Congress enacted the Civil Rights Act of 1871, also known as the Ku
Klux Klan Act. The act granted to the President the authority to suspend
the writ of habeas corpus to combat the Ku Klux Klan and the other white
supremacy organizations during the Reconstruction Era. The tide of history
seemed to be moving toward integration at a steady and heartening rate.
But then followed the Civil Rights Act of 1875, prohibiting
discrimination in hotels, trains, and other public facilities, an important
milestone, but one that would soon be challenged. At first all seemed to be
well. In 1877 the Supreme Court ruled in Hall v. DeCuir that the states
could not enforce segregation on common carriers such as railroads,
streetcars, or riverboats. While a dramatic victory for African Americans,
the court decision proved to be too much for whites to bear. The slaves
were free, but the South continued to enforce strict separation of the
races. Freedom was one thing, but equality was quite another.
The constitutionality of the 1875 Civil Rights Act continued to come
under fire. In 1883 the court overturned key protections of the Civil
Rights Act of 1875, thereby laying the foundation for the idea of "separate
but equal," although the term was not introduced at that time. But more was
to follow. Seven years later the court approved a Mississippi statute
requiring segregation on intrastate carriers in Louisville, New Orleans &
Texas Railway v. Mississippi (1890).
During the years 1887 to 1892 nine states passed laws requiring
separation of the races on public conveyances such as streetcars and
railroads. Segregation of the races was viewed to be natural and not
discriminatory. The Louisiana Separate Car Act of 1890 included the
language that, in order to "promote the comfort of passengers," railroads
had to provide "equal but separate accommodations for the white and colored
races" on lines running in the state.
Even in the face of defeat after defeat, proponents of racial
equality somehow managed to maintain their spirit and fight back. On June
7, 1892, Homer Plessy walked into the Press Street Depot in New Orleans,
bought a first-class ticket to Covington, and boarded the East Louisiana
Railroad's Number 8 train. When ordered to move, Homer Plessy refused. "I
am an American citizen," he told the trainman. "I have paid for a first-
class ticket, and intend to ride to Covington in the first-class car."[3]
Plessy was arrested and charged with violating the Separate Car Act. A long
series of court battles followed.
On May 18, 1896, the US Supreme Court ruled against Plessy, heralding
seven decades of what came to be known as the Jim Crow era, a period in
American history infamous for perpetuating the presumed legitimacy of
racial segregation. But eventually the injustice of segregation would be
challenged and the tide would begin to turn. The Civil Rights Act of 1957
created the Civil Rights Commission. Then the Civil Rights Act of 1960
established federal inspection of local voter registration polls.
Then followed what was unarguably the most significant declaration of
human rights of the twentieth century: the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The
Civil Rights Act prohibited discrimination based on race, color, religion,
sex, and national origin by federal and state governments as well as some
public places. But the passage of the Civil Rights Act did not end the
struggle for equality. Just one year later Congress passed the Voter Rights
Act of 1965.
Reflecting on the events leading to the passage of the Voter Rights Act,
the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King said: "...today as I stand before you
and think back over that great march, I can say, as Sister Pollard said-a
seventy-year-old Negro woman who lived in this community during the bus
boycott-and one day, she was asked while walking if she didn't want to
ride. And when she answered, 'No,' the person said, 'Well, aren't you
tired?' And with her ungrammatical profundity, she said, 'My feets is
tired, but my soul is rested.' And in a real sense this afternoon, we can
say that our feet are tired, but our souls are rested." Dr. King went on to
say: "The Civil Rights Act of 1964 gave Negroes some part of their rightful
dignity, but without the vote it was dignity without strength."
Three years later the Congress enacted the Civil Rights Act of 1968,
also known as the Fair Housing Act, to be followed by the Civil Rights Act
of 1991, providing the right to trial by jury on discrimination claims and
introducing the possibility of emotional distress damages, although the law
limited the amount that a jury could award. And the struggle for equality
is not over; it will not be over until African-Americans and other minority
groups are regarded as equals, treated as equals, and are able to live free
from discrimination.
Civil Rights and Disability Rights
But what about civil rights for people with disabilities? If people
with disabilities suffer discrimination based on prejudice and
preconception, then it logically follows that people with disabilities,
like other disenfranchised people, deserve to have their civil rights
consecrated in law. But society does not regard the prejudice people with
disabilities face as comparable to the discrimination faced by other
members of minority groups.
By definition disability means a loss of mental or physical function,
but its social construction encompasses much more. Society regards
disability not just as a limitation in sight, hearing, mobility, or mental
or intellectual functioning, but as a condition of generalized defect and
damage. While it is recognized that people with disabilities face
discrimination, it is quietly yet firmly believed that the limited
opportunity they face is at least in equal degree the inevitable,
unescapable consequence of their infirmity.
So what about civil rights protections for people with disabilities?
Twenty-five years ago the Congress passed the Americans with Disabilities
Act (ADA), landmark legislation affirming the right of people with
disabilities to live free from discrimination. There is no question that
the ADA transformed America's thinking about disability and the rights of
people with disabilities. But when we compare the protections contained in
the ADA to those contained in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, we find a
number of dramatic and disappointing differences.
While the ADA prohibits employment discrimination based on
disability, it is a limited prohibition. Specifically, the ADA forbids
employment discrimination against people with disabilities but only to
those individuals who are deemed to be a "qualified individual." People
with disabilities are protected from employment discrimination, but not all
people with disabilities. Only the "qualified," the worthy, only those
people with disabilities who do not cost too much to accommodate or are not
too much bother. People with disabilities are minorities, but they are an
orphan minority, a subordinate minority. People with disabilities have some
civil rights protections, but not the same protections afforded to ethnic
minorities and other protected classes of individuals.
In barring discrimination against other minority individuals, it is
striking to note that the term "qualified individual" is not contained in
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The act simply says "It shall be
an unlawful employment practice for an employer ... to discriminate against
any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or
privileges of employment, because of such individual's race, color,
religion, sex, or national origin."
- Title VII, Civil Rights Act of 1964 Sec. 703(a)(1) or 42 USC 2000e-
2(a)(1)
The Civil Rights Act makes no mention of a "qualified individual from
a specified ethnic background," no mention of a "qualified woman," no
mention of a "qualified member of a defined religious faith," and no
mention of a "qualified individual of a particular national origin." While
not explicitly stated, it is assumed that people are not inherently
inferior by virtue of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. In
other words, it is understood that they are inherently normal people,
capable people, people whose lives are unjustly constricted by prejudice.
They are not required to prove that they are qualified, because they are
assumed to be qualified; they are assumed to be equal in capacity and
ability. They are not made infirm nor limited by their minority status but
by prejudice. But the same is not assumed to be true for people with
disabilities. The idea of barring employment discrimination against people
with disabilities is reserved to those people with disabilities who are
deemed to be "qualified."
The ADA states: "(a) General rule: No covered entity shall
discriminate against a qualified individual on the basis of disability in
regard to job application procedures, the hiring, advancement, or discharge
of employees, employee compensation, job training, and other terms,
conditions, and privileges of employment." 42 U.S.C. § 12112(a).
But what makes a person with a disability qualified? What is the
standard that divides the able from the unable? The ADA defines the term
qualified individual with a disability as follows:
(8) Qualified individual. The term "qualified individual" means an
individual who, with or without reasonable accommodation, can perform
the essential functions of the employment position that such
individual holds or desires. For the purposes of this subchapter,
consideration shall be given to the employer's judgment as to what
functions of a job are essential, and if an employer has prepared a
written description before advertising or interviewing applicants for
the job, this description shall be considered evidence of the
essential functions of the job.
42 U.S.C. § 12111(8).
So not all people with disabilities are protected from employment
discrimination. The individual with a disability must first show that he or
she is a "qualified person." And who decides whether the individual is
qualified, able to perform the essential functions of the job? As we see,
the ADA states that "...consideration shall be given to the employer's
judgment ..." People with disabilities are members of a minority group, but
their protections are not the same as the protections available to others.
People with disabilities are minorities, but they are orphan minorities.
The definition of a qualified individual with a disability is linked
to the concept of a "reasonable accommodation." People with disabilities
are guaranteed the right to be given accommodations, but not any
accommodation, only those deemed to be reasonable. Of course the converse
of reasonable is unreasonable, and no one would argue that people with
disabilities must have the right to unreasonable accommodations, but the
question of what makes an accommodation reasonable is more than a
rhetorical flourish, an interesting intellectual exercise; it is
foundational.
The distinction between reasonable and unreasonable accommodations is
rooted in society's conception that people with disabilities are like and
unlike other minority individuals. They face social barriers, but they are
equally limited by their own incapacity. While it is kind and fair to grant
them accommodations, the accommodations must be reasonable, that is, they
must not cost too much or be too much bother or inconvenience. It is a
distinction between the unworthy and the worthy. Those people with
disabilities who, albeit damaged, can do a little something. It is the
benevolence of the master to the ward, the superior to the inferior, the
parent to the child. And as with the determination of what constitutes the
essential functions of the job, the determination of whether an
accommodation is reasonable falls to the employer. Of course the authority
of the employer is neither absolute nor unfettered. Still, it is revealing
to note that the employers' defense, the employers' standard of proof when
challenged, is to show that an accommodation is not reasonable because it
imposes an "undue hardship" on the employer, that is, it costs too much or
is too much bother.
This year we are celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary of the
passage of the ADA-and celebrating we are-but we must do more than
celebrate; we must look back on where we were, assess where we are now, and
then chart the future. The ADA was a transformative moment in the struggle
for equal rights. The legal protections themselves were dramatic, but of
greater significance was the long-awaited social awakening that enabled the
law to be taken seriously and adopted by the Congress. The progress we have
made is worth celebrating, but, as we celebrate, we must also look forward.
If people with disabilities are to be successful in taking the next step
toward equal status, we must secure full and equal civil rights protections
in law, and we must line up our programs, services, and supports to conform
to and sustain the conception of disability as a minority issue, a civil
rights issue, a human rights issue. People with disabilities are
minorities, but we are not an orphan minority.
