Podcasts about americans with disabilities act

On Tuesday's show: The White House is proposing an end to federal funding for legal aid nonprofits that help low-income Americans obtain assistance with all manner of legal matters. We learn more from R.A. Schuetz of the Houston Chronicle.Also this hour: We mark the 35th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act and recall its roots here in Houston with Lex Frieden, a local disabilities advocate who was instrumental in creating the law and getting it passed.Then, we learn about the rise of sensory-friendly events around town, as local businesses and organizations create events for individuals who struggle with bright lights, loud noises, or overstimulation from crowds.And we take you to an exhibit at the Pearl Fincher Museum of Fine Arts in Spring called “Art Unleashed,” which, unlike most exhibits and most museums, actually encourages you to reach out and touch the pieces of art on display.

In January, 2022 today's guest, Mike Paciello, made his first appearance on Unstoppable Mindset in Episode 19. It is not often that most of us have the opportunity and honor to meet a real trendsetter and pioneer much less for a second time. However, today, we get to spend more time with Mike, and we get to talk about not only the concepts around web accessibility, but we also discuss the whole concept of inclusion and how much progress we have made much less how much more work needs to be done.   Mike Paciello has been a fixture in the assistive technology world for some thirty years. I have known of him for most of that time, but our paths never crossed until September of 2021 when we worked together to help create some meetings and sessions around the topic of website accessibility in Washington D.C.   As you will hear, Mike began his career as a technical writer for Digital Equipment Corporation, an early leader in the computer manufacturing industry. I won't tell you Mike's story here. What I will say is that although Mike is fully sighted and thus does not use much of the technology blind and low vision persons use, he really gets it. He fully understands what Inclusion is all about and he has worked and continues to work to promote inclusion and access for all throughout the world. As Mike and I discuss, making technology more inclusive will not only help persons with disabilities be more involved in society, but people will discover that much of the technology we use can make everyone's life better. We talk about a lot of the technologies being used today to make websites more inclusive including the use of AI and how AI can and does enhance inclusion efforts.   It is no accident that this episode is being released now. This episode is being released on July 25 to coincide with the 35th anniversary of the signing of the Americans With Disabilities Act which was signed on July 26, 1990. HAPPY BIRTHDAY ADA!   After you experience our podcast with Mike, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Please feel free to email me at michaelhi@accessibe.com to tell me of your observations. Thanks.     About the Guest:   Mike Paciello is the Chief Accessibility Officer at AudioEye, Inc., a digital accessibility company. Prior to joining AudioEye, Mike founded WebABLE/WebABLE.TV, which delivers news about the disability and accessibility technology market. Mike authored the first book on web accessibility and usability, “Web Accessibility for People with Disabilities” and, in 1997, Mr. Paciello received recognition from President Bill Clinton for his work in the creation of World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). He has served as an advisor to the US Access Board and other federal agencies since 1992.   Mike has served as an international leader, technologist, and authority in emerging technology, accessibility, usability, and electronic publishing. Mike is the former Founder of The Paciello Group (TPG), a world-renowned software accessibility consultancy acquired in 2017 by Vispero. Ways to connect with Mike:   mpaciello@webable.com Michael.paciello@audioeye.com Mikepaciello@gmail.com     About the Host:   Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.   Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards.   https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/   accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/       Thanks for listening!   Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!   Subscribe to the podcast   If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset .   Leave us an Apple Podcasts review   Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts.       Transcription Notes:   Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson ** 01:21 Well, hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of unstoppable mindset where inclusion diversity and the unexpected meet. Normally, our guests deal with the unexpected, which is anything that doesn't have to do with inclusion or diversity. Today, however, we get to sort of deal with both. We have a guest who actually was a guest on our podcast before he was in show 19 that goes all the way back to January of 2022, his name is Mike Paciello. He's been very involved in the whole internet and accessibility movement and so on for more than 30 years, and I think we're going to have a lot of fun chatting about what's going on in the world of accessibility and the Internet and and, you know, and but we won't probably get into whether God is a man or a woman, but that's okay, God is actually both, so we don't have to worry about that. But anyway, Mike, welcome to unstoppable mindset.   Mike Paciello ** 02:21 Yeah, Hey, Mike, thanks a lot. I can't believe has it really been already since today, six years since the last time I came on this? No, three, 320, 22 Oh, 2022, I for whatever I 2019 Okay, three years sounds a little bit more realistic, but still, it's been a long time. Thank you for having me. It's, it's, it's great to be here. And obviously, as you know, a lot of things have changed in my life since then. But, yeah, very   Michael Hingson ** 02:46 cool. Well, you were in show number 19. And I'm not sure what number this is going to be, but it's going to be above 360 so it's been a while. Amazing, amazing, unstoppable, unstoppable. That's it. We got to keep it going. And Mike and I have been involved in a few things together, in, in later, in, I guess it was in 20 when we do the M enabling Summit, that was 2021 wasn't it? Yeah, I think it was, I think it was the year before we did the podcast, yeah, podcast, 2021 right? So we were in DC, and we both worked because there was a group that wanted to completely condemn the kinds of technologies that accessibe and other companies use. Some people call it overlays. I'm not sure that that's totally accurate today, but we we worked to get them to not do what they originally intended to do, but rather to explore it in a little bit more detail, which I think was a lot more reasonable to do. So we've, we've had some fun over the years, and we see each other every so often, and here we are again today. So yeah, I'm glad you're here. Well, tell us a little about well, and I guess what we'll do is do some stuff that we did in 2022 tell us about kind of the early Mike, growing up and all that and what eventually got you into dealing with all this business of web accessibility and such. Yeah, thank you.   Mike Paciello ** 04:08 You know, I've tried to short this, shorten this story 100 times. Oh, don't worry. See if I get let's see if I can keep it succinct and and for the folks out there who understand verbosity and it's in its finest way for screen reader users, I'll try not to be verbose. I already am being   Michael Hingson ** 04:28 intermediate levels fine.   Mike Paciello ** 04:30 I came into this entire field as a technical writer trying to solve a problem that I kind of stumbled into doing some volunteer work for the debt the company that I then then worked for, a Digital Equipment Corporation, a software company, DEC software hardware company, back then, right back in the early 80s. And as a technical writer, I started learning at that time what was called Gen code. Eventually that morphed in. To what Goldfarb, Charles Goldfarb at IBM, called SGML, or standard, Generalized Markup Language, and that really became the predecessor, really gave birth to what we see on the web today, to HTML and the web markup languages. That's what they were, except back then, they were markup languages for print publications. So we're myself and a lot of colleagues and friends, people probably here, I'm sure, at bare minimum, recognized named George Kercher. George and I really paired together, worked together, ended up creating an international steer with a group of other colleagues and friends called the icad 22 which is 22 stands for the amount of elements in that markup language. And it became the adopted standard accessibility standard for the American Association of Publishers, and they published that became official. Eventually it morphed into what we today call, you know, accessible web development. It was the first instance by that was integrated into the HTML specification, I think officially, was HTML 3.1 3.2 somewhere in there when it was formally adopted and then announced in 1997 and at the World Wide Web Conference. That's really where my activity in the web began. So I was working at DEC, but I was doing a lot of volunteer work at MIT, which is where the W 3c was located at that particular time. And Tim Bursley, who a lot of people i Sir, I'm sure, know, the inventor of the web, led the effort at that time, and a few other folks that I work with, and.da Jim Miller, a few other folks. And we were, well, I wasn't specifically approached. Tim was approached by Vice President Gore and eventually President Clinton at that time to see if we could come up with some sort of technical standard for accessibility. And Tim asked if I'd like to work on it myself. Danielle, Jim, a few others, we did, and we came up that first initial specification and launched it as part of the Web Accessibility Initiative, which we created in 1997 from there, my career just took off. I went off did a couple of small companies that I launched, you know, my namesake company, the Paciello Group, or TPG, now called TPG IGI, yeah, yeah, which was acquired by vector capital, or this bureau back in 2017 so it's hard to believe that's already almost 10 years ago. No, yeah. And I've been walking in, working in the software, web accessibility field, usability field, writing fields, you know, for some pretty close to 45 years. It's 2025 40 years, I mean, and I started around 1984 I think it was 8384 when all this first   Michael Hingson ** 07:59 started. Wow, so clearly, you've been doing it for a while and understand a lot of the history of it. So how overall has the whole concept of web accessibility changed over the years, not only from a from a coding standpoint, but how do you think it's really changed when it comes to being addressed by the public and companies and so on.   Mike Paciello ** 08:26 That's a great question. I'd certainly like to be more proactive and more positive about it, but, but let me be fair, if you compare today and where web accessibility resides, you know, in the in the business value proposition, so to speak, and list the priorities of companies and corporations. You know, fortune 1000 fortune 5000 call whatever you whatever you want. Accessibility. Is there people? You could say section five way you could say the Web Accessibility Initiative, WCAG, compliance, and by and large, particularly technology driven, digital economy driven businesses, they know what it is. They don't know how to do it. Very rarely do they know how to do it. And even the ones that know how to do it don't really do it very well. So it kind of comes down to the 8020, rule, right? You're a business. Whatever kind of business you are, you're probably in more online presence than ever before, and so a lot of your digital properties will come under you know the laws that mandate usability and accessibility for people with disabilities today that having been said and more and more people know about it than ever before, certainly from the time that I started back in the you know, again, in the early, mid 80s, to where we are today. It's night and day. But in terms of prioritization, I don't know. I think what happens quite often is business value proposition. Decisions get in the way. Priorities get in the way of what a business in, what its core business are, what they're trying to accomplish, who they're trying to sell, sell to. They still view the disability market, never mind the blind and low vision, you know, market alone as a niche market. So they don't make the kind of investors that I, I believe that they could, you know, there's certainly, there are great companies like like Microsoft and and Google, Amazon, Apple, you know, a lot of these companies, you know, have done some Yeoman work at that level, but it's nowhere near where it should be. It just absolutely isn't. And so from that standpoint, in where I envision things, when I started this career was when I was in my 20 somethings, and now I'm over now I'm over 60. Well over 60. Yeah, I expected a lot more in, you know, in an internet age, much, much more.   Michael Hingson ** 11:00 Yeah, yeah. Well, it's it's really strange that so much has happened and yet so much hasn't happened. And I agree with you, there's been a lot of visibility for the concept of accessibility and inclusion and making the the internet a better place, but it is so unfortunate that most people don't know how to how to do anything with it. Schools aren't really teaching it. And more important than even teaching the coding, from from my perspective, looking at it more philosophically, what we don't tend to see are people really recognizing the value of disabilities, and the value that the market that people with disabilities bring to the to the world is significant. I mean, the Center for Disease Control talks about the fact that they're like up to 25% of all Americans have some sort of disability. Now I take a different approach. Actually. I don't know whether you've read my article on it, but I believe everyone on the in the in the world has a disability, and the reality is, most people are light dependent, but that's as much a disability as blindness. Except that since 1878 when Thomas Edison invented the light bulb. We have focused nothing short of trying to do everything we can to improve light on demand for the last 147 years. And so the disability is mostly covered up, but it's still there.   