The Forgotten Victims of September 11: People with Disabilities
Today is the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks that killed about 3000 people at the World Trade Center in New York, at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, and in a field in Pennsylvania, as well as the passengers on the four planes used as weapons of terror. But what most people don’t realize is that a very high portion of the people who died that day were people with disabilities. And this isn’t because they were targeted by terrorists, or because people didn’t bother trying to rescue them. This is because the most typical disaster preparedness plan put in place for people with disabilities usually involves some variant of: Come to location X near the stairs, then sit and wait for rescue. The only problem is, sometimes an emergency moves so fast that there is simply no time for rescue to arrive. And when that happens, people with disabilities are often the first to die because they are the last to be evacuated.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 6 so far )Amazonfail — hurts both Disability and GLBT Communities
If you are even remotely plugged into the GLBT communication network, or even a casual user of twitter, then you probably already know about how Amazon’s new “adult” policy has created a situation that makes it much, much harder for consumers to search for, and find, all kinds of gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender – themed books. This includes books that are not even vaguely “adult” in theme, such as the children’s book “Heather Has Two Mommies.”
If you’ve been out of touch, read an excellent, well-balanced synopsis of the whole situation and the resulting public-relations nightmare for Amazon at http://lysimachia.livejournal.com/52888.html
Receiving far less attention in most of the hullaboo so far is the fact that, apparently, at least some disability books have been targeted also, including at least one sociology text book!
People with disabilities are already frequently stereotyped as being necessarily, asexual, uninterested in sex, unable to have sex, etc. All of these mistaken assumptions can lead to fatal consequences. People who run HIV/AIDS prevention programs, for example, often systematically exclude people with disabilities from their outreach efforts because they assume that they “don’t need” to know about condoms or whatever. Yet, research shows that people with disabilities are actually at higher risk for HIV/AIDS than the general population. (See http://cira.med.yale.edu/globalsurvey/ for details.)
If books on disability sexuality are being targeted in the same way as are GLBT books, then people with disabilities will find it more difficult than ever before to find factual information about their own bodies and sexuality and how to care for their health. Also people who NEED to know how to provide services to people with disabilities in relation to sexuality, including HIV/AIDS educators, medical personnel and others, will find it harder to locate accurate information to replace the misinformation and prejudiced attitudes they may be carrying. All the existing dangerous myths about sexuality in relation to people with disabilities will simply be allowed to continue, along with their potentially fatal consequences.
For more details, see the following two blog posts by excellent bloggers Kateryna Fury and Lisy Babe:
http://textualfury.wordpress.com/2009/04/12/amazonfail/
http://lisybabe.blogspot.com/2009/04/amazonfail.html
Kateryna Fury at Textual Fury is currently working on a list of disability-related books that have been affected. Please do get in touch with her (not with me!! with Kateryna!) if you identify any.
You can help by looking up disability-themed books you know of at Amazon to see if they still have a sales ranking (usually provided near the bottom of the page in the relevant entry). Also experiment to see how easy it is to search for the book. Can you find it easily just by using Amazon’s search engine as soon as you log on? Or do you have to specifically indicate that you are looking for a book? What combinations of title, author name, ISBN work or don’t work? De-ranking an Amazon book often results in making it harder to find for consumers who are searching for it, unless you hit on exactly the right combination of search parameters.
Post at Kateryna Fury’s blog and also twitter it with the hash tags #amazonfail and #stilldelisted and #disability
Also learn more detail about the overall situation by reading the Facebook group on the issue. You don’t have to join the group (or have a facebook account) to read the page. But you do have to join if you want to post there:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=70927484220
I have now posted the following tweet:
#amazonfail on #disability too. Pls RT these: http://is.gd/sbno http://is.gd/s5I6 and http://is.gd/s5Xr #glitchmyass #GLBT #disabled
Others please feel free to copy/paste the above text into their twitter.com also. It links both Kateryna Fury’s and Lisy Babe’s posts, as well as this one. The #hashtags are there to make the tweet show up more easily in certain keyword searches.
Another tweet, encouraging more people to help researching disability books that you can copy paste:
Pls post titles of #disability books affected by #amazonfail in comments area at http://is.gd/s5Xr and twitter #stilldelisted #glitchmayass
UPDATE UPDATE
Essay on amazonfail in relation to abelism and how people negatively view the sexuality of people with disabilities:
http://notimpressed.wordpress.com/2009/04/13/about-amazonfail/
Why Everybody Loses Without the ADA Restoration Act
The story of Laura Sorensen (see further below) helps to highlight why all of us lose when the courts fail to interpret the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 as its authors originally intended–whether we’re Deaf or hearing, have MS or not, or have disabilities or not. The story of her court case also helps highlight why more of us, including within the Deaf community, should be supporting the ADA Restoration Act of 2007.
I’ve never met Laura Sorenson–but given that she got an award for her work in nursing, she must be pretty darn good at her job. If I were living in Utah and suddenly needed helicopter ambulance service, I’d want someone like her on that helicopter ready to take care of me.
Her hospital claims it isn’t safe any more to let her be a flight nurse because she has MS. But this makes no sense: doctors have cleared her to fly, and she even did a stint as a flight nurse in Arizonia after her diagnosis. Her award for nursing also came after her MS diagnosis. But when Sorenson took her employers to court, the same people who claimed she was too disabled to work as a flight nurse suddenly decided she wasn’t disabled after all and therefore shouldn’t be protected by the ADA. In other words, her employers wanted to have it two ways. And the courts chose to let them: her case was dismissed, not because there were no merits to it, not because it was judged that her employers were justified in grounding her, but on a pure technicality in defining what “disability” means.