Eliminate Subminimum Wages for People with Disabilities
It is time to eliminate Section 14(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act
(FLSA). Section 14(c) grants an exception from the minimum wage
requirements under the FLSA. Section 14(c) does incalculable economic harm
to people with disabilities, but its corrosive effects go far beyond their
impoverishment. Section 14(c) perpetuates society's harmful and unfounded
belief that people with disabilities are broken people, damaged people,
defective people-different from other minorities because their minority
status is based on their infirmity, their inability, a condition that
renders them less able and less productive than others-an orphan minority,
a subordinate minority. The Section 14(c) exception sustains the idea that
there are places for those people, people incapable of working alongside
others, benevolent places separate and apart from society as a whole.
Federal regulations euphemize subminimum wages. Instead of calling
them what they are, subminimum wages, the term "commensurate wage" is used
(29 CFR Part 525). Commensurate wage is defined as "... a special minimum
wage paid to a worker with a disability which is based on the worker's
individual productivity .... Commensurate wage is always a special minimum
wage, i.e., a wage below the statutory minimum."
Seventy-seven years ago this year, as a central piece of the New
Deal, President Roosevelt secured passage of the FLSA. Among other
protections the FLSA guaranteed American workers a minimum wage; but not
all American workers. From its inception the FLSA excused employers from
paying people with disabilities the minimum wage. It was understood that
people with disabilities could not be as productive as others, and, if
employers were required to pay them the minimum wage (at that time twenty-
five cents an hour), people with disabilities would not be employed at all.
While neither just nor morally defensible, we understand that in
1938, when the FLSA was passed, no one would have seriously proposed that
people with disabilities be included under the minimum wage requirement.
Indeed it would have been seen as an unkindness, a deepening of the
hardships that already defined their lives. No one would pay a person with
a disability the minimum wage, so instead of limited opportunities for
employment, they would have none. People with disabilities were broken
people, damaged people, inferior people. They suffered inferior status
through no fault of their own, but they were inferior just the same.
The question is not whether there are people with complex
disabilities that impair their productivity; the question is whether it is
equitable and just to require people with disabilities to prove their worth
and to do so by performing mind-numbing, repetitive work. People with
disabilities are not given menial, monotonous work because it is the only
work they can do but because it is work that fits society's low
expectations. It makes no sense to take a class of people, people who have
a limitation in a physical or mental function, and constrict the number of
jobs available to them. Objectively, one would think that people with
disabilities need access to the widest number of employment options to
facilitate a good match between the individual and the job. But beyond the
objective flaw in the paradigm, the Section 14(c) exemption perpetuates
discrimination; it reinforces the idea that people with disabilities are
damaged, limited people-an orphan minority. It is time to cut the Gordian
knot and eliminate this vestige of a shameful past. It is time-past time-to
repeal Section 14(c) of the FLSA.
Reform the Javits-Wagner-O'Day Act Program to Support Integrated,
Competitive Employment
The AbilityOne Commission administers the Javits-Wagner-O'Day (JWOD)
Act 41 USC Section 46 et seq. The AbilityOne Commission (known in law as
the Committee for Purchase from People Who Are Blind or Severely Disabled)
grants noncompetitive contracts to nonprofit community rehabilitation
programs (CRPs) that provide specified supplies and services to agencies of
the federal government. The qualified CRPs employ people who are blind or
who have other significant disabilities. The act was passed by the ninety-
second United States Congress in 1971 and has not been amended or updated
since that time.
Last year the AbilityOne Commission allotted approximately $2.8
billion in noncompetitive federal contracts to CRPs that employ people with
disabilities. To work on these contracts, an individual must be legally
blind or must have a physical or mental disability that "constitutes a
substantial handicap to employment and is of such a nature as to prevent
the individual under such disability from currently engaging in normal
competitive employment."[4] But who decides that an individual is incapable
of engaging in "normal competitive employment"? The CRP does. And who
decides the individual's productivity? The CRP does. And who decides how
many hours an individual will work each week? The CRP does. And who
oversees the program? Essentially no one. The program has been plagued by
countless abuses arising in large part from the inherent conflicts of
interest that comprise the structure of the JWOD program.
JWOD federal contracts are used to support segregated work settings
that often pay wages below the prevailing wage or minimum wage. The wages
are kept low, and the number of work hours are limited to protect Social
Security disability benefits. As a result the JWOD program helps sustain
low-wage employment in segregated settings.
The JWOD program should be updated to direct the purchasing power of
the federal government to support equitable pay and integration. The
following are four specific recommendations that would transform the JWOD
program from one that works against integration into a program that fosters
high wages, dignity, and self-support:
First, the JWOD program should be conceptualized as a disability
employment program, not as a federal procurement program. At present the
majority of the federal agency representatives to the AbilityOne Commission
are senior procurement officers. While the AbilityOne Commission includes
public members and customarily the Commissioner of the Rehabilitation
Services Administration, the program is largely guided by people with no
knowledge or background in disability employment programs. The
administration of the AbilityOne program should be moved to an agency such
as the Rehabilitation Services Administration within the US Department of
Education or the Office of Disability Employment Policy within the US
Department of Labor.
Second, eligibility for the program should be based on a
determination that the individual meets the Social Security
Administration's definition of disability. The individual would not need to
be receiving SSI or SSDI benefits, only meet the disability portion of the
program's eligibility criteria. The CRPs should not be allowed to determine
the severity of the individual's disability. By law eligibility for the
program is reserved to those individuals with disabilities that are so
significant that they are unable to work in competitive settings. At
present there is a direct conflict of interest since it is the CRP that
determines the severity of the individual's disability and hence who is
accepted for inclusion in the program. It is in the interest of the CRPs to
qualify individuals who have minimal levels of disability, so the CRPs'
workforce is as productive as possible. This flies in the face of the act's
purpose and intent.
Next, noncompetitive JWOD federal contracts should not be used to
support subminimum wages to people with disabilities. JWOD contracts are
given to nonprofit agencies that receive an array of governmental and
philanthropic subsidies to provide employment for people with disabilities.
It is unfair and unjust to allow the CRPs to determine the productivity of
an individual since it is the CRP that stands to benefit by constricting
the wages of its workers. The JWOD program should be used to support wages
that enable people with disabilities to be self-supporting and to attain a
decent standard of living, not to perpetuate penury and isolation.
Finally, the JWOD program should limit contracts to work in
integrated settings. This would require a thoughtful and planned
transition, but it is something that is long overdue.
Eliminate the Earnings Limits for the Social Security Disability Programs
It is time to eliminate the earnings limit for the Social Security
Disability Insurance (SSDI) and the Supplemental Security Income (SSI)
programs. The earnings limits serve to keep people with disabilities in
perpetual poverty and dependent on public programs to meet the costs
associated with their disability.
Although the Social Security Administration (SSA) applies a strict
definition of disability, monthly benefits are not paid to all people who
meet the SSA definition of disability. The SSDI program pays benefits only
to those individuals whose earnings, if any, are below the threshold known
as "Substantial Gainful Activity" (SGA) (in 2015, $1,090 for disabled
beneficiaries and $1,820 for blind beneficiaries). It has been known for
many years that SSDI beneficiaries limit their income to stay below the SGA
earnings limit, thereby protecting their SSDI benefits.
The SSI program operates under somewhat different rules than the SSDI
program; however, both penalize work and lead to chronic poverty for
individuals with disabilities (monthly payment amounts for the SSI program
in 2015: $733 for an eligible individual, $1,100 for an eligible individual
with an eligible spouse, and $367 for an essential person).
But why limit the earnings of individuals who receive SSI or SSDI
benefits at all? Conceptually, both programs reflect a welfare model, that
is, they presume that, once an individual has demonstrated his or her
ability to work, the taxpayer should no longer supplement the individual's
income. What they fail to recognize is that people with disabilities incur
costs throughout their lifetime related to their disability. The welfare
model of disability income support assumes that either the individual will
be able to pay his or her disability-related costs or a public program will
assist or the individual will have to make do the best he or she can. This
leaves the person with a disability either without needed services or as a
perpetual ward of the state.
From a disability rights standpoint, the threshold question is
whether the cost of disability should be borne by the individual or whether
it should be distributed across society as a whole. There are many examples
of distributed costs: we are asked to pay taxes to support public schools,
irrespective of whether we have school-age children; we are asked to pay
for police, even if we do not directly use the service. It is recognized
that schools and police benefit society generally, and their costs should
be shared.
But perhaps a better example is road maintenance. For most of us if
the road on which we live needs to be repaired or replaced, tax dollars are
used to meet the expense. No one assesses the ability of each homeowner to
pay a portion of the cost, based on the earnings of the individual. The
road in front of an individual's house is not used by everyone, but its
maintenance is still seen as a legitimate public expense. The same should
be true for the costs of disability.
Eliminating the SSDI and SSI earnings limits would immediately end
the disincentive to work. By stimulating work activity, more taxes would be
paid, and people with disabilities would have the opportunity to attain a
better standard of living. But, more important, eliminating the earnings
limits would mean that people with disabilities would have some money under
their direct control to help offset the costs associated with their
disability. No applying to charitable or governmental programs; no means
testing. The individual would have some money to pay for assistive
technology, the cost of hiring a job coach, transportation, and so on.
Instead we means test SSDI and SSI recipients each and every month to make
sure that they are still unemployed, still poor. And to what end? The
Congress acknowledged the self-defeating consequence of limiting work and
eliminated the earnings limit for retirees. It is time to do the same for
people with disabilities.
End the Conception of Disability as an Orphan Minority
People with disabilities constitute a minority group in every
legitimate sense of the word. They face discrimination and have their lives
limited by socially constructed barriers to full participation. But their
minority status is not regarded as entirely comparable to that of ethnic
minorities, people of different colors, religions, faiths, or national
origins.