Mike Paciello ** 12:37 You know, yeah, and I did read that article, and I couldn't agree with you more. In fact, I personally think, and I actually have my own blog coming out, and probably later this month might be early, early July, where I talk about the fact that accessibility okay and technology really has been all along. And I love the fact that you call, you know, you identified the, you know, the late 1800s there, when Edison did the the light bulb, Alexander Graham Bell came up with, you know, the telephone. All of those adventures were coming about. But accessibility to people with disabilities, regardless of what their disability is, has always been a catalyst for innovation. That was actually supposed to be the last one I was going to make tonight. Now it's my first point because, because I think it is exactly as you said, Mike, I think that people are not aware. And when I say people, I mean the entire human population, I don't think that we are aware of the history of how, how, because of, I'm not sure if this is the best word, but accommodating users, accommodating people with disabilities, in whatever way, the science that goes behind that design architectural to the point of development and release, oftentimes, things that were done behalf of people with disabilities, or for People with disabilities, resulted in a fundamental, how's this for? For an interesting term, a fundamental alteration right to any other you know, common, and I apologize for the tech, tech, tech language, user interface, right, right? Anything that we interact with has been enhanced because of accessibility, because of people saying, hey, if we made this grip a little bit larger or stickier, we'll call it so I can hold on to it or softer for a person that's got fine motor dexterity disabilities, right? Or if we made a, you know, a web browser, which, of course, we have such that a blind individual, a low vision individual, can adjust the size of this, of the images and the fonts and things like that on a web page, they could do that unknown. Well, these things now. As we well know, help individuals without disabilities. Well, I'm not much, right, and I, again, I'm not speaking as a person beyond your characterization that, hey, look, we are all imperfect. We all have disabilities. And that is, that is absolutely true. But beyond that, I wear glasses. That's it. I do have a little hearing loss too. But you know, I'm finding myself more and more, for example, increasing the size of text. In fact, my note, yes, I increase them to, I don't know they're like, 18 point, just so that it's easier to see. But that is a common thing for every human being, just like you said.   Michael Hingson ** 15:36 Well, the reality is that so many tools that we use today come about. And came about because of people with disabilities. Peggy Chung Curtis Chung's wife, known as the blind history lady, and one of the stories that she told on her first visit to unstoppable mindset, which, by the way, is episode number five. I remember that Peggy tells the story of the invention of the typewriter, which was invented for a blind countist, because she wanted to be able to communicate with her lover without her husband knowing about it, and she didn't want to dictate things and so on. She wanted to be able to create a document and seal it, and that way it could be delivered to the lever directly. And the typewriter was the result of   Mike Paciello ** 16:20 that? I didn't know that. I will definitely go back. I just wrote it down. I wrote down a note that was episode number five, yeah, before with Curtis a couple of times, but obviously a good friend of ours, yeah, but I yeah, that's, that's, that's awesome.   Michael Hingson ** 16:37 Well, and look at, I'll tell you one of the things that really surprises me. So Apple was going to get sued because they weren't making any of their products accessible. And before the lawsuit was filed, they came along and they said, we'll fix it. And they did make and it all started to a degree with iTunes U but also was the iPhone and the iPod and so on. But they they, they did the work. Mostly. They embedded a screen reader called Voiceover in all of their operating systems. They did make iTunes you available. What really surprises me, though is that I don't tend to see perhaps some things that they could do to make voiceover more attractive to drivers so they don't have to look at the screen when a phone call comes in or whatever. And that they could be doing some things with VoiceOver to make it more usable for sighted people in a lot of instances. And I just don't, I don't see any emphasis on that, which is really surprising to me.   Mike Paciello ** 17:38 Yeah, I totally agree. I mean, there are a lot of use cases there that you go for. I think Mark Rico would certainly agree with you in terms of autonomous driving for the blind, right? Sure that too. But yeah, I definitely agree and, and I know the guy that the architect voiceover and develop voiceover for Apple and, boy, why can I think of his last name? I know his first name. First name is Mike. Is with Be My Eyes now and in doing things at that level. But I will just say one thing, not to correct you, but Apple had been in the accessibility business long before voice over Alan Brightman and Gary mulcher were instrumental towards convincing, you know, jobs of the importance of accessibility to people with disabilities,   Michael Hingson ** 18:31 right? But they weren't doing anything to make products accessible for blind people who needed screen readers until that lawsuit came along. Was   Mike Paciello ** 18:40 before screen readers? Yeah, that was before,   Michael Hingson ** 18:43 but they did it. Yeah. The only thing I wish Apple would do in that regard, that they haven't done yet, is Apple has mandates and requirements if you're going to put an app in the App Store. And I don't know whether it's quite still true, but it used to be that if your app had a desktop or it looked like a Windows desktop, they wouldn't accept it in the app store. And one of the things that surprises me is that they don't require that app developers make sure that their products are usable with with VoiceOver. And the reality is that's a it doesn't need to be a really significantly moving target. For example, let's say you have an app that is dealing with displaying star charts or maps. I can't see the map. I understand that, but at least voiceover ought to give me the ability to control what goes on the screen, so that I can have somebody describe it, and I don't have to spend 15 or 20 minutes describing my thought process, but rather, I can just move things around on the screen to get to where we need to go. And I wish Apple would do a little bit more in that regard.   Mike Paciello ** 19:52 Yeah, I think that's a great a great thought and a great challenge, if, between me and you. Yeah, I think it goes back to what I said before, even though we both see how accessibility or accommodating users with disabilities has led to some of the most incredible innovations. I mean, the Department of Defense, for years, would integrate people with disabilities in their user testing, they could better help, you know, military soldiers, things like that, assimilate situations where there was no hearing, there was they were immobile, they couldn't see all, you know, all of these things that were natural. You know, user environments or personas for people with disabilities. So they led to these kind of, you know, incredible innovations, I would tell you, Mike, I think you know this, it's because the business value proposition dictates otherwise.   Michael Hingson ** 20:55 Yeah, and, well, I guess I would change that slightly and say that people think that the business proposition does but it may very well be that they would find that there's a lot more value in doing it if they would really open up their minds to looking at it differently. It's   Mike Paciello ** 21:10 kind of, it's kind of like, it's tough. It's kind of like, if I could use this illustration, so to speak, for those who may not be religiously inclined, but you know, it's, it's like prophecy. Most people, you don't know whether or not prophecy is valid until years beyond, you know, years after. And then you could look back at time and say, See, it was all along. These things, you know, resulted in a, me, a major paradigm shift in the way that we do or don't do things. And I think that's exactly what you're saying. You know, if, if people would really look at the potential of what technologies like, you know, a voice over or, as you know, a good friend of mine said, Look, we it should be screen readers. It should be voice IO interfaces, right? That every human can use and interact with regardless. That's what we're really talking about. There's   Michael Hingson ** 22:10 a big discussion going on some of the lists now about the meta, Ray Ban, glasses, and some of the things that it doesn't do or that they don't do well, that they should like. It's really difficult to get the meta glasses to read completely a full page. I think there are ways that people have now found to get it to do that, but there are things like that that it that that don't happen. And again, I think it gets back to what you're saying is the attitude is, well, most people aren't going to need that. Well, the reality is, how do you know and how do you know what they'll need until you offer options. So one of my favorite stories is when I worked for Kurzweil a long time ago, some people called one day and they wanted to come and see a new talking computer terminal that that Ray and I and others developed, and they came up, and it turns out, they were with one of those initial organizations out of Langley, Virginia, the CIA. And what they wanted to do was to use the map the the terminal connected to their computers to allow them to move pointers on a map and not have to watch the map or the all of the map while they were doing it, but rather, the computer would verbalize where the pointer was, and then they could they could move it around and pin a spot without having to actually look at the screen, because the way their machine was designed, it was difficult to do that. You know, the reality is that most of the technologies that we need and that we use and can use could be used by so much, so many more people, if people would just really look at it and think about it, but, but you're right, they don't.   Mike Paciello ** 24:04 You know, it's, of course, raise a raise another good friend of mine. We both having in common. I work with him. I been down his office a few, more than few times, although his Boston office, anyway, I think he's, I'm not sure he's in Newton. He's in Newton. Yeah. Is he still in Newton? Okay. But anyway, it reminded me of something that happened in a similar vein, and that was several years ago. I was at a fast forward forward conference, future forward conference, and a company, EMC, who absorbed by Dell, I think, right, yes, where they all are. So there I was surprised that when that happened. But hey, yeah, yeah, I was surprised that compact bought depth, so that's okay, yeah, right. That HP bought count, right? That whole thing happened. But um, their chief science, chief scientist, I think he was a their CSO chief scientist, Doc. Came up and made this presentation. And basically the presentation was using voice recognition. They had been hired by the NSA. So it was a NSA right to use voice recognition in a way where they would recognize voices and then record those voices into it, out the output the transcript of that right text, text files, and feed them back to, you know, the NSA agents, right? So here's the funny part of that story goes up i i waited he gave his presentation. This is amazing technology, and what could it was like, 99% accurate in terms of not just recognizing American, English speaking people, but a number of different other languages, in dialects. And the guy who gave the presentation, I actually knew, because he had been a dec for many years. So in the Q and A Part I raised by hand. I got up there. He didn't recognize it a few years had gone by. And I said, you know, this is amazing technology. We could really use this in the field that I work in. And he said, Well, how's that? And I said, you know, voice recognition and outputting text would allow us to do now this is probably 2008 2009 somewhere in that area, would allow us to do real time, automated transcription for the Deaf, Captioning. And he looks at me and he he says, Do I know you? This is through a live audience. I said. I said, Yeah, Mark is it was. Mark said, So Mike gas yellow. He said, you're the only guy in town that I know that could turn a advanced, emerging technology into something for people with disabilities. I can't believe it. So that was, that was, but there was kind of the opposite. It was a technology they were focused on making this, you know, this technology available for, you know, government, obviously covert reasons that if they were using it and applying it in a good way for people with disabilities, man, we'd have been much faster, much further along or even today, right? I mean, it's being done, still not as good, not as good as that, as I saw. But that just goes to show you what, what commercial and government funding can do when it's applied properly?   Michael Hingson ** 27:41 Well, Dragon, naturally speaking, has certainly come a long way since the original Dragon Dictate. But there's still errors, there's still things, but it does get better, but I hear exactly what you're saying, and the reality is that we don't tend to think in broad enough strokes for a lot of the things that we do, which is so unfortunate,   Mike Paciello ** 28:03 yeah? I mean, I've had an old saying that I've walked around for a long time. I should have, I should make a baseball cap, whether something or T shirt. And it simply was, think accessibility, yeah, period. If, if, if we, organizations, people, designers, developers, architects, usability, people, QA, people. If everybody in the, you know, in the development life cycle was thinking about accessibility, or accessibility was integrated, when we say accessibility, we're talking about again, for users with disabilities, if that became part of, if not the functional catalyst, for technology. Man, we'd have been a lot further along in the quote, unquote value chains than we are today.   