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SPECIAL REPORT
posted March 21, 2010
IOWA CITY, IA - The Disability Law & Policy e-Newsletter of the Law, Health Policy & Disability Center at the University of Iowa College of Law and the Burton Blatt Institute at Syracuse University posted several rulings affecting disabled Americans.
Among them were:
President Obama expanded the federal hate crime statute to include crimes based on a person's disability. The murder of Jennifer Daugherty, 30, in Mount Pleasant, Pa., may be the first case to use the expanded legislation involving a disabled person. Ms. Daugherty had the mental faculties of a 12- 14-year-old. The U.S. Dept. of Justice released a special report which found the disabled within the groups 12-19 and 35-49 are more than twice as likely to be victims of violence versus non-disabled people. Those with mental disabilities are more often victims of violence than people with other disabilities. Curtis Decker, executive director of the Disability Rights Network in Washington, D.C., believes a major reason for including disability in the expansion of Federal Hate Crime legislation is to enable monitoring by federal authorities of crimes against the disabled.
The administrator of the California bar exam filed an emergency appeal to stop a blind student from using assistive technology (AT) as an accommodation when she sat for the bar exam. On Jan. 29, a federal judge ordered the National Conference of Bar Examiners (NC) to accommodate Stephanie Enyart, a UCLA School of Law graduate, and allowed NC to provide their own computer if they wished for more security. Enyart, 32, has been legally blind since she was 15 and relies on AT. The accommodation has a screen magnifier and two-screen reading software. Initially, NC refused to allow Enyart to use this technology, but granted her twice as much time for the test, a closed circuit TV to magnify questions, and a human aide to read test questions aloud. U.S. District Court Judge Charles Breyer (Northern District of California) rejected these alterations as not meeting ADA standards, emphasizing Enyart's argument NC's accommodations would make the test prohibitively difficult and might cause anxiety and nausea. NC sought urgent action because Enyart might otherwise pass the test with computer assistance she isn’t entitled to get legally. NC was concerned other visually-impaired students will use this decision and demand their own preferred accommodations.
Joint collaboration between Major League Baseball (MLB), all 30 MLB teams, the American Council of the Blind, Bay State Council of the Blind, and the California Council of the Blind enabled MLB to improve the function of its Web site for persons with visual impairments. This is part of a recently-implemented accessibility program, and MLB.com will provide an accessible media center for audio feeds of its games. This center has features like volume control and ability to pick between audio feeds. MLB fans with visual impairments will be able to participate in online voting for the All-Star game, and MLB promised to provide further accessibility for any features it adds to its Web site in the future.
The popular travel Web site Expedia.com revamped its search picks to provide more options to U.S. disabled travelers. Those site users are now able to state any specific accessibility needs. The search engine will respond by sifting the approximately 15,000 U.S. hotels with published accessibility options. Expedia staff then confirms accessibility needs with the hotel before confirming the booking. Expedia officials said more than 500 U.S. bookings are made on a weekly basis, and it plans to expand the service to the United Kingdom later this year.
The Montgomery County, MD Council voted unanimously to create a local hiring preference for individuals with severe disabilities. It may take a while before the fruits of the new law are realized, since budget concerns have forced layoffs. When fiscal times improve, the law ensures qualified workers with disabilities will be given preference for county jobs. The limits of the law will be modeled after federal laws that offer these preferences to a similar population of severely disabled individuals.
President Obama expanded the federal hate crime statute to include crimes based on a person's disability. The murder of Jennifer Daugherty, 30, in Mount Pleasant, Pa., may be the first case to use the expanded legislation involving a disabled person. Ms. Daugherty had the mental faculties of a 12- 14-year-old. The U.S. Dept. of Justice released a special report which found the disabled within the groups 12-19 and 35-49 are more than twice as likely to be victims of violence versus non-disabled people. Those with mental disabilities are more often victims of violence than people with other disabilities. Curtis Decker, executive director of the Disability Rights Network in Washington, D.C., believes a major reason for including disability in the expansion of Federal Hate Crime legislation is to enable monitoring by federal authorities of crimes against the disabled.
The administrator of the California bar exam filed an emergency appeal to stop a blind student from using assistive technology (AT) as an accommodation when she sat for the bar exam. On Jan. 29, a federal judge ordered the National Conference of Bar Examiners (NC) to accommodate Stephanie Enyart, a UCLA School of Law graduate, and allowed NC to provide their own computer if they wished for more security. Enyart, 32, has been legally blind since she was 15 and relies on AT. The accommodation has a screen magnifier and two-screen reading software. Initially, NC refused to allow Enyart to use this technology, but granted her twice as much time for the test, a closed circuit TV to magnify questions, and a human aide to read test questions aloud. U.S. District Court Judge Charles Breyer (Northern District of California) rejected these alterations as not meeting ADA standards, emphasizing Enyart's argument NC's accommodations would make the test prohibitively difficult and might cause anxiety and nausea. NC sought urgent action because Enyart might otherwise pass the test with computer assistance she isn’t entitled to get legally. NC was concerned other visually-impaired students will use this decision and demand their own preferred accommodations.
Joint collaboration between Major League Baseball (MLB), all 30 MLB teams, the American Council of the Blind, Bay State Council of the Blind, and the California Council of the Blind enabled MLB to improve the function of its Web site for persons with visual impairments. This is part of a recently-implemented accessibility program, and MLB.com will provide an accessible media center for audio feeds of its games. This center has features like volume control and ability to pick between audio feeds. MLB fans with visual impairments will be able to participate in online voting for the All-Star game, and MLB promised to provide further accessibility for any features it adds to its Web site in the future.
The popular travel Web site Expedia.com revamped its search picks to provide more options to U.S. disabled travelers. Those site users are now able to state any specific accessibility needs. The search engine will respond by sifting the approximately 15,000 U.S. hotels with published accessibility options. Expedia staff then confirms accessibility needs with the hotel before confirming the booking. Expedia officials said more than 500 U.S. bookings are made on a weekly basis, and it plans to expand the service to the United Kingdom later this year.
The Montgomery County, MD Council voted unanimously to create a local hiring preference for individuals with severe disabilities. It may take a while before the fruits of the new law are realized, since budget concerns have forced layoffs. When fiscal times improve, the law ensures qualified workers with disabilities will be given preference for county jobs. The limits of the law will be modeled after federal laws that offer these preferences to a similar population of severely disabled individuals.