While people with disabilities have made significant strides toward
true integration, their progress has been suppressed by society's
conception of people with disabilities as broken people, damaged people,
inferior people. Civil rights are reserved for others while people with
disabilities are made to make do with limited civil rights, qualified civil
rights, conditional civil rights. People with disabilities are members of a
minority group, but it is an orphan minority, a subordinate minority.
The ADA was a transformative moment in the struggle of people with
disabilities for equal status, but, as with the Civil Rights Act of 1964,
it did not end the struggle for true equality. Equality will not be an
event, a moment of social awakening. It will take years, generations, each
building on the foundation laid by those who came before. It is fair, even
compulsory, to take heart from what we have achieved, but the struggle must
continue, continue until people with disabilities take their rightful place
as equals among equals.
In the words of Nelson Mandela: "I have walked that long road to
freedom. I have tried not to falter; I have made missteps along the way.
But I have discovered the secret that, after climbing a great hill, one
only finds that there are many more hills to climb. I have taken a moment
here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to
look back on the distance I have come. But I can only rest for a moment,
for with freedom come responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long
walk is not ended."[5]
The same is true for people with disabilities. We must stand up
against injustice; we must stand up against isolation, and we must never
falter. As days become weeks and weeks become months, and as months become
years and years become decades, we must not lose heart. Humanity demands
it; decency demands it; and justice demands it. We are not an orphan
minority; we are not damaged people, lesser people. We are people, people
with our own individual abilities, interests, and dreams. We are people
deserving of full and equal civil rights, full and equal opportunity, and
the human dignity that is the right of all people.
----------
[PHOTO CAPTION: Harold Wilson]
Once Upon a Time: Becoming a Teacher
by Harold Wilson
From the Editor: Harold Wilson is the vice president of the National
Association of Blind Merchants and the manager of PTO Concessions at the US
Patent and Trade Office. He attended the 2015 Convention of the National
Federation of the Blind of Missouri and prepared these remarks:
Long long ago in a faraway land there once was a sighted boy who
lived with his sighted parents and three brothers. He had many chores to
do, as did every member of his family, and in this way the work that needed
done was shared by all. Then one day he became sick and needed to go to the
doctor to figure out what was causing him to lose his sight. The doctor
said his loss of sight was because of a brain tumor. The tumor was removed,
but his sight did not return, and he was declared legally blind.
After he returned home from the hospital, his family, friends, and
loved ones were grateful he was alive. The boy was also thankful, and,
though he couldn't see, this caused some excitement and for a time made him
the center of attention. This he liked. He did not have to do the chores he
once had done, and at first he thought this was great, until he realized
that his brothers no longer treated him as an equal. He no longer filled an
important role by taking on the responsibilities that once made him a fully
contributing family member.
Finally, six years later, he was told about the Louisiana Center for
the Blind. It was a training center that claimed it would help him with all
of the blindness skills he would need to live a normal life. When he
decided to go, it was one of the best decisions he ever made-a decision
that would change him forever.
At the center the blind and sighted instructors had more confidence
in him than he had in himself. Nine months after beginning the program,
when he graduated from the Louisiana Center for the Blind with his new
attitude and blindness skills, he was ready to conquer the world. He began
studying at Louisiana Tech University, majoring in elementary education.
After completing all of his lower division requirements, he was ready for
the upper classes that focused specifically on teaching elementary
students. When he began these higher-level classes, he received a directive
to report to the dean of education. The dean informed him that, since he
was blind, there was no doubt that he was going to have more difficulty in
his classes and in his later work. The dean told him to go home for the
weekend and write down all the problems he was likely to face in his
classes and in working as a teacher. He was also to write out just how he
would deal with those problems given that he was blind. Though the dean
didn't say it directly, he was telling the blind student to choose a more
suitable profession and trying to make it seem as though the student had
come to this decision on his own.
Now the young man realized that the dean was trying to help, but he
had also been told many times that the road to hell is paved with good
intentions. Before his training, the young man might have seen the dean's
signals as a stop sign and felt that he had no choice but to abandon his
dream. If he did what the dean suggested and spent his time concentrating
on all the possible problems and pitfalls he might encounter, it is likely
he would have given up on his dream of becoming a teacher, but he knew that
blindness would not stop him and that he held inside him the strength and
the resourcefulness to see this through. When he needed an answer he could
not summon using his experience and brains, he knew where he could go for
the answer.
So it was that, on the following Monday, the young man came to the
dean's office bolstered by the knowledge that he had the National
Federation of the Blind of Louisiana and the rest of the Federation around
the country behind him. He told the dean that it was not right for him to
expect that he have all the answers to the problems he might face as a
teacher or to suggest that he consider another profession just because the
dean had never seen a person without sight teach in a public classroom. The
young man said he was prepared to face the problems that being an upper-
level student and student teacher would pose and that he knew he would have
a real selling job to do when it came time to look for employment. With
firmness and respect he told the dean that no one should decide whether or
not a blind person could teach simply based on blindness.
After the dean was convinced that the young would-be teacher and the
National Federation of the Blind would not tolerate arbitrary decisions
about who could or could not be a teacher, he dropped his demand for a list
of problems and solutions the student might face and stopped trying to
persuade him to find another field. This did not lessen the skepticism of
other professors who continued to challenge him with misconceptions about
blindness and the bleak future he would have should he try teaching as a
career. One argued that, because the blind student used a human reader for
his texts and to transcribe his work, "Every time I grade your paper, I
feel like I am grading the work of your reader." Another was more positive
but said, "I feel like you can teach, but just in a one-on-one situation."
A teacher asked to supervise the blind student in student teaching said, "I
have too many young students in my classroom; I do not need another one to
have to watch."
By now I suppose you know that the student in this little
presentation was me. I sometimes talk about this in the third person
because it is hard to believe that these things actually happened to me.
Okay, now that we know the blind character in this story, let's get back to
it. I invited my professors to take a tour of the Louisiana Center for the
Blind to let them see what the training center was all about. My hope was
that it would modify their attitudes about blind people and particularly
about me and my ability to be a teacher. I'm not sure whether or not it
helped, but, on schedule, I graduated with my elementary education degree.
Once I was done with school, I needed to find a job. Even though I
live in Ruston, Louisiana, where the Louisiana Center for the Blind is
located, I could not find a teaching job. After a summer full of
interviews, I started to look in neighboring cities. In the last week of
August I spoke with a principal who was looking for a vision teacher. I
interviewed for the job teaching blind students. The principal said, "I
believe you will be perfect for this job." This would be my first real full-
time job: a great opportunity for me as a blind person, a great opportunity
for the blind students I would teach, a great opportunity for the sighted
teachers I would work with, and a great opportunity for the principal who
hired me-a person who, unbeknownst to me, had RP, was in the process of
going blind, and needed the affirmation that she too could function without
sight. What a wonderful relationship developed there: she was my mentor as
I learned about teaching, and I was her mentor as she learned about being
blind.
The National Federation of the Blind offered me the blindness skills
and the opportunity to educate others about blindness. I owe a great deal
to the organization and do my best to pay it back each day. Abraham Lincoln
once said, "My father taught me how to work, but he did not teach me how to
like it." Now I don't mean to compare myself to that great man, but Harold
Wilson says, "My father taught me how to work, but the National Federation
of the Blind taught me how to like it and convinced me I could do it as
well as any other man. I try to live up to their belief in me and do my
best to give to others that which has been so generously given to me."
----------
Consider a Charitable Gift
Making a charitable gift can be one of the most satisfying
experiences in life. Each year millions of people contribute their time,
talent, and treasure to charitable organizations. When you plan for a gift
to the National Federation of the Blind, you are not just making a
donation; you are leaving a legacy that ensures a future for blind people
throughout the country. Special giving programs are available through the
National Federation of the Blind (NFB).
Points to Consider When Making a Gift to the National Federation of the
Blind
. Will my gift serve to advance the mission of the NFB?
. Am I giving the most appropriate asset?
. Have I selected the best way to make my gift?
. Have I considered the tax consequences of my gift?
. Have I sought counsel from a competent advisor?
. Have I talked to the NFB planned giving officer about my gift?
Benefits of Making a Gift to the NFB
. Helping the NFB fulfill its mission
. Receiving income tax savings through a charitable deduction
. Making capital gain tax savings on contribution of some appreciated
gifts
. Providing retained payments for the life of a donor or other
beneficiaries
. Eliminating federal estate tax in certain situations
. Reducing estate settlement cost
Your Gift Will Help Us
. Make the study of science and math a real possibility for blind
children
. Provide hope and training for seniors losing vision
. Promote state and chapter programs and provide information that will
educate blind people
. Advance technology helpful to the blind
. Create a state-of-the-art library on blindness
. Train and inspire professionals working with the blind
. Provide critical information to parents of blind children
. Mentor blind people trying to find jobs
Your gift makes you a part of the NFB dream!
----------
Our Latest Battle in the Right to Read: The Blind Strive for Access to 40
Million Titles
by Gary Wunder
At the 2015 Washington Seminar and as reported in the March 2015
issue of the Braille Monitor, President Riccobono said that we were
involved in assisting a woman named Heidi Viens, who wanted to use the
Scribd service in reading to her child. Viens has nerve damage as a result
of neuropathy caused by diabetes, so reading Braille rapidly is difficult,
and she desperately wants her child to develop the love of reading that she
treasures.
So what is Scribd? It is a commercial online repository for texts, a
paid library, a service similar to Netflix, which is a repository for
movies and television shows. A subscriber pays a monthly fee and is
entitled to read any of the 40 million titles that Scribd has available.
In seeking the services of Scribd, Viens's intention was to use her
iPhone or a traditional computer to have stories read aloud and to have the
words highlighted on the screen for her four-year-old daughter Ava to see.
Given that Scribd is one of the largest providers of children's books, it
was Viens's first choice, but its inaccessibility to blind readers is why
the National Federation of the Blind became involved.
Following our usual practice, the Federation first tried to engage in
discussions with Scribd to arrive at a resolution. As all too frequently
happens, our overtures were ignored, so we reluctantly proceeded to the
courts.