Michael Hingson ** 28:46 One of the big things at least, that Apple did do was they built voiceover into their operating system, so anybody who buys any Apple device today automatically has redundancy here, but access to accessibility, right? Which, which is really the way it ought to be. No offense to vispero and jaws, because they're they're able to fill the gap. But still, if Microsoft had truly devoted the time that they should have to narrate her at the beginning. We might see a different kind of an architecture today.   Mike Paciello ** 29:26 You know, I so I want to, by the way, the person that invented that wrote that code is Mike shabanik. That's his name I was thinking about. So Mike, if you're listening to this guy, just hi from two others. And if he's not, he should be, yeah, yeah, exactly right from two other mics. But so let me ask you this question, because I legitimately can't remember this, and have had a number of discussions with Mike about this. So VoiceOver is native to the US, right?   Michael Hingson ** 29:56 But no, well, no to to the to the to the. Products, but not just the US. No,   Mike Paciello ** 30:02 no, I said, OS, yes, it's native to OS, yeah, right. It's native that way, right? But doesn't it still use an off screen model for producing or, you know, translate the transformation of, you know, on screen to voice.   Michael Hingson ** 30:27 I'm not sure that's totally true. Go a little bit deeper into that for me.   Mike Paciello ** 30:34 Well, I mean, so NVDA and jaws use this off screen model, right, which is functionally, they grab, will they grab some content, or whatever it is, push it to this, you know, little black box, do all those translations, you know, do all the transformation, and then push it back so it's renderable to a screen reader. Okay, so that's this off screen model that is transparent to the users, although now you know you can get into it and and tweak it and work with it right, right? I recall when Mike was working on the original design of of nary, excuse me, a voiceover, and he had called me, and I said, Are you going to continue with the notion of an off screen model? And he said, Yeah, we are. And I said, Well, when you can build something that's more like what TV Raman has built into Emacs, and it works integral to the actual OS, purely native. Call me because then I'm interested in, but now that was, you know, 1520, years ago, right? I mean, how long has voiceover been around,   Michael Hingson ** 31:51 since 2007   Mike Paciello ** 31:54 right? So, yeah, 20 years ago, right? Just shy of 20 years, 18 years. So I don't know. I honestly don't know. I'm   Michael Hingson ** 32:02 not totally sure, but I believe that it is, but I can, you know, we'll have to, we'll have to look into that.   Mike Paciello ** 32:08 If anyone in the audience is out there looking at you, get to us before we find out. Let us we'll find out at the NFB   Michael Hingson ** 32:12 convention, because they're going to be a number of Apple people there. We can certainly ask, there   Mike Paciello ** 32:17 you go. That's right, for sure. James Craig is bound to be there. I can ask him and talk to him about that for sure. Yep, so anyway,   Michael Hingson ** 32:23 but I think, I think it's a very it's a valid point. And you know, the the issue is that, again, if done right and app developers are doing things right there, there needs to, there ought to be a way that every app has some level of accessibility that makes it more available. And the reality is, people, other than blind people use some of these technologies as well. So we're talking about voice input. You know, quadriplegics, for example, who can't operate a keyboard will use or a mouse can use, like a puff and zip stick to and and Dragon to interact with a computer and are successful at doing it. The reality is, there's a whole lot more opportunities out there than people think. Don't   Mike Paciello ** 33:11 I agree with that. I'm shaking my head up and down Mike and I'm telling you, there is, I mean, voice recognition alone. I can remember having a conversation with Tony vitality, one of the CO inventors of the deck talk. And that goes all the way back into the, you know, into the early 90s, about voice recognition and linguistics and what you know, and I know Kurzweil did a lot of working with Terry right on voice utterances and things like that. Yeah, yeah. There's, there's a wide open window of opportunity there for study and research that could easily be improved. And as you said, and this is the point, it doesn't just improve the lives of the blind or low vision. It improves the lives of a number of different types of Persona, disability persona types, but it would certainly create a pathway, a very wide path, for individuals, users without disabilities, in a number of different life scenarios.   Michael Hingson ** 34:10 Yeah, and it's amazing how little sometimes that's done. I had the pleasure a few years ago of driving a Tesla down Interstate 15 out here in California. Glad I wasn't there. You bigot, you know, the co pilot system worked. Yeah, you know, I just kept my hands on the wheel so I didn't very much, right? Not have any accidents. Back off now it worked out really well, but, but here's what's really interesting in that same vehicle, and it's something that that I find all too often is is the case if I were a passenger sitting in the front seat, there's so much that I as a passenger don't have access to that other passenger. Do radios now are mostly touchscreen right, which means and they don't build in the features that would make the touchscreen system, which they could do, accessible. The Tesla vehicle is incredibly inaccessible. And there's for a guy who's so innovative, there's no reason for that to be that way. And again, I submit that if they truly make the product so a blind person could use it. Think of how much more a sighted person who doesn't have to take their eyes off the road could use the same technologies.   Mike Paciello ** 35:35 You know, Mike, again, you and I are on the same page. I mean, imagine these guys are supposed to be creative and imaginative and forward thinking, right? Could you? Can you imagine a better tagline than something along the lines of Tesla, so user friendly that a blind person can drive it? Yeah? I mean this is, have you heard or seen, you know, metaphorically speaking, or that's okay, a an advertisement or PR done by any, any company, because they're all, all the way across the board, that hasn't featured what it can do to enhance lives of people with disabilities. Where it wasn't a hit. I mean, literally, it was, yeah, you see these commercials played over and over to Apple, Microsoft, Emma, I see McDonald's, Walmart. I mean, I could just name, name the one after another. Really, really outstanding. Salesforce has done it. Just incredible. They would do it, yeah. I mean, there is there any more human centric message than saying, Look what we've built and designed we're releasing to the masses and everyone, anyone, regardless of ability, can use it. Yeah, that, to me, is that's, I agree that's a good route, right for marketing and PR, good,   Michael Hingson ** 37:03 yeah. And yet they don't, you know, I see commercials like about one of the one of the eye injections, or whatever Bobby is, Mo or whatever it is. And at the beginning, the woman says, I think I'm losing sight of the world around me. You know that's all about, right? It's eyesight and nothing else. And I appreciate, I'm all for people keeping their eyesight and doing what's necessary. But unfortunately, all too often, we do that at the detriment of of other people, which is so unfortunate.   Mike Paciello ** 37:39 Yeah, you know again, not to, not to get off the subject, but one of my favorite books is rethinking competitive advantage, by Ram Sharon. I don't know if you know know him, but the guy is one of my heroes in terms of just vision and Business and Technology. And in this, this book, he wrote this a couple of years ago. He said this one this is his first rule of competition in the digital age. The number one rule was simply this, a personalized consumer experience, key to exponential growth. That's exactly you and I are talking about personally. I want to see interfaces adapt to users, rather than what we have today, which is users having to adapt to the interface.   Michael Hingson ** 38:32 Yeah, and it would make so much sense to do so. I hope somebody out there is listening and will maybe take some of this to heart, because if they do it right, they can have a huge market in no time at all, just because they show they care. You know, Nielsen Company did a survey back in 2016 where they looked at a variety of companies and consumers and so on. And if I recall the numbers right, they decided that people with disabilities are 35% more likely to continue to work with and shop, for example, at companies that really do what they can to make their websites and access to their products accessible, as opposed to not. And that's that's telling. It's so very telling. But we don't see people talking about that nearly like we should   Mike Paciello ** 39:20 you talk about a business value proposition. There is bullet proof that where you are leaving money on the table, yep, and a lot of it, yeah, exactly. We're not talking about 1000s or hundreds of 1000s. We're talking about billions and trillions, in some instances, not an exaggeration by any stretch of the imagination, very, very simple math. I had this conversation a couple years ago with the CEO of Pearson. At that time, he's retired, but, you know, I told him, if you spent $1 for every person that it was in the world with. Disability, you're, you're, you're talking about 1/4 of the population, right? It's simple math, simple math,   Michael Hingson ** 40:08 but people still won't do it. I mean, we taught you to mention section 508, before with the whole issue of web access, how much of the government has really made their websites accessible, even though it's the law?   Mike Paciello ** 40:19 Yeah, three years, three or four years ago, they did a study, and they found out that the good that every federal agency, most of the federal agencies, were not even keeping up thinking with reporting of the status, of where they were, and yet that was written right into the five way law. They were mandated to do it, and they still did do   Michael Hingson ** 40:37 it. We haven't, you know, the whole Americans with Disabilities Act. Finally, the Department of Justice said that the internet is a place of business, but still, it's not written in the law. And of course, we only see about 3% of all websites that tend to have any level of access. And there's no reason for that. It's not that magical. And again, I go back to what do we do to get schools and those who teach people how to code to understand the value of putting in accessibility right from the outset?   Mike Paciello ** 41:10 Yeah, no, I totally agree with you. I think this is what Kate sanka is trying to do with with Teach access. In fact, you know, again, my company, TPG was one of the founding companies have teach access back again, 10 years ago, when it first started. But that's where it starts. I mean, they're, they're pretty much focused on post secondary, university education, but I could tell you on a personal level, I was speaking at my kids grade school, elementary school, because they were already using laptops and computers back then it starts. Then you've got to build a mindset. You've got to build it we you've heard about the accessibility, maturity models coming out of the W, 3c, and in I, double AP. What that speaks to fundamentally, is building a culture within your corporate organization that is think accessibility as a think accessibility mindset, that it is woven into the fiber of every business line, in every technology, software development life cycle, all of the contributors at that level, from A to Z. But if you don't build it into the culture, it's not going to happen. So I would love to see a lot more being done at that level. But yeah, it's, it's, it's a, it's a hero. Yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 42:34 we're, we're left out of the conversation so much. Yeah, yeah, totally. So you, you sold TPG, and you then formed, or you had web able and then able Docs.   