Could the same thing happen to a Deaf person? So far I haven’t read about a court case like this one specifically involving a Deaf person. But I have two points to make about this. One: if the courts interpret the ADA in a way that weakens it for one group of people that could weaken it for all of us–including Deaf people. Two: when discrimination against ANY Deaf or disabled person is allowed then ALL of us get hurt. It wasn’t just Laura Sorenson who lost in this case. All the patients she could have helped also lost–whether Deaf or hearing.
I know for myself, if my life depends on someone else doing their job right, then the only thing I want is the most qualified person on the job. I don’t care if they’re Deaf or hearing, if they can sign or not (if I’m sick enough I might not even be conscious anyway), or if they have a disability or not. Why should I, or any other Deaf or hearing person, be deprived of the very best qualified services because the best qualified person was discriminated against? Someone like Laura Sorenson.
Read her story below. Then follow some of the links listed after the story to learn more about the ADA Restoration Act, how it is meant to stop cases like this one, and how ordinary people like YOU can get involved. If nothing else, please do write a letter to YOUR senators!
This story is taken from text prepared by the Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities (CCD).
State: Utah
Disability: Multiple Sclerosis
Court: 10 th Circuit 1999 [CO, KS, NM, OK, UT, WY]
Laura SorensenLaura Sorensen started working as a clinical nurse for the University of Utah Hospital in 1990.(29) A year later, the Hospital hired her to work as a flight nurse for its helicopter ambulance service.
Two years into her dream job, Laura was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and hospitalized for five days.
Laura’s physician cleared her to return to work within two weeks, but Laura’s supervisors initially refused to allow her to return as a flight nurse. Laura agreed to return as a regular nurse for an evaluation period, and worked successfully in the burn unit, the surgical intensive care unit, and emergency room. After a two-month evaluation period, a neurologist examined Laura and cleared her to return to work as a flight nurse.
Laura’s AirMed supervisor still refused to allow Laura to return in the flight nurse position because the neurologist could not guarantee that Laura would never experience symptoms related to her multiple sclerosis while on duty. Laura’s AirMed supervisor felt that this justified his decision to keep Laura grounded indefinitely.(30)
Laura continued working for the Hospital for a few more months, resigning after it became clear that she would never be allowed to work as a flight nurse.
Laura believed, consistent with her evaluating neurologist, that she could perform the flight nurse job safely. Because she felt that she was demoted because of unjustified fears about her disability, Laura decided to challenge the Hospital’s decision.(31)
The Hospital responded that Laura’s multiple sclerosis did not qualify as a “disability” under the ADA, even though it was the sole reason that Laura was barred from working as a flight nurse.
The court agreed.
According to the court, even though Laura “could not perform any life activities during her hospitalization,” her hospital stay had not been permanent or long-term enough to qualify Laura as disabled under the ADA.(32) And even though the Hospital based its decision on Laura’s multiple sclerosis, its refusal to hire her in the “single job” of flight nurse was not enough to show that it regarded her as disabled.(33)
In an interview with the Salt Lake Tribune following the court’s dismissal of her case, Laura explained that “[t]he university took a red paintbrush and put a scarlet ‘MS’ on my forehead. I was a disease from that point on. I can do that job—that’s the bottom line.”(34)
Laura proved this point by leaving Utah briefly to work as a flight nurse in Arizona. Upon her return to Utah, Laura won the Utah Emergency Room Nurse of the Year Award,(35) but still has not been allowed to work as a flight nurse in her home state.
(29) Sorensen v. University of Utah Hosp., 194 F.3d 1084 (10th Cir. 1999).
(30) Id.
(31) Id. at 1086.
(32) Id. at 1087-88.
(33) Id. at 1088.
(34) Sheila R. McCann, Former Flight Nurse With MS Frustrated by Disability Ruling, SALT LAKE TRIB., Apr. 6, 1998, at D1.
(35) Id.
The introduction to CCD’s text is posted at ReunifyGally in the entry entitled “Real People, Real Stories: Why We Need ADA Restoration.”
Also see the first case story I posted, entitled “Thinking isn’t a Major Life Activity, Say Courts.”
The second case story is in the entry entitled “Where is Todd’s Day in Court?”
The third case story is entitled “Qualified to Work = Disqualification for ADA Protection”
The fourth is “Give Orr a Break.”
The fifth is “Doing Good Work? You’re Fired!.”
The seventh, after this one, is “A Hearing Woman, but a Deaf Story: Why We Need the ADA Restoration Act.
The eighth and last court case is “Unfair Precedent Ties Hands of Sympathetic Court: Why McMullin’s Case Highlights Need for ADA Restoration Act“.
I’m taking these stories from a 13-page file of case studies written up by the Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities (CCD); this file is available in both Word and PDF format.
PLEASE make an ASL vlog (or a written blog, if you like) on the ADA Restoration Act! If you do, I’d be delighted to link to you!
CCD has compiled an excellent collection of materials on the ADA and on the ADA Restoration Act of 2007, so it’s well worth following their link to www.c-c-d.org/ada. If you’re still new to the subject, this can help you understand why the ADA Restoration Act is critical to pass and why we should all be involved.
See my continually-updated list of blog entries from all over the web about the ADA Restoration Act of 2007, always available from the top navigation bar at “On the ADA Restoration Act.”
See examples of specific court cases that have served to undermine the spirit and intent of the Americans with Disabilities Act: click on “ADA Court Cases” under “categories” in the right-hand navigation bar. I still have two more ADA Court Cases in the coming few weeks.
Also, don’t miss these links: One group of activists has posted a short list of simple ideas of things you can do to help get the Restoration Act passed. And do check out the ADA Restoration Blog for updates. Or browse through background information on the ADA Restoration Act. Or contact your legislators. It is particularly important to write letters to your senators.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 6 so far )
Learn vocabulary and feed the hungry at freerice.com
ReunifyGally 