The company responded to our suit as so many do: they claimed that no
law compelled them to make their content accessible and that the law we
were using to make our case, Title III of the Americans with Disabilities
Act (ADA), simply did not apply to the kind of business they operate. They
said to the court that nowhere in this law does the word "internet" appear.
They further argued that entities listed in the law were numerous and that
most examples concluded with the words "and other such places of public
accommodation." Claiming that their operation had no physical place the
public could visit to purchase its offerings, the company asked that the
court rule that the suit had no merit and that it be dismissed without the
need for further action.
In pursuing this case, the National Federation of the Blind was the
second to test the proposition that under the Americans with Disabilities
Act the internet is indeed a place of public accommodation and subject to
the provisions of Title III. In response to the argument made by Scribd,
the Federation said that the word "place" was not intended to imply a brick
and mortar establishment, but that in any case Scribd certainly occupies
one or more physical locations for its offices and its computer equipment.
We also argued that, for the judge to find in Scribd's favor, he would have
to conclude that the company did not offer services to the public that
would fall under the public accommodations required by the ADA. In our
brief we cited many examples in which the word "place" clearly means more
than a physical location: we talk about going shopping online, about
visiting a website, about visiting a chat room, and on Facebook we talk
about a wall-our wall or the space of another. Even Scribd talks about its
online store as "the place to go." Clearly libraries are covered under the
ADA, and what is Scribd if not a pay-for-service library?
Given that the ADA was passed in 1990, years before the widespread
use of the internet and the electronic commerce it would host, we argued
that its exclusion from the law was not by design and was never intended to
provide an exemption for e-commerce. Instead, the Act was written with the
intent of embracing new landscapes where the disabled were likely to
encounter the very discrimination the law was intended to prohibit.
In cases where a statute is ambiguous and reasonable people can
arrive at different conclusions about the intent of a law, one then looks
at the purpose of the statute. Given the lack of consensus by the lower
courts regarding the meaning of the word place and whether or not the
internet is a covered entity under the ADA, we asked the judge to consider
a ruling by the United States Supreme Court (Martin vs PGA) in which the
court decreed that the ADA must be construed liberally to effectuate the
comprehensive mandate of this law.
So where do we stand now? We have won the right to go to trial in
order to argue for the right of the blind for access to the 40 million
titles available through Scribd. Heidi Viens is entitled to have the same
access as any other paying customer to one of the most significant sources
of children's literature in the world, and we in the National Federation of
the Blind will do what we can to see that she gets that access.
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[PHOTO CAPTION: Jacobus tenBroek]
The Federation at Twenty-Five: Postview and Preview
From the Editor: As the 2015 Convention and some of the celebrations
planned for the NFB's seventy-fifth anniversary approaches, we at the
Monitor thought we'd look back at what two of the Federation's founders had
to say at earlier milestones in Federation history. This month we're
republishing an address given by Jacobus tenBroek at the twenty-fifth
anniversary convention banquet, held in July 1965 at the Mayflower Hotel in
Washington, DC:
Oscar Wilde tells us: "Most modern calendars mar the sweet simplicity
of our lives by reminding us that each day that passes is the anniversary
of some perfectly uninteresting event." We must approach the task of
celebration and review with some pause and some humility, neither
exaggerating our importance nor underestimating it. It is my task in this
spirit to capsulize our history, convey our purposes, and contemplate our
future.
The career of our movement has not been a tranquil one. It has grown
to maturity the hard way. The external pressures have been unremitting. It
has been counseled by well-wishers that all would be well-and it has
learned to resist. It has been attacked by agencies and administrators-and
learned to fight back. It has been scolded by guardians and caretakers-and
learned to talk back. It has cut its eye teeth on legal and political
struggle, sharpened its wits through countless debates, broadened its mind
and deepened its voice by incessant contest. Most important of all, it has
never stopped moving, never stopped battling, never stopped marching toward
its goals of security, equality, and opportunity for all the Nation's
blind. It has risen from poverty to substance, from obscurity to global
reputation.
It is fitting that the anniversary of our own independence movement
should coincide with that of the nation itself. The two revolutions were
vastly different in scope but identical in principle. We too memorialize a
day of independence-independence from a wardship not unlike that of the
American colonists. Until the advent of the National Federation, the blind
people of America were taken care of but not represented; protected but not
emancipated; seen but rarely heard.
Like Patrick Henry on the eve of revolution, we who are blind knew in
1940 that if we wished to be free, if we meant to gain those inestimable
privileges of participation for which we had so long yearned, then we must
organize for purposes of self-expression and collective action; then we
must concert to engage in a noble struggle.
In that spirit the National Federation of the Blind was founded. In
that spirit it has persevered. In that spirit it will prevail.
When the founding fathers of the Federation came together at Wilkes-
Barre, Pennsylvania, to form a union, they labored in a climate of
skepticism and scorn. The experts said it couldn't be done; the agencies
for the blind said it shouldn't be done. "When the blind lead the blind,"
declared the prophets of doom, "all shall fall into the ditch."
But the Federation was born without outside assistance. It stood
upright without a helping hand. It is still on its feet today.
At the outset we declared our independence. In the past twenty-five
years we have established it. Today we may say that the National Federation
has arrived in America--and is here to stay. That is truly the "new outlook
for the blind."
We have not reached our present standing, as all of you know, by
inertia and idleness. The long road of our upward movement is divided into
three phases-corresponding to the first decade, the second decade, and the
third half-decade of our existence as an organization. Each of these three
periods, though a part of a continuum, has had a different emphasis and a
different character. Let us look at each of them.
The Federation was not born with a silver spoon in its mouth-but,
like the Nation itself, it was born with the parchment of its principles in
its hand. Our basic philosophy and purposes-even most of our long-range
programs-existed full-panoplied at our origin. We were dedicated to the
principles of security with freedom; of opportunity without prejudice; of
equality in the law and on the job. We have never needed to alter or modify
those goals, let alone compromise them. We have never faltered in our
confidence that they are within our reach. We have never failed to labor
for their implementation in political, legal, and economic terms.
The paramount problems of our first decade, the 1940's, were not so
much qualitative as quantitative: we had the philosophy and the programs,
but we lacked the membership and the means. The workers were few and the
cupboard was bare.
Each month as we received our none-too-bountiful salary as a young
instructor at the University of Chicago Law School, Hazel and I would
distribute it among the necessaries of life: food, clothing, rent,
Federation stamps, mimeograph paper and ink, other supplies. So did we
share our one-room apartment. The mimeograph paper took far more space in
our closet than did our clothes. We had to move the mimeograph machine
before we could let down the wall bed to retire at night. If on a Sunday we
walked along Chicago's lake front for an hour, four or five fewer letters
were written, dropping our output for that day to fewer than twenty-five.
The decade of the forties was a time of building: and build we did,
from a scattering of seven state affiliates at our first convention to more
than four times that number in 1950. It was a time of pioneering: and
pioneer we did, by searching out new paths of opportunity and blazing
organizational trails where no blind man had before set foot. It was a time
of collective self-discovery and self-reliance: of rising confidence in our
joint capacity to do the job-to hitch up our own wagon train and hitch it
up we did.
In the decade of the forties we proved our organizational capacity,
established our representative character, initiated legislative programs on
the state and national levels, and spoke with the authority and voice of
the blind speaking for themselves. In these very terms the decade of the
fifties was a time both of triumph and travail. The triumph was not
unmixed, but the travail was passing.
Our numbers escalated to a peak of forty-seven statewide affiliates
with membership running to the tens of thousands. Our resources multiplied
through a campaign of fundraising. Our voice was amplified with the
inauguration of the Braille Monitor as a regular publication in print,
braille, and tape, which carried the word of Federationism to the farthest
parts of the Nation and many distant lands.
With the funds to back us up, with a broad base of membership behind
us, with constructive programs of opportunity and enlargment, with growing
public recognition and understanding, the Federation in the fifties
galvanized its energies along an expanding front. We sent teams of blind
experts into various states, on request of the governors, to prepare master
plans for the reform of their welfare services to the blind. We aided our
state affiliates in broad programs of legislative and administrative
improvement in welfare and rehabilitation. We participated in opening the
teaching profession to qualified blind teachers in a number of states. We
assisted in bringing to completion the campaign to secure white cane laws
in all of the states so that blind men might walk abroad anywhere in the
land sustained by a faith justified by law. We shared with others the
credit for infusing into federal welfare the constructive objective of self-
care and self-support, progressive improvements in the aid grant and
matching formula, and the addition of disability insurance. Over the
unflagging opposition of the Social Security Administration, we secured the
acceptance by Congress, in progressive amounts, the principle of exempt
income for blind aid recipients; at first temporary, and finally permanent
permission for Pennsylvania and Missouri to retain their separate and
rehabilitative systems of public assistance; and we began to lay the
groundwork by which our blind workers in the sheltered shops might secure
the status and rights of employees. We pushed, pulled, and persuaded the
civil service into first modifying, then relaxing, and finally scrapping
its policy of discrimination against blind applicants for the public
service.
In these enterprises, as against the doctrinaire, aloof resistance of
administration, we had the cordial good will, practical understanding, and
humane regard of an ever-growing number of Congressmen.
All of a sudden, in the furious fifties, the National Federation of
the Blind was very much noticed. Our organizations became the objects of
intense attention-if rarely of affection-on the part of the agencies,
administrators, and their satellite groups which had dominated the field.
As the organized blind movement grew in affluence and in influence,
as affiliates sprang up in state after state, county after county, across
the land, as a groundswell of protest rose against the dead ends of
sheltered employment and segregated training, of welfare programs tied to
the poor law and social workers bound up in red tape, the forces of
custodialism and control looked down from their lighthouses and fought
back.
"The National Federation of the Blind," said its president in 1957,
"stands today an embattled organization. Our motives have been impugned;
our purposes reviled; our integrity aspersed; our representative character
denied. Plans have been laid, activities undertaken, and concerted actions
set in motion for the clear and unmistakable purpose of bringing about our
destruction. Nothing less is sought than our extinction as an
organization."