Mike Paciello ** 42:48 So what web able came out was a carve out, one of two carve outs that I had from when I sold TPG. The other was open access technologies, which which eventually was sold to another accessibility company primarily focused on making documentation accessible to meet the WCAG and other standards requirements and web able I carved out. It's been a kind of a hobby of mine now, for since I sold TPG, I'm still working on the back end, ironically, from the get go, so we're talking, you know, again, eight years ago, I had built machine learning and AI into it. From then back then, I did so that what it does is it very simply, goes out and collects 1000s and 1000s of articles as it relates to technology, people with disabilities, and then cleans them up and post them to web able.com I've got a lot more playing for it, but that's in a nutshell. That's what it does. And I don't we do some we do some QA review to make sure that the cleanup in terms of accessibility and the articles are are properly formatted and are accessible. We use the web aim API, but yeah, works like magic. Works like clockwork, and that's got aI uses IBM Watson AI built into it. Yeah, enable docs was abledocs was, how should I say this in a nice way, abledocs was a slight excursion off of my main route. It can work out. I wish it had. It had a lot of potential, much like open access technologies, but they both suffered from owners who really, really not including myself, who just didn't have good vision and in lack humility,   Michael Hingson ** 44:43 yeah. How's that? There you go. Well, so not to go political or anything, but AI in general is interesting, and I know that there have been a lot of debates over the last few years about artificial. Intelligence and helping to make websites accessible. There are several companies like AudioEye, user way, accessibe and so on that to one degree or another, use AI. What? What? So in general, what do you think about AI and how it's going to help deal with or not, the whole issue of disabilities and web access,   Mike Paciello ** 45:22 yeah, and we're going to set aside Neil Jacobs thoughts on how he sees it in the future, right? Although I have to tell you, he gave me some things to think about, so we'll just set that to to the side. So I think what AI offers today is something that I thought right away when it started to see the, you know, the accessibes, the user ways, the audio, eyes, and all the other companies kind of delving into it, I always saw potential to how's this remediate a fundamental problem or challenge, let's not call it a problem, a challenge that we were otherwise seeing in the professional services side of that equation around web accessibility, right? So you get experts who use validation tools and other tools, who know about code. Could go in and they know and they use usability, they use user testing, and they go in and they can tell you what you need to do to make your digital properties right, usable and accessible. People with disabilities, all well and good. That's great. And believe me, I had some of the best people, if not the best people in the world, work for me at one time. However, there are a couple of things it could not do in it's never going to do. Number one, first and foremost, from my perspective, it can't scale. It cannot scale. You can do some things at, you know, in a large way. For example, if, if a company is using some sort of, you know, CMS content management system in which their entire sites, you know, all their sites, all their digital properties, you know, are woven into templates, and those templates are remediated. So that cuts down a little bit on the work. But if you go into companies now, it's not like they're limited to two or three templates. Now they've got, you know, department upon department upon department, everybody's got a different template. So even those are becoming very vos, very verbose and very plentiful. So accessibility as a manual effort doesn't really scale well. And if it does, even if it could, it's not fast enough, right? So that's what AI does, AI, coupled with automation, speeds up that process and delivers a much wider enterprise level solution. Now again, AI automation is not, is not a whole, is not a holistic science. You know, it's not a silver bullet. David Marathi likes to use the term, what is he? He likes the gold standard. Well, from his perspective, and by the way, David Marathi is CEO of audio. Eye is a combination of automation AI in expert analysis, along with the use of the integration of user testing and by user testing, it's not just personas, but it's also compatibility with the assistive technologies that people with disabilities use. Now, when you do that, you've got something that you could pattern after a standard software development life cycle, environment in which you integrate all of these things. So if you got a tool, you integrate it there. If you've got, you know, a digital accessibility platform which does all this automation, AI, right, which, again, this is the this is a forester foresters take on the the the daps, as they calls it. And not really crazy about that, but that's what they are. Digital Accessibility platforms. It allows us to scale and scale at costs that are much lower, at speeds that are much faster, and it's just a matter of like any QA, you've got to check your work, and you've got it, you can't count on that automation being absolute. We know for a fact that right now, at best, we're going to be able to get 35 to 40% accuracy, some claim, larger different areas. I'm still not convinced of that, but the fact of the matter is, it's like anything else. Technology gets better as it goes, and we'll see improvements over time periods.   Michael Hingson ** 49:49 So here's here's my thought, yeah, let's say you use AI in one of the products that's out there. And I. You go to a website and you include it, and it reasonably well makes the website 50% more usable and accessible than it was before. I'm just, I just threw out that number. I know it's random. Go ahead, Yep, yeah, but let's say it does that. The reality is that means that it's 50% that the web developers, the web coders, don't have to do because something else is dealing with it. But unfortunately, their mentality is not to want to deal with that because they also fear it. But, you know, I remember back in the mid 1980s I started a company because I went off and tried to find a job and couldn't find one. So I started a company with a couple of other people, where we sold early PC based CAD systems to architects, right? And we had AutoCAD versus CAD. Another one called point line, which was a three dimensional system using a y cap solid modeling board that took up two slots in your PC. So it didn't work with all PCs because we didn't have enough slots. But anyway, right, right, right. But anyway, when I brought architects in and we talked about what it did and we showed them, many of them said, I'll never use that. And I said, why? Well, it does work, and that's not the question. But the issue is, we charge by the time, and so we take months to sometimes create designs and projects, right? And so we can't lose that revenue. I said, you're looking at it all wrong. Think about it this way, somebody gives you a job, you come back and you put it in the CAD system. You go through all the iterations it takes, let's just say, two weeks. Then you call your customer in. You use point line, and you can do a three dimensional walk through and fly through. You can even let them look out the window and see what there is and all that they want to make changes. They tell you the changes. You go off and you make the changes. And two weeks later, now it's a month, you give them their finished product, all the designs, all the plots and all that, all done, and you charge them exactly the same price you were going to charge them before. Now you're not charging for your time, you're charging for your expertise, right? And I think that same model still holds true that the technology, I think most people will agree that it is not perfect, but there are a lot of things that it can do. Because the reality is, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, are all things that can be defined with computer code, whether it necessarily does it all well with AI or not, is another story. But if it does it to a decent fraction, it makes all the difference in terms of what you're able to do and how quickly you can do   Mike Paciello ** 52:52 it. Yeah, I can argue with that at all. I think any time that we can make our jobs a little bit easier so that we can focus where we should be focused. In this case, as you said, the expertise side of it, right to fix those complicated scenarios or situations that require a hands on surgical like Right? Expertise, you can do that now. You've got more hours more time because it's been saved. The only thing I would say, Mike, about what, what you just said, is that there with that, with that mindset, okay, comes responsibility. Oh, yeah, in this is where I think in everybody that knows anything about this environment, you and I have an intimate understanding of this. The whole overlay discussion is the biggest problem with what happened was less about the technology and more about what claims are being made. Yeah, the technology could do which you could not do in, in some cases, could never do, or would never, would never do, well, right? So if you create, and I would submit this is true in as a fundamental principle, if you create a technology of any kind, you must, in truth, inform your clients of of what it can and cannot do so they understand the absolute value to them, because the last thing you want, because, again, we live in a, unfortunately, a very litigious world. Right soon as there's   Michael Hingson ** 54:49 a mistake couldn't happen,   Mike Paciello ** 54:51 they'll go right after you. So now you know, and again, I don't I'm not necessarily just blaming the ambulance chasers of the world. World. I was talking to an NFP lawyer today. He referred to them in a different name, and I can't remember well, I never heard the expression before, but that's what he meant, right? Yeah, it's the salesman and the product managers and the marketing people themselves, who are were not themselves, to your point, properly trained, properly educated, right? It can't be done, what clearly could not be said, what should or should not be said, right? And then you got lawyers writing things all over the place. So, yeah, yeah. So, so I look people knew when I made the decision to come to audio eye that it was a make or break scenario for me, or at least that's what they thought in my mindset. It always, has always been, that I see incredible possibilities as you do or technology, it just has to be handled responsibly.   Michael Hingson ** 55:56 Do you think that the companies are getting better and smarter about what they portray about their products than they than they were three and four and five years ago.   Mike Paciello ** 56:08 Okay, look, I sat in and chaired a meeting with the NFB on this whole thing. And without a doubt, they're getting smarter. But it took not just a stick, you know, but, but these large lawsuits to get them to change their thinking, to see, you know, where they where they were wrong, and, yeah, things are much better. There's still some issues out there. I both know it that's going to happen, that happens in every industry,   Michael Hingson ** 56:42 but there are improvements. It is getting better, and people are getting smarter, and that's where an organization like the NFB really does need to become more involved than in a sense, they are. They took some pretty drastic steps with some of the companies, and I think that they cut off their nose, despite their face as well, and that didn't help. So I think there are things that need to be done all the way around, but I do see that progress is being made too. I totally   Mike Paciello ** 57:11 agree, and in fact, I'm working with them right now. We're going to start working on the California Accessibility Act again. I'm really looking forward to working with the NFB, the DRC and Imperato over there and his team in the disability rights consortium, consortium with disability rights. What DRC coalition, coalition in in California. I can't wait to do that. We tried last year. We got stopped short. It got tabled, but I feel very good about where we're going this year. So that's, that's my that's, that is my focus right now. And I'm glad I'm going to be able to work with the NFB to be able to do that. Yeah, well, I, I really do hope that it passes. We've seen other states. We've seen some states pass some good legislation, and hopefully we will continue to see some of that go on. Yeah, Colorado has done a great job. Colorado sent a great job. I think they've done it. I really like what's being done with the EAA, even though it's in Europe, and some of the things that are going there, Susanna, Lauren and I had some great discussions. I think she is has been a leader of a Yeoman effort at that level. So we'll see. Let's, let's, I mean, there's still time out here. I guess I really would like to retire,   Michael Hingson ** 58:28 but I know the feeling well, but I can't afford to yet, so I'll just keep speaking and all that well, Mike, this has been wonderful. I really appreciate you taking an hour and coming on, and at least neither of us is putting up with any kind of snow right now, but later in the year we'll see more of that.   Mike Paciello ** 58:45 Yeah, well, maybe you will. We don't get snow down. I have. We've gotten maybe 25 flakes in North Carolina since I've been here.   Michael Hingson ** 58:53 Yeah, you don't get a lot of snow. We don't hear we don't really get it here, around us, up in the mountains, the ski resorts get it, but I'm out in a valley, so we don't, yeah,   Mike Paciello ** 59:02 yeah, no. I love it. I love this is golfing weather.   Michael Hingson ** 59:05 There you go. If people want to reach out to you, how do they do that?   Mike Paciello ** 59:11 There's a couple of ways. Certainly get in touch with me at AudioEye. It's michael.paciello@audioeye.com   Michael Hingson ** 59:17 B, A, C, I, E, L, L, O,   Mike Paciello ** 59:18 that's correct. Thank you for that. You could send me personal email at Mike paciello@gmail.com and or you can send me email at web able. It's m passielo at web able.com, any one of those ways. And please feel free you get on all the social networks. So feel free to link, connect to me. Anyway, I try to respond. I don't think there's anyone I I've not responded to one form or another.   Michael Hingson ** 59:46 Yeah, I'm I'm the same way. If I get an email, I want to respond to it. Yeah, well, thanks again for being here, and I want to thank all of you for listening. We really appreciate it. Love to hear your thoughts about this episode. Please feel free to email. Me, you can get me the email address I generally use is Michael h i at accessibe, A, C, C, E, S, S, i, b, e.com, or you can go to our podcast page, which is Michael hingson.com/podcast, and there's a contact form there. But love to hear from you. Love to hear your thoughts, and most of all, please give us a five star rating wherever you're listening. We value your ratings and your reviews a whole lot, so we really appreciate you doing that. And if any of you, and Mike, including you, can think of other people that you think ought to be guests on the podcast, we are always looking for more people, so fill us up, help us find more folks. And we would appreciate that a great deal. So again, Mike, thanks very much. This has been a lot of fun, and we'll have to do it again.   Mike Paciello ** 1:00:44 Thanks for the invitation. Mike, I really appreciate it. Don't forget to add 10 Nakata to your list,   Michael Hingson ** 1:00:49 You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you're there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free eBook entitled blinded by fear. The unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessiBe and is sponsored by accessiBe. Please visit www.accessibe.com . AccessiBe is spelled a c c e s s i b e. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for Listening. Please come back and visit us again next week.

