Wednesday, August 04, 2010

"If Blind Students Couldn't Use The Device, Then Nobody Could"

Is this really what was envisioned when the Americans With Disabilities Act was passed?

Did you know the Justice Department threatened several universities with legal action because they took part in an experimental program to allow students to use the Amazon Kindle for textbooks?

Last year, the schools -- among them Princeton, Arizona State and Case Western Reserve -- wanted to know if e-book readers would be more convenient and less costly than traditional textbooks. The environmentally conscious educators also wanted to reduce the huge amount of paper students use to print files from their laptops.

It seemed like a promising idea until the universities got a letter from the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, now under an aggressive new chief, Thomas Perez, telling them they were under investigation for possible violations of the Americans With Disabilities Act.

From its introduction in 2007, the Kindle has drawn criticism from the National Federation of the Blind and other activist groups. While the Kindle's text-to-speech feature could read a book aloud, its menu functions required sight to operate. "If you could get a sighted person to fire up the device and start reading the book to you, that's fine," says Chris Danielsen, a spokesman for the federation. "But other than that, there was really no way to use it."

In May 2009, Amazon announced the pilot program, under which it would provide Kindle DX readers to a few universities. It wasn't a huge deal; Princeton's plan, for example, involved three courses and a total of 51 students, and only in the fall semester of that year. University spokeswoman Emily Aronson says the program was voluntary and students could opt out of using the Kindle. "There were no students with a visual impairment who had registered for the three classes," says Aronson.

Nevertheless, in June 2009, the federation filed a complaint with the Justice Department, accusing the schools of violating the ADA. Perez and his team went to work...

The Civil Rights Division informed the schools they were under investigation. In subsequent talks, the Justice Department demanded the universities stop distributing the Kindle; if blind students couldn't use the device, then nobody could. The Federation made the same demand in a separate lawsuit against Arizona State.

It's an approach that bothers some civil rights experts. "As a blind person, I would never want to be associated with any movement that punished sighted students, particularly for nothing they had ever done," says Russell Redenbaugh, a California investor who lost his sight in a childhood accident and later served for 15 years on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. "It's a gross injustice to disadvantage one group, and it's bad policy that breeds resentment, not compassion."


"Bad policy that breeds resentment, not compassion." Gee, you think? There's plenty more at the link. The author, Byron York, appears not to think too highly of Thomas Perez--and with good reason, if the information in the linked piece is at all accurate.

5 comments:

ChrisA said...

You can't make this stuff up.

Scott mccall said...

i think it's bs for someone to EVER assume that by getting rid of something, you're creating an equal playing field for people with disabilities....i think that if you want to take any group of people into consideration, you should always act on the REQUESTED BEHALF of that group of people, otherwise YOU may be the one insulting them.

this is probably just someone who wants his name to be known for publicity stunt purposes

Mike Thiac said...

The police station I work at was planned in the early 2000s and one of the things done was segregated employee parking. We have a fenced in area with general employee parking, Sergeant parking, Lieutenant parking and admin parking with the District commander in the number one slot. We also have four handicapped parking slots near the employee entrance. These are not for people coming here to make reports, etc. We have three slots for the handicapped public.

This is a police station. You would think the cops would not need handicapped parking. Now we do have a few civilian employees who work at the station. Three to be exact. Not one is handicapped. And the general admin parking is about the same distance from the door as the handicapped slots.

I’m a 50% disabled veteran and I’ve been tempted for years to get a handicapped (or disabled…or different ableded…or whatever the hell it’s called this week) plate for years…just so I could get a hanging tag and put that on my patrol car. Then I could use the handcapped slots legally! :<)

Anna A said...

Stupid question.

How can a blind student use a normal, printed book? Or are all of the texts audio only?

Ellen K said...

So I would wonder if Braille books would also be banned because the "viewing abled" students couldn't use them. What a joke.