No Federationist who lived through that decade can forget how the
battle was joined-in the historic struggle for the right of self-expression
and free association. The single most famous piece of legislation our
movement has produced-one which was never passed by Congress but which made
its full weight felt and its message known throughout the world of welfare
and the country of the blind-was the Kennedy-Baring Bill.
It is fitting that John F. Kennedy, then the junior senator from
Massachusetts, was a sponsor of that bill of rights for the blind, who gave
his name and voice to the defense of our right to organize.
Eight years ago he rose in the Senate to introduce and speak for his
bill "to protect the right of the blind to self-expression." He told how
some forty-three state associations of blind persons had become "federated
into a single nationwide organization, the National Federation of the
Blind." He declared: "It is important that these views be expressed freely
and without interference. It is important that these views be heard and
considered by persons charged with responsibility. . ." He pointed out that
in various communities this freedom had "been prejudiced by a few
professional workers in programs for the blind." He urged that "our blind
citizens be protected against any exercise of this kind of influence or
authority to interfere with their freedom of self-expression through
organizations of the blind."
The Kennedy Bill was simple and sweeping in its purposes: to insure
to the blind the right to organize without intimidation; and to insure to
the blind the right to speak and to be heard through systematic means of
consultation with the responsible agencies of government.
That bill of rights was not enacted; but it gained its ends in other
ways. Lengthy and dramatic public hearings were held by a committee of
Congress, at which dozens of blind witnesses both expert and rank-and-file
testified to the extent of coercion and pressure brought against them by
the forces hostile to their independence. "Little Kennedy bills" were
introduced in a number of state legislatures and enacted by some. The
forces of opposition called off their attack upon the organized blind and
beat a strategic retreat.
Meanwhile, in that second decade, the Federation faced another bitter
struggle within its own house. Not all Federationists were happy with the
way the movement was going. There were a few who were decidedly "soft on
custodialism," overfriendly to the agencies which opposed us. There were
others with a burning passion for leadership and office, an ambition which
burned the deeper as it burned in vain. There were still others whose
grievances were personal; real enough to them if not substantial in fact.
All of these factors combined in the fifties to form a temporary crisis of
confidence and collaboration.
But then, as suddenly as it had begun, the civil turmoil ended. Those
who had desired power for their own ends or for itself; who had sought to
change the character and officers of the movement, departed to form their
own organizations. Shaken in its unity, depleted in resources, diminished
in membership, the Federation began the hard task of rebuilding and
rededication.
That task has been the primary assignment of the sixties, and today,
at the halfway point, we may report that it has been accomplished. During
the five years past we have regained stability, recovered unity, and
preserved democracy.
We have found new and dynamic leadership, in the person of a
president imbued with youth and creative vigor. We have regained our
fundraiser-the wizard of St. Louis-and with him has come the prospect of
renewed resources. We have restored and rejuvenated the Braille Monitor, as
not only the voice but the clarion call of the federated blind. We have
reached across the seas, extending the hand of brotherhood and the vision
of Federationism to blind people the world over-through the International
Federation of the Blind.
We have made new friends-yes, and found new champions-in the Congress
of the United States and in the legislatures of the states. And in so doing
we have brightened the vistas of hope and opportunity not only for half a
million blind Americans but for all the handicapped and deprived who rely
upon their government for a hand up rather than a handout.
And in this new decade of the sixties, we of the Federation are
reaching toward another base of understanding and support. We intend to
carry our case and our cause, not only to the lawmakers in Congress but to
the judges in the courts as well: for it is in their tribunals that new
pathways of progress are being cleared, as the result of a happily evolving
concept which holds that the great principles of the Constitution-among
them liberty, dignity, privacy, and equality-must be brought down off the
wall and made real in the lives of all our citizens with all deliberate
speed.
The organized blind have traveled far in the past quarter century.
The road ahead will not be easy. But the road is never easy for the blind
traveler; every step is a challenge, every independent advance is a
conquest. The movement of the organized blind in society is like the
movement of the blind person in traffic: in both cases the gain is
proportionate to the risk. Let us adventure together.
It was Theodore Roosevelt who said that the sign of real strength in
a nation is that it can speak softly and carry a big stick. The sign of
strength in our movement is that we speak vigorously and carry a white
cane.
Whatever may be the challenges to come-whatever the opposition to be
converted or defeated, whatever the problems of maintaining internal
democracy and external drive, whatever the difficulties of activating
successful but indifferent blind, whatever the slow progress and temporary
setbacks in achieving our ultimate goals-our experience and accomplishments
of a quarter-of-a-century tell us one thing: we can prevail!
And we shall prevail!
We have prevailed over the limitations of blindness, in our lives and
in our movement. We shall prevail over the handicap of blindness in all its
forms: not the physical disability, which is an act of nature that may not
be repealed, but the social handicap which is an act of men that men may
counteract.
We have prevailed, in our movement and our minds, over the myth of
the "helpless blind man." We shall prevail over that myth of helplessness
in the minds of all who have sight but not vision.
We have prevailed over the foredooming conclusion that the blind are
ineducable, that lack of sight means loss of mind, and over the only
slightly less foredooming conclusion that the blind can be taught but only
the rudiments of academe and rudest of crafts. We shall prevail over every
arbitrary restriction and exclusion inhibiting the fullest development of
mind and skill of every blind person.
We have prevailed over the legal stricture that the blind should not
mix and mingle with the public in public places but should confine their
movement to the rocking chair. We shall prevail over the lingering concept
in the law of torts that the white cane and white cane laws should not be
given full credence and that blind persons are automatically guilty of
contributory negligence whenever an accident befalls them.
We have prevailed over some of the myriad social discriminations
against the blind in hotels, in renting rooms, houses, and safety deposit
boxes, in traveling alone, in blood banks, in playing at gambling tables,
in jury duty, and serving as a judge, in purchasing insurance, in release
from the penitentiary on parole, in holding student body offices, in
marriage laws and customs. We shall prevail over the whole sorry pattern
which is no less vicious because it is sustained by the best of motives.
We have prevailed over the notion that the blind are capable only of
sheltered employment. We shall prevail over the institution of the
sheltered workshop itself as a proper place for any blind person capable of
competitive employment.
We have prevailed against the exclusion of qualified blind workers in
a number of fields of competitive employment. We shall prevail over such
discrimination in every calling and career.
We have prevailed over the principle of welfare aid as a mere
palliative for those in distress, without built-in incentives to help them
out of that distress. We shall prevail over the stubborn remnants of the
poor-law creed-the means test, the liens pest, the requirement of
residence, the concept of relatives' responsibility-wherever they rear
their Elizabethan heads in the statutes of the states and Nation.
We have prevailed over the obstacles to communication and communion
among the blind of America-the physical distances, the psychological
differences, the lack of devices for writing and talking-which have
isolated us from one another. We shall prevail over the greater obstacles
to communication and affiliation among the blind people of the world-we
shall carry Federationism to all the nations.
We shall prevail because we have demonstrated to the world and to
ourselves that the blind possess the strength to stand together and to walk
alone; the capacity to speak for themselves and to be heard with respect;
the resolute determination of a common purpose and a democratic cause; the
faith that can move mountains-and mount movements!
Twenty-five years-a quarter of a century-how much time is that? In
the perspective of eternity, it is an incalculable and imperceptible
fraction. In the chronology of the universe, it is less than an instant. In
the eye of God, it is no more than a flash. In the biography of a social
movement, based on justice and equality, it is a measurable segment. In the
life of a man-say from his thirtieth to his fifty-fifth year-it encompasses
the best years, the very prime, when experience, energy, and intelligence
mingle in their most favorable proportions, before which he is too young,
and after which he is too old. As a man who spent those twenty-five best
years of life in and with the Federation, I have few regrets, immense
pride, and boundless hope for the future.
----------
[PHOTO CAPTION: Ed Vaughan]
Human Rights versus Legal Rights
by Ed Vaughan
From the Editor: Ed Vaughan, professor of sociology emeritus,
University of Missouri-Columbia, lives in California and is currently the
vice president of the San Francisco chapter and has been a Federationist
for many years. Here is what he has to say about human rights and civil
rights:
The July 2014 edition of the Braille Monitor published a speech by
Mary Ellen Gabias to the Canadian Federation of the Blind. She analyzed how
the growth of corporate charity has influenced the lives of blind people.
Quoting Madame Justice Louise Arbour, former justice of the Supreme Court
of Canada and former United Nations high commissioner for human rights,
"The parallel in America is clear; our citizens must keep in mind that our
needs and aspirations are not always the same as those of the charities
that serve us and the government agencies that use taxpayer money to
perform a similar mission."
Placing her concerns in a larger context, we will analyze a current
economic debate concerning the failure of top-down efforts to reduce
poverty. Beginning with the Rockefeller Foundation and gaining momentum
with the World Bank and International Monetary Fund programs, the dominant
approach is to use experts and their professional planning knowledge to
provide programs for reducing poverty in the poorest countries. This
approach almost always involves using government leaders who are often
dictators or despots, and entrenched bureaucracies are used to implement
the programs. In many cases, instead of reducing poverty, governments
become worse and ordinary people suffer.
Imposing solutions from the top down and using experts with outside
funding frequently does not work. In The Tyranny of Experts: Economists,
Dictators and the Forgotten Rights of the Poor, William Easterly, an
economist at New York University, describes this process in great detail.
The ideas undergirding an opposing view other than a top-down
approach go back to 1776 with Adam Smith and Thomas Jefferson. That all men
are created equal and that individuals pursuing their own interests produce
the best outcomes have propelled many of the advances in democratic
government. The debate revolves around individual rights versus corporate
power. What are major ingredients in the concept of human rights?
Society is made up of individual humans, and the basic values that
underlie their humanity should inform any collective effort to improve life
chances. Since the French Revolution, statements of what "ought to be" have
included the idea of human rights.