A long history of disability activism culminated with President George H.W. Bush signing the ADA into law in 1990. South Dakotans say there's still a lot of work to do.

A new state law requires social media sites to verify the age of minors trying to sign up for their platforms. A coalition of media companies is challenging that requirement at the U.S. Supreme Court.Then, disability rights leaders say federal cuts could make it harder for folks to get equal opportunities through the Americans with Disabilities Act.Plus, we sit down with MPB's Executive Director, Royal Ails, to discuss how federal cuts to public broadcasting could affect Mississippians. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Frm Congressman, Author of the ADAHappy ADA 35Tony Coelho has spent his entire adult life helping advance the lives of people with disabilities. He calls this his “ministry”. Congressman Steny Hoyer, former House Majority Leader, says that the disability community call him their “voice” and “champion.”Diagnosed with epilepsy when he was 22 years old, Tony's ministry is marked by significant milestones: primary author and sponsor of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) — the most important piece of civil rights legislation in the last 40 years; advocating for the ratification of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities; and convincing President Bill Clinton to establish the Office of Disability Employment Policy at the U.S. Department of Labor.  Tony continued to advocate for civil rights for individuals with disabilities by convincing President Barack Obama to issue an executive order enforcing Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 requiring federal contractors and subcontractors to hire people with disabilities as they have been doing since 1973 for women and minorities.  He went on to work with the Biden White House to improve access to the internet for individuals who are blind, deaf, and physically impaired.Tony is a former six-term United States Congressman from California, elected in 1978 and serving until 1989. He served on the Agriculture, Interior, Veterans Affairs, and Administration Committees during his tenure, specializing in disability rights. In 1986, Tony was elected House Majority Whip, the third most powerful position in the House of Representatives.After leaving Congress, Tony joined Wertheim Schroder & Company, Inc., an investment-banking firm in New York, where he served as a Managing Director and then as President and CEO of Wertheim Schroder Investment Services, a firm that he grew from $400 million to $4 billion in managed investments. He formed ETC w/TCI, an education and training technology company in Washington, D.C., where he served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. Currently, he serves on a number of corporate boards of directors and i  the founding partner of a national public affairs firm.© 2025 Building Abundant Success!!2025 All Rights ReservedJoin Me on ~ iHeart Media @ https://tinyurl.com/iHeartBASSpot Me on Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/yxuy23bAmazon Music ~ https://tinyurl.com/AmzBASAudacy:  https://tinyurl.com/BASAud