In 1948 the United Nations established thirty articles defining and
promoting human rights. Significant among them were: Article 3-everyone has
the right to life, liberty, and personal security; Article 22-everyone has
the right to social security and deserves the economic, social, and
cultural rights that are necessary for the development of personality;
Article 23-everyone has the right to work, to choose one's employment, to
have just work conditions, and protection against unemployment.
Human rights are not legislated rights; they are inherent in the
person of each individual human. In this sense it is possible to see human
rights as the basic value around which social arrangements can be built and
society studied empirically.
At the level of the individual and at the level of interacting with
others, what does it mean to say that we have human rights? How is a person
being treated when that individual feels that her or his human rights are
being violated?
Ronald Dworkin, a well-known jurist and philosopher, has made major
contributions to the clarification of the concept of human rights. He notes
that there are ways of treating people that are inconsistent with
recognizing them as full members of the human community. Weaker members of
a political community are entitled to the same concern and respect from
their government as more powerful members. No one likes to be disrespected.
All should be treated as having the capacity for intelligent self-
determination. G. A. Walter has expanded the list of crucial freedoms to
include seeing a purpose in life, not being exploited by others, having the
opportunity to develop autonomy and self-esteem, having some control over
one's life, and having a level of confidence that aids in that control.
Unfortunately human rights provided in government charters and the
writings of scholars are not always implemented in a society. The struggle
for human rights is mediated by the legal processes resulting in civil
laws. Laws are frequently embedded in the power interests and work settings
of experts who are self-regulated. The resulting top-down management
minimizes input from consumers. Organizations are more likely to be changed
by an open source model in which consumer ideas are a welcome input. When
the civil rights process fails, the only recourse may be civil protests and
civil disobedience. The legal process is dominated by those with economic
and political power. It took a long time to abolish slavery and to give
women the right to vote, and we are currently fighting to give blind people
working in sheltered workshops the right to equal protection-the right to
receive the same minimum wage as other workers.
The history of the NFB is in large part the struggle of blind people
for self-determination. We have had to oppose many state and federal laws
as well as policies which have impeded our human rights. The NFB has
changed both laws and organizations by models we have created-such as our
three rehabilitation centers and the large number of agency administrators
who now share the NFB philosophy. Happily, more policymakers and lawmakers
are being influenced by the humanizing philosophy of the National
Federation of the Blind.
References
Dworkin, Ronald. 1977. Taking Rights Seriously. Cambridge: Harvard
University Press
Easterly, William. 2014. The Tyranny of Experts: Economists, Dictators, and
the Forgotten Rights of the Poor. Basic Books
Walter, G.A. 1984. "Organizational Development and Individual Rights." The
Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 20:423-439
----------
[PHOTO CAPTION: Justin Salisbury]
A Letter to the New Summer Interns
by Justin Salisbury
From the Editor: In 2014 Justin Salisbury was an intern at the
Jernigan Institute. The blind of the nation benefited from his work, and he
benefited from the self-confidence that came from working with leaders who
shared his worthy ambition of improving the lives of blind people. Here is
a letter he has written to the four students who will intern at the
Jernigan Institute in the summer of 2015:
Ruston, Louisiana
April 22, 2015
To the 2015 National Federation of the Blind Jernigan Institute Summer
Interns:
Congratulations on your selection for this wonderful opportunity! I
was proud to serve as one of four summer interns in 2014, and I write to
offer you just a little perspective that I gained from my experience in the
hope that it will be helpful to you.
When I decided that I was going to leave my doctoral program in
economics to enter the blindness field, I applied to a master's program at
Louisiana Tech University. In the summer between the two programs, I wanted
the perfect transition into the blindness field. I had always thought that
it would be cool to intern at the headquarters of the National Federation
of the Blind, but I had never identified it as a top priority. This
transition was the perfect time to do it. With Mr. Riccobono's
encouragement I applied for the summer internship program at the Jernigan
Institute.
We arrived on a Saturday, and Anil Lewis and Rose Sloan were there to
greet us. Rose made cookies for us all to celebrate my twenty-fifth
birthday, which had fallen a couple of days before our arrival. After we
got settled into our rooms, at least most of the way, Anil opened himself
up for questions about the movement and leadership. We worked him hard for
hours. The next morning Anil took us out to breakfast and showed us the
area of the city around the Center. We all went shopping for groceries,
which Anil subsidized, and then we went to a cookout at the Riccobono home.
Mr. Riccobono showed us how much he loved to grill, and the whole
experience was great. The Maurers were there, plus John Paré and John
Berggren. It was a perfectly relaxing afternoon.
As the weeks went on, we were able to meet everyone in our national
headquarters and dig into many different projects. We four interns got to
know each other very well and bonded with many staff members. Whether it
was going to DC to see the monuments with Rose or going on a Baltimore
history tour with Lorraine, we were building the Federation and building
personal friendships, too. Sure, we got to do a lot of really fun work,
like meet with our legislators, present to students at the University of
Maryland, host a group of students from the West Virginia School for the
Deaf and the Blind, and decorate the bulletin board in the Betsy Zaborowski
Conference Room, but what we really built were relationships within our
Federation family that will continue to perpetuate those types of
experiences.
I went into the internship thinking about what I could do to
strengthen the Federation over the course of a summer, but I now understand
that this internship was an opportunity for our leaders to strengthen me in
a holistic way. Here I will share with you a mistake that I made: I looked
at my job there as being like a temporary staff member who was supposed to
get as much done as possible in a sprint. I remember feeling a sense of
conflict between what it was to be a member and an intern. I voiced it near
the end of the internship, and Anil told me that the internship wasn't
about us accomplishing certain tasks, but rather about us having an
educational experience. I realized that I had been stressing out way too
much. I really think of the Jernigan Institute as a home now, and going
back for the Legislative Directors Seminar in January was a homecoming.
We began with a cookout and ended with a cookout. On the final
Wednesday we four interns plus Dr. Maurer cooked burgers for the entire
staff. Dr. Maurer led us through the process, and we had a really great
time. He is also a great teacher.
We interns learned how to build each other up and also build the
National Federation of the Blind. Most important, we learned that the
Federation is led by love. Everyone in our national headquarters is there
because we want blind people to live the lives we want, and we all want to
be friends in the process, too.
I encourage you to take full advantage of this opportunity to get to
know each other and the people at our national headquarters. Work hard, but
don't work so hard that you forget to have fun. Accept every offer to go
out to lunch, walk down to the Inner Harbor, tour Fort Henry, and
everything else. Make allies, and make professional connections; most
important, make friends.
Since I don't know who you will be yet, maybe every one of you is
already a close friend of mine. Maybe I don't know any of you at all. In
either case, I hope to get to know you better and learn about how much you
love being an intern.
Yours,
Justin Salisbury
----------
Federation Alphabet
by Joe Ruffalo
From the Editor: Joe Ruffalo is a member of the board of directors of
the National Federation of the Blind and the president of the National
Federation of the Blind of New Jersey. If we had to choose two words that
would sum up who Joe is, those words would be creative and positive. Here
is a contribution that will enrich all of us:
Attitude is everything
Believe in yourself
Commit to a cause
Determination, desire, dream
Expectations that are high
Federation foundation
Goals to reach
History to learn from
Independence through hard work
Just network with others
Keep moving forward
Leadership is gained from each other
Membership is the foundation
Networking is the way to go
Opportunity for all
Philosophy established the organization
Quick response to the needs
Responsibilities, rights and resources
Skills equal success
Travel, techniques, technology
Unity brings results
Victory is the goal
Whozit and wisdom
Xcited breeds excitement
You and youth, true partnership
Zest with all we do
----------
Recipes
With this being a milestone year for the Federation, we at the
Monitor have spent a bit of time going back through the archives. Long-time
readers may remember that recipes did not start out as a regular column in
the Monitor. There might have been the odd recipe in this or that issue,
mostly from Dr. Jernigan, but it wasn't until November 1971 that "Recipe of
the Month" became something readers could look forward to each issue. With
this in mind, we're reprinting that first recipe of the month, the first
recipe from Dr. Jernigan that appeared, and a few other golden oldies that
tempted our taste buds.
From the Editor: this recipe from Dr. Jernigan was first published
back in December 1970. To make it easier for readers to use, the
ingredients list has been converted to the usual format from its original
form.
Corn Bread
by Kenneth Jernigan
What with spending my full time directing the Iowa Commission for the
Blind and trying to do the same thing with respect to the presidency of the
NFB, plus some participation in the state and local affiliates, I find
myself moderately well occupied. Occasionally people ask me whether I ever
think or do anything else. The answer is-sometimes, but hardly ever; and,
of course, I like it that way.
Even so, there are moments. For one thing, now and again I like to
cook steaks or hamburgers on the charcoal, and I have also developed a
recipe for corn bread.
Let me begin by confessing that the basic ingredients and the
beginning formula came from Anna Katherine. However, she was gone one day,
and I got out the meal and buttermilk and began to experiment. I measured
exactly, varied this and that, and had a fine old time. Several hours and
several dozen batches later I had what I wanted-my notion of ideal corn
bread. Most of the intermediate trial mixes went into the garbage, but the
final recipe remained.
If you would like to try it, more power to you, and may you enjoy it
as much as I have. Remember that the measurements and the temperatures must
be absolutely exact-no approximations.
Ingredients:
1 cup yellow corn meal
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup buttermilk
Sunflower seed, safflower, corn, or olive oil
Method: Mix the cornmeal (the nondegerminated kind if you can get it)
with the soda, baking powder, salt, and buttermilk. Do not mix the
buttermilk with the dry ingredients until the oil has been put into the
oven to heat. This will give you a better product.
Get your oven to a temperature of 475 degrees. (Be sure that you get
it that hot even if you have to use an oven thermometer to know.) Use iron
muffin rings or iron corn stick molds, and put two teaspoons of oil in each
individual ring or mold. Wait until your oven has reached 475 degrees. Then
put your oiled pans in and leave them for six minutes.
Take the pans out of the oven and put one tablespoon of the corn
bread mix in each ring or mold. Put the filled pans back into the oven
immediately and leave them there for sixteen minutes. Remove from oven and
much joy in eating. By the way, the teaspoons and tablespoons and the cups
are the measuring variety, not the regular kind.