We Can't To We Can founder and President Trinity Jagdeo, discusses the non-profit organization for families with disabilities that she founded at the age of 18. Trinity spoke of her friend, Alexus and how her battle with Spinal Muscular Atrophy, also known as SMA, revealed to her the lack of opportunities and role models her friend had. She began with a series of ‘superhero’ books based on kids with disabilities and developed it into a foundation that today promotes representation and inclusion through her books, presents local events and offers financial support to families. She talked about their signature programs, a swap service where families can exchange outgrown medical equipment and their bi-annual fundraiser, Including You! Runway at Pfleeger Hall at Rowan University. This year falling on July 26, the 35th anniversary of the Americans With Disabilities Act, the event features stunning runway performances with both able and disabled models wearing national brands and adaptive clothing, a live DJ, a red-carpet experience, special guest appearances, exciting prizes, and the official launch of their groundbreaking superhero book series spotlighting real kids with disabilities. Learn more at WeCant2WeCan.org. Runway tickets can be found here.

In this episode of The Consumer Finance Podcast, Chris Willis and Lori Sommerfield discuss the latest regulatory, legislative, and litigation developments under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), as accessibility of digital platforms and mobile applications increasingly become crucial for consumer finance providers. This episode covers the DOJ's guidance on website accessibility, evolving Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, potential legislative solutions, and the risks of private litigation amid a surge in lawsuits alleging violations of the ADA. With a focus on litigation trends and risk mitigation strategies, this discussion is vital for businesses striving to ensure compliance and protect their digital assets in a complex legal environment. Gain practical insights on assessing and improving website accessibility and learn how to establish a robust ADA risk management program to shield your business from potential legal challenges.

In this episode of Passing Judgment, Jessica Levinson previews the Supreme Court's most anticipated pending cases as the term nears its end. She highlights upcoming decisions on nationwide injunctions, Tennessee's ban on gender-affirming care for minors, evolving standards in discrimination lawsuits, and major cases involving religious exemptions and parental rights in education. Jessica offers her predictions and insight on how these rulings could shape the law and impact daily life, setting the stage for a dramatic finale to the Supreme Court term.Here are three key takeaways you don't want to miss:Nationwide Injunctions – Trump v. Washington/New Jersey/California: This case tackles whether federal district courts can issue nationwide injunctions blocking federal policies, as opposed to limiting decisions to just the plaintiffs in the case. The backdrop is Trump's executive order on birthright citizenship, which attempts to limit who qualifies as a citizen by birth.Transgender Rights and Equal Protection – Skrmetti: The Court is considering whether Tennessee's ban on certain gender-affirming treatments for minors violates the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. The predicted outcome is that the Court may allow such state restrictions, but notes there could be future challenges regarding parental rights under a different part of the Fourteenth Amendment.Religious Objections in Public Schools – Parental Opt-Outs for LGBTQ-Inclusive Curriculum: A Maryland case considers if public schools must offer opt-outs for parents whose religious beliefs conflict with LGBTQ-inclusive materials and lessons. The prediction: the Court may require such opt-outs under the Free Exercise Clause, but will need to write the opinion carefully to avoid overly broad exemptions.Follow Our Host and Guest: @LevinsonJessica

In this episode of Troutman Pepper Locke's Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation podcast, hosts Lydia Parker and Lynne Wakefield explore the complex legal landscape surrounding the coverage of GLP-1s prescribed for weight loss purposes within self-insured medical plans. As these medications gain popularity, plan sponsors face the challenge of controlling costs while meeting participant demand and maintaining legal compliance. The discussion covers various design alternatives, including cost-sharing strategies, waiting periods, and wellness program rewards, while addressing potential legal risks under HIPAA, the Affordable Care Act, and the Americans with Disabilities Act. Tune in to explore how plan sponsors can navigate these issues effectively as a means to attract and retain employees, while mitigating financial exposure.

Buckle up, y'all—we have a doozy for you today.This week, Imani and Jess get into the Supreme Court oral arguments in A.J.T. v. Osseo Area Schools. It was supposed to be a narrow education rights case that looked at whether students have to meet an impossibly high bar to sue schools under the Americans with Disabilities Act—that is, until Supreme Court litigator Lisa Blatt entered the chat and made things a little spicier.Now, Blatt is trying to make it difficult for anyone with disabilities to bring forth discrimination cases, and even the Supreme Court justices were confused.Rewire News Group is a nonprofit media organization, which means that episodes like this one are only made possible with the support of listeners like you! If you can, please join our team by donating here.And sign up for The Fallout, a weekly newsletter written by Jess that's exclusively dedicated to covering every aspect of this unprecedented moment.

Buckle up, y'all—we have a doozy for you today.This week, Imani and Jess get into the Supreme Court oral arguments in A.J.T. v. Osseo Area Schools. It was supposed to be a narrow education rights case that looked at whether students have to meet an impossibly high bar to sue schools under the Americans with Disabilities Act—that is, until Supreme Court litigator Lisa Blatt entered the chat and made things a little spicier.Now, Blatt is trying to make it difficult for anyone with disabilities to bring forth discrimination cases, and even the Supreme Court justices were confused.Rewire News Group is a nonprofit media organization, which means that episodes like this one are only made possible with the support of listeners like you! If you can, please join our team by donating here.And sign up for The Fallout, a weekly newsletter written by Jess that's exclusively dedicated to covering every aspect of this unprecedented moment.