----------
Apple and Cranberry Pie
by Mae Couts
"Mae Couts, wife of NFB Executive Committeeman James Couts, offers a
taste-tempting pie." This was how the November 1971 issue introduced this
recipe. For an idea how culture has changed, note that this recipe not only
assumes that you will make your own pie crust from scratch, but also that
you need only the ingredients (but not the method) listed in order to do
so.
Ingredients:
3 apples peeled and sliced
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg (or use vanilla instead of spices)
1/2 pound fresh cranberries, cooked and sweetened
1 cup sugar
Make a two crust pie-
1/2 cup shortening. (I use Crisco)
2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon cold water
Method: Bake in 350 degree oven for thirty to forty minutes. Be sure
to put pie on a cookie sheet in the oven or you will have juice all over
the oven.
----------
NFB Tea
by Kenneth Jernigan
Somewhere around 1970, when the National Office of the Federation was
at the Randolph Hotel Building in Des Moines, I began making a concoction
which I called NFB Tea. I served it to the first seminar, which occurred in
the fall of 1973, and I served it in the presidential suite at National
Conventions. Some admired it; others couldn't tolerate it; but everybody
knew about it.
Then, as the seventies passed into history and the eighties came and
went, the custom of serving NFB Tea at conventions and seminars faded.
However, there are those who pine "for the good old days" and long to see a
revival of the soothing brew. They continue to ask that the recipe for the
NFB Tea appear in the Monitor.
When I remind them that I put it into the Monitor sometime early in
the seventies, they simply respond with annoyance, saying that they don't
remember it, don't have that edition of the Monitor, or don't want to be
bothered with irrelevancies. Since the recipe is now quite different from
what it was when it appeared in the Monitor a decade and a half ago and
since the requests continue, it seems worthwhile to print it again. So here
it is as revised:
You can make as much or as little NFB Tea as you want by increasing
or decreasing the quantity of the three basic ingredients. Just keep the
proportions the same. Pour equal parts of pineapple juice, orange juice,
and cranberry juice or cranberry cocktail into a large container. If you
don't intend to use at least as much as a forty-six-ounce can of each of
these juices, it hardly seems worth the bother, not to mention which it
will be difficult not to over flavor. After you mix these three basic
juices, the fun begins. I usually add about one-third as much peach or
apricot nectar and one-third as much apple juice as I have used of each of
the three basic ingredients. Sometimes (but not always) I also add a small
amount of pear nectar if I have it, about half as much as I have used of
the apple or peach.
Then I begin to sweeten the mixture with either sugar or sugar
substitute and add flavors, tasting as I go. I regard certain flavorings as
indispensable, but NFB Tea is a highly flexible brew, which should be
crafted to the taste of the brewer. I always use vanilla, cinnamon, and
nutmeg. I use liquid cinnamon and nutmeg, and if I don't have the liquid, I
make it by heating the ground spice in water as strong as I can and
straining it.
Next I add small amounts of a large variety of other flavorings. I
emphasize that you should begin with only dribs and drabs. Remember that
you can always put more in; once it's there, you can't take it out. The
mixture of flavors will depend on the whim of the moment and what I have
handy. But I will always use at least eight or nine in addition to the
cinnamon, vanilla, and nutmeg. Here are some of the ones I use: almond,
Angostura bitters, anise, apple pie spice, arrack flavoring, banana,
blackberry, blackcurrant, blueberry, brandy flavor, butternut,
butterscotch, butter rum, caramel, cherry, peach, chocolate, clove,
coconut, coffee flavor, English toffee, a tiny amount of ginger, hickory
nut, lemon, pineapple, lime, maple, orange, orange bitters, pear, pecan,
pistachio, pumpkin pie spice, root beer, rose, rum flavor, sassafras,
violet, sherry flavor, strawberry, tangerine, walnut, and most anything
else I can find. I don't use mint, eucalyptus oil, or wintergreen. It will
also be observed that NFB Tea contains no tea. When I first started making
the brew in the early seventies, I used Lipton tea, but I abandoned the
practice before the end of the decade. It had to do with some of my Mormon
friends and also with my evolving taste. I like it better without the tea.
When the mixture has been thoroughly concocted and tasted, a good
deal of ice should be added and stirred in. All that remains is to enjoy
the product and try different proportions next time, but not different
proportions among the three basic ingredients-pineapple juice, orange
juice, and cranberry juice or cocktail. And no omission of the three basic
flavorings- vanilla, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Anything else goes.
----------
Originally Printed in the March 1985 Monitor
Sheila's Irish Potato Soup
by Sheila Samson
Note: In the Family Food column by Marcine Silver in the Centerville,
Ohio, Times for November 28, 1984, Sheila Samson is featured. The column
concluded with Sheila's recipe for Irish Potato Soup, which we reprint
here. Sheila Samson is president of the Dayton Federation of the Blind, one
of the leaders of the Ohio affiliate, and about as dynamic and active a
person as you would want to meet. She lives her Federationism on a daily
basis and helps spread the word. Her recipe is a good one. Try it.
Ingredients:
2 heaping tablespoons butter or margarine
2 medium-sized onions, very thinly sliced
5 medium potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced
2 cups milk
2 cups water
Salt and pepper to taste
1 cup light cream (half and half)
6 slices of bacon, crisply fried
Fresh parsley
Method: Melt butter or margarine in a Dutch oven or large pan. Add
the onion and cook gently until transparent but not browned. Add the peeled
and thinly sliced potatoes, the milk, water, and seasonings. Cover and cook
on a wire trivet until potatoes are tender (about one-half hour).
Fry or cook the bacon in a microwave oven, until crisp. Wash, tear,
or chop the parsley. Set aside.
When potatoes are tender, remove from heat and use a potato masher to
mash them while still in the pan. The soup should be a porridge-like
consistency. Add the cup of light cream and heat through, but do not boil.
Serve the soup with the chopped parsley and crumbled, crisply fried
bacon as a garnish, using one slice of bacon for each bowl of soup. This
makes enough to fill five or six large soup bowls. To increase recipe,
simply add extra potatoes, adding equal parts of milk and water to cover
all ingredients. You might also increase cream and fry enough bacon for
several more bowls of soup.
----------
In the December 1991 Monitor, the recipe feature changed yet again.
Previously, a single Federationist's recipe would be selected for
publication. This was the month that the Monitor began running a selection
of several recipes from a state affiliate. We've chosen only one of the
delicious treats from that month to reprint, along with the Editor's note
explaining why the recipe feature changed:
From the Associate Editor: One of the pleasures of this column in the
Monitor is the opportunity for us all to get to know a little more about
the members of our Federation family who send in recipes. In an effort to
broaden the group of people whose culinary offerings are shared in these
pages, the editors have decided to invite each state in turn to contribute
a month's recipes. It will be up to the president and anyone else whom he
or she chooses to pull into the decision to determine whether one person or
several will be invited to select recipes. States are welcome to choose
state or regional favorites or take advantage of the season of the year.
This month it is Alabama's turn. Louise Greene, president of the affiliate
asked Robert Kelly, first president of the Huntsville chapter and a member
of the board of directors of the National Federation of the Blind of
Alabama, to gather up some of his favorite recipes. Here they are:
Sweet 'N' Savory Chicken Salad
by Robert Kelly
Ingredients:
1/2 cup plain, nonfat yogurt
1 tablespoon lemon juice
3/4 teaspoon dried tarragon, crushed
2 cups cooked chicken, cut in chunks
1 can (20 ounces) unsweetened pineapple chunks, drained
1 can (10-1/2 ounces) unsweetened mandarin oranges, drained
1 can (4 ounces) sliced water chestnuts, drained
1 small cucumber, diced
1 scallion, finely chopped
lettuce leaves
Method: Mix together the yogurt, lemon juice, and tarragon to make a
dressing. In a large bowl combine the remaining ingredients, except lettuce
leaves. Pour the dressing over the chicken salad and toss lightly. Serve on
lettuce leaves of your choice.
----------
And since we're heading into summer and gardening season, a recipe
originally printed in October 1997 using summer squash.
Summer Squash Casserole
by Mary Brunoli
Ingredients:
6 cups summer or zucchini squash (or both)
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 can condensed cream of mushroom or cream of chicken soup
1 cup sour cream
1 carrot, grated
1 small package herb stuffing
1/2 cup butter or margarine
Method: Boil squash and onions ten minutes, then drain. Mix soup and
sour cream, and add grated carrot. Add squash and onion mixture. Mix
stuffing with melted butter. Place half of mixture of crumbs in 13-by-9-
inch pan. Add squash mixture and then add rest of bread crumbs on top. Bake
at 350 degrees for thirty minutes.
----------
Monitor Miniatures
News from the Federation Family
Resolutions for Convention:
Here is a message from Sharon Maneki, who chairs the NFB resolutions
committee:
Do you think we should change a government policy, take a stand
concerning an agency for the blind, or create new regulations? If you do,
consider writing a resolution. At the 2015 National Convention the
resolutions committee meeting will be held on Monday, July 6. The committee
will debate and discuss resolutions on a wide variety of subjects. If
passed by the convention, these resolutions will become the policy
statements of the organization.
To ensure that your resolution will be considered by the committee,
please send it to President Riccobono or to me by June 18, two weeks before
the committee meeting. If you send a resolution to me by email and do not
receive a response acknowledging your email in two or three days, please
call or send it again. If you miss the deadline, you must get three members
of the committee to sponsor your resolution and then get it to the chairman
before the meeting begins. I will be pleased to accept resolutions by
email, <nfbmd at earthlink.net>; or snail mail, 9013 Nelson Way, Columbia, MD
21045.
National Association of Blind Veterans Meeting at Convention:
The National Association of Blind Veterans will hold its annual
meeting and reception on July 6 at the Rosen Centre Hotel in Salon 1,
second level. The reception will start promptly at 5 p.m. and close at 7
p.m. A light snack and soft drinks are provided along with some door prize
drawings. This is an opportunity for all veterans attending to gather and
meet fellow veterans in a social environment and have a good time. We will
start our meeting promptly at 7 p.m., closing at 10 p.m. This is our more
formal meeting, where we will conduct the division's business, hold
elections, make or adjust division policies, give assignments for the color
guard detail, and prepare for our veterans celebration on opening session
day. We will also have a number of interested vendors presenting equipment
that the VA issues, including prosthetics, and a chance to ask the vendor
questions about the equipment. We look forward to seeing you there!
Paul Gabias Honored for Twenty-Five Years of Service
Associate Professor Paul Gabias was honored by the University of
British Columbia Okanagan in April of 2015 for twenty-five years of
service. He is an associate professor of psychology, and his keen insights
and observations have been a welcomed addition to this magazine for
decades. His accomplishments are one small part of this man's exemplary
life as a husband, father, and teacher. The Braille Monitor extends our
most sincere congratulations to Dr. Gabias for this well-deserved
recognition.
LEGOLAND Florida Convention Discount:
Federationists planning to attend the national convention will have
an opportunity for some additional fun down in Florida. LEGOLAND Florida
has signed an agreement with the NFB offering a special discount on park
tickets for NFB members. Purchase one adult ticket, and you can get one
general admission ticket free! This offer is good for one-day park
admission, two-day park admission, one-day waterpark combo, or two-day
waterpark combo tickets. General admission tickets can be redeemed for an
adult (ages thirteen to fifty-nine), child (ages three to twelve), or
senior (ages sixty and up) for admission to LEGOLAND Florida. The code
needed to receive this discount will be given out at the national
convention in the suites and at the information desk. Enjoy!
Blind Professionals Sought by Human Services Division:
The Human Services Division of the National Federation of the Blind
is looking for blind professionals in the following occupations: massage,
physical, speech, occupational, music, art, drama, genetics and other
therapists. We are also seeking life coaches, school guidance counselors,
and any other professionals who fall under the Human Services umbrella
(please forgive me if I left out a profession). Our goal is to conduct an
educational panel at the division's meeting during our National Convention.
Please feel free to share this email with individuals who may be interested
in being a part of this educational panel. Anyone interested please
contact: Merry C. Schoch LCSW (Division President) at email address:
<merrys at verizon.net> or call (813) 625-1850.
How to Pay for Your Hotel Stay in Orlando
Here is some advice about paying for your hotel stay: every year at
our national convention we have serious trouble with use of debit cards or
cash payments at hotel check-in, and, having worked to solve these problems
for years, I can tell you they can nearly ruin the convention week for
those experiencing them. Planning to attend our national convention should
therefore include thinking seriously about how to pay the hotel, and I
cannot urge you strongly enough to avoid using cash or a debit card as your
payment method. Doing so may seem convenient, but you should not do so. If
you do not have a credit card of your own to use, prevail upon a close
friend or family member to let you use one just for convention. Here's why:
If you are paying in actual currency, most hotels will want enough
cash up front at check-in to cover your room and tax charges for the entire
stay, plus a one-time advance incidentals deposit to cover meals, telephone
calls, internet service, and other things you may charge to your room. The
unused portion of the incidentals deposit may be returned at check-out or
by mail after departure. Understand, however, that, if your incidentals
charges exceed the incidentals deposit credited, you are responsible for
payment of the full balance at checkout. The total can end up being a very
large sum indeed.
If you use a debit card, however, you are really at a potentially
painful disadvantage. The hotel will put a hold on money in your bank
account linked to the debit card to cover the estimated balance of your
stay-that is, for the entire week's room and tax charges plus a one-time
incidentals deposit to cover meals, movies, and so on charged to your room.
You should be aware that the hold can therefore be a considerable amount of
money and that you will not have access to that amount for any other
purchases or payments with your card. (Hotels sometimes also put
authorizations on credit cards, by the way, but those are not often a
problem unless they exceed your card's credit limit.)
Holds can remain in effect for three to five days or even a week
after you check out. If you have pre-authorized payments from your bank
account, for example your monthly mortgage payment, or if you try to make a
purchase with your debit card and it's refused, the hold from the hotel can
cause you trouble or result in very large overdraft fees for payments you
thought you had money in your account to cover. I have seen this hit some
of our members in the form of hundreds of dollars in overdraft fees.
This means that, if you use a debit card, you would have to be
certain you have a high enough balance in your checking account when you
come to convention to cover any debit card holds. This is a perilous
practice since charges may exceed your estimate by a considerable amount.
(Some frequent travelers even open a separate checking account used only
for debits like these.) Remember, a hold is going to be placed on your
debit card regardless of how you end up paying the bill, and the hold is
not necessarily released right away, even if you pay with a credit card or
cash when you check out of the hotel.
Planning ahead in this area can ensure an untroubled week at
convention, leaving you free to enjoy fully the world's largest and most
exciting meeting of the blind. See you as usual in the lobby at check-in-
using a credit card, I hope.
Musicians Needed:
Are you an accomplished rock guitarist, bassist, or drummer who will
be attending the NFB National Convention in Orlando this year? Would you
like to contribute to the convention in a meaningful, memorable way? If so,
I need to hear from you. I have been asked to direct a band for a special
performance at our seventy-fifth anniversary convention and need these
instrumentalists to make it a quality performance. If you would like more
information, please contact Marion Gwizdala by email at
<Blind411 at verizon.net> or give me a call at (813) 626-2789.
A Bargain from the Ohio Association of Blind Students:
In the spirit of our seventy-fifth convention the Ohio Association of
Blind Students is taking on its biggest fundraising project ever. Take a
chance on some fabulous gift card prizes to franchises like iTunes,
Chipotle, and Bath and Bodyworks while supporting Ohio students young and
old (well, maybe not that old). Proceeds from the drawing will be split
fifty-fifty between the Ohio Association of Blind Students and the fund for
Ohio's 4th BELL Program in 2016.
Tickets will be sold one for $1 or six for $5. There are three
payment methods from which to choose. They are:
1. Pay online using our PayPal account. Once your payment is
received, you will be sent an email from the Ohio Association of Blind
Students Gmail account containing your ticket numbers. The link you will
need is: <https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-
xclick&hosted_button_id=6FW5ZC8G45T8E>
2. Pay with a check. If using this method, please contact OABS
treasurer Emily Pennington so she will know to expect your check and can
give you the address. Her email is <emilypennington at fuse.net>. You will
be sent an email containing your ticket numbers and confirmation that your
check has been delivered.
3. Pay with cash in Orlando. Several OABS board members will be
available to sell tickets. Using this method will get you a Brailled
ticket stub instead of an electronic record of your ticket numbers.
Be sure to hold onto your ticket(s) for later reference. Winners will
be announced after the buying period ends on July 15 by listserv and then
contacted for their addresses. If you have any questions, feel free to
email president Kaiti Shelton at <kaiti.shelton at gmail.com> or treasurer
Emily Pennington at <emilypennington at fuse.net>.
The Ohio Association of Blind Students thanks you in advance for the
support of our division and the Ohio BELL Program. With your help we can
build the Federation and change what it means to be blind for students in
Ohio!
In Brief
Notices and information in this section may be of interest to Monitor
readers. We are not responsible for the accuracy of the information; we
have edited only for space and clarity.
Sir Duncan Watson Dies:
On Wednesday, April 22, 2015, Sir Duncan Watson died following a
short illness. He was the second president of the World Blind Union,
serving from 1988 until 1992, and had served as chair and vice president of
the Royal National Institute of Blind People. He participated in some
meetings in our Baltimore offices which helped to establish the work of the
Federation to bring organizations of the blind and agencies for the blind
together in the US. This was the time of the Joint Organizational Effort
committee. Dr. Jernigan was the principal behind the effort, but Sir Duncan
helped occasionally. As a long-time supporter of the RNIB Talking Book
service, he said: "I've been using Talking Books since I lost my sight at
sixteen. They were on big records then and didn't play for long, but now
I've just heard Alastair Campbell's The Blair Years on two CDs. It really
gives you a window on the world."
Perkins Brailler Repair Service:
Bring your Perkins Brailler back to life. The Selective Doctor, Inc.
specializes in the repair of Perkins Braillers. Repairs for Braillers are
$65 for labor on a manual Perkins Brailler, plus the cost of parts. You can
send your Brailler to The Selective Doctor, Inc., PO Box 571, Manchester,
Maryland 21102 via the US postal service. Free Matter shipping is accepted.
It is recommended that you insure it, but it is not necessary if you prefer
not to. After the repair of the Brailler, The Selective Doctor, Inc. will
send it back to you with the invoice and will insure it for $400, which
presently is $6.75, and this will be added to your invoice. For more
information, please call (410) 668-1143 or email
<braillerrepair at yahoo.com>. You can also check out the website at:
<www.selectivedoctor.com>.
----------
NFB Pledge
I pledge to participate actively in the efforts of the National
Federation of the Blind to achieve equality, opportunity, and security for
the blind; to support the policies and programs of the Federation; and to
abide by its constitution.
-----------------------
[1] Carson, C., & Shepard, K., (Eds.). (2001). A call to conscience: The
landmark speeches of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. New York: IPM/Warner
Books. Retrieved from http://mlk-
kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/kingpapers/article/our_god_is_marching_on/
[2] Emancipation Proclamation, January 1, 1863; Presidential Proclamations,
1791-1991; Record Group 11; General Records of the United States
Government; National Archives. Retrieved from
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured_documents/emancipation_proclamatio
n/transcript.html
[3] Jim Crow law. (2015). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved from
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/303897/Jim-Crow-law/324448/Homer-
Plessy-and-Jim-Crow
[4] Javits-Wagner-O'Day Act of 1971, 41 U.S.C. 8501-8506. Retrieved from
http://www.abilityone.gov/laws_and_regulations/jwod.html
[5] Mandela, N., (1994). Long walk to freedom: The autobiography of Nelson
Mandela. Boston: Little, Brown.
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