In this week's episode I sat down with Rachel Wherley, Erin Elswood, and Shelby Holloway, the co-directors of the Mascots Matter campaign. Mascots Matter is an independent grassroots advocacy initiative calling for the retirement of offensive disability mascots. We discuss the origins of the “m” slur and its continued, harmful use through to present day, the founding of Mascots Matter and its advocacy efforts thus far, why discriminatory disability mascots are not just a local issue and much more. For reference, this conversation was recorded on March 18, 2025. Also, the “m”-slur will be used in context when explaining it as a slur as well as referring to these mascots. It is important to note that neither myself nor my guests condone the use of this word nor is it a part of our vocabularies. Follow And Support Mascots Matter: Website: https://mascotsmatter.net Donate Here Instagram: @mascotsmatter Facebook: Mascots Matter Follow Rachel: Instagram: @thatlittlemom TikTok: @thatlittlemom Follow Erin: Instagram: @erinkaseyhughes Follow Shelby: Instagram: @shelbyhollowayy TikTok: @shelby_holloway Follow Me: Instagram: @jill_ilana , @alwayslookingup.podcast TikTok: @jillian_ilana Website: https://www.jillianilana.com Email: alwayslookingup227@gmail.com Read With Me: Goodreads The StoryGraph This episode was edited and produced by Ben Curwin

Max Pearson presents a collection of this week's Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.We find out about the landmark protest in 1990 when wheelchair users crawled up the steps of the US Capitol Building in Washington DC, campaigning for disability rights.Our expert is Dr Maria Orchard, law lecturer at the University of Leeds, who has carried out research into disability and inclusion.We hear about the 2015 attack on the Bardo Museum in Tunisia's capital, in which 22 tourists were killed.Next, the Gambian woman who in 1997 began making bags and purses out of old discarded plastic and is now globally recognised as Africa's Queen of Recycling.The South African musical King Kong which opened to critical acclaim in 1959 and whose all-black cast defied apartheid.Finally, the invention of the Global Positioning System - GPS - in the late 1970s, which now keeps aircraft in the sky and supports banking transactions.Contributors:Anita Cameron - disability rights campaigner Dr Maria Orchard - lecturer in law at the University of Leeds Hamadi Ben Abdesslem - tour guide Isatou Ceesay - environmental campaigner Nelson Mandela - former President of South Africa Marian Matshikiza - daughter of Todd Matshikiza, jazz pianist and composer Professor Brad Parkinson - chief architect of GPS(Photo: 8 year-old Jennifer Keelan crawls up the steps of the US Capitol, 12 March 1990. Credit: AP/Jeff Markowitz)

We're sweating! We're hyperfixating! Because a bunch of conservative attorneys general have filed a lawsuit trying to weaken or eliminate Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, which served as a precursor to the Americans with Disabilities Act.This week, Jess and Imani get into the conservative legal movement's attempts to roll back Section 504—and how it could constitute government-sponsored eugenics. And even though conservatives are pretending that they're really just targeting trans folks, why should we believe them?Rewire News Group is a nonprofit media organization, which means that episodes like this one are only made possible with the support of listeners like you! If you can, please join our team by donating here.And sign up for The Fallout, a weekly newsletter written by Jess that's exclusively dedicated to covering every aspect of this unprecedented moment.

We're sweating! We're hyperfixating! Because a bunch of conservative attorneys general have filed a lawsuit trying to weaken or eliminate Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, which served as a precursor to the Americans with Disabilities Act.This week, Jess and Imani get into the conservative legal movement's attempts to roll back Section 504—and how it could constitute government-sponsored eugenics. And even though conservatives are pretending that they're really just targeting trans folks, why should we believe them?Rewire News Group is a nonprofit media organization, which means that episodes like this one are only made possible with the support of listeners like you! If you can, please join our team by donating here.And sign up for The Fallout, a weekly newsletter written by Jess that's exclusively dedicated to covering every aspect of this unprecedented moment.

The Americans with Disabilities Act is unquestionably in the premiere class of landmark legislation in American History. On this episode, Greg sits down with the original author and co-sponsor of the ADA -- avid disability rights advocate, the Honourable Tony Coelho, former Representative from California. Tony first introduced the ADA alongside Senator Lowell Weicker in the 100th Congress in 1988 and battled the red tape, opposition and criticism to finally get the bill passed and signed into law by President George H.W. Bush in 1990.  Greg is joined by his Talk About It partner Ken Lowenberg to talk with Tony about his personal history with epilepsy, how the bill came into existence, the importance of enforcing the ADA by presidential administrations, and the dangers of stigma. This episode is so important to listen to, because it's easy to overlook how widespread the impact of the ADA is, touching every American in ways that might be subtle or even hidden. Don't miss it! The Talk About It podcast is excited to be sponsored in part by Neurelis. The Talk About It podcast is excited to sponsored in part by Seizures Are Signs — dedicated to educating families on the importance of early and specific diagnosis by providing an assessment to help get the conversation started, educational information, stories from families who have found a diagnosis, links to advocacy groups, and more. For more information, go to SeizuresAreSigns.com. Seizures are Signs is made available by Jazz Pharmaceuticals.

This week we're rerunning a 2023 episode on a topic we often get suggestions about: The Americans with Disabilities Act! In this episode, JoDee and Susan discuss the ADA with experts Kim Dinwiddie and Jackie Gessner. Topics include: ADA's purpose, what it covers, and who it applies to How to respond when leaders think it's unfair for an employee to have "special privileges" How the increased focus on mental health affects employers in terms of ADA What the interactive process is and how to navigate it How hybrid and flexible work arrangements benefit both employers and employees regarding ADA New legal requirements around disabilities and workplace accommodations Where employers often fail to address accommodation requests What employers should know to make them more comfortable about asking the right questions What limits apply to workplace accommodations Whether employers are required to provide time off as an accommodation In this episode's listener question, we're asked how to make the best of having a micromanaging boss who doesn't take feedback well. In the news, remote and hybrid work options remain a priority for new grads seeking jobs. Full show notes and links are available here: https://getjoypowered.com/show-notes-episode-174-the-americans-with-disabilities-act-ada/ A transcript of the episode can be found here: https://getjoypowered.com/transcript-episode-174-the-americans-with-disabilities-act-ada/ Become a member to get early and ad-free access to episodes, video versions, and more perks! Learn more at patreon.com/joypowered Connect with us: @JoyPowered on Instagram: https://instagram.com/joypowered @JoyPowered on Facebook: https://facebook.com/joypowered @JoyPowered on LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/company/joypowered Sign up for our email newsletter: https://getjoypowered.com/newsletter/ 

I'm happy to welcome my first listener-turned-guest, Michael Murphy. Michael lives with photosensitive epilepsy and non-verbal learning disorder, and is undertaking the task of reworking the Americans with Disabilities Act. In this episode, we discuss the ADA in depth, as well as Michael's experiences with epilepsy. Be sure to tune in next week for the conclusion of our conversation.Support the showNew Website: badattitudespod.comBad Attitudes Shop: badattitudesshop.etsy.comBecome a Member: ko-fi.com/badattitudespod Follow @badattitudespod on Instagram, Facebook, Threads, and BlueSkyBe sure to leave a rating or review wherever you listen!FairyNerdy: https://linktr.ee/fairynerdy

Episode 98 – Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) This month on Calendar Call, Paul Bourdoulous talks with Sandra Lugo-Gines, Program Manager for the Superior Court Operations Division about the Americans with Disabilities Act with a specific focus on Title II and public services offered by the Connecticut Judicial Branch. Paul and Sandra discuss what the ADA is, the scope of disability, and the requirements of the Judicial Branch to comply with Title II. Additional topics include common services provided, requests for accommodation, service animals, and more. Title II ADA.gov Rehabilitation Act of 1973 Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 Centralized ADA Office Email: ADAprogram@jud.ct.gov or Call: 860-706-5310

Tony Coelho has spent his entire adult life helping advance the lives of people with disabilities. He calls this his “ministry”.  Congressman Steny Hoyer, former House Majority Leader, says that the disability community call him their “voice” and “champion.”Diagnosed with epilepsy when he was 22 years old, Tony's ministry is marked by significant milestones: primary author and sponsor of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) — the most important piece of civil rights legislation in the last 40 years; advocating for the ratification of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities; and convincing President Bill Clinton to establish the Office of Disability Employment Policy at the U.S. Department of Labor.  Tony continued to advocate for civil rights for individuals with disabilities by convincing President Barack Obama to issue an executive order enforcing Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 requiring federal contractors and subcontractors to hire people with disabilities as they have been doing since 1973 for women and minorities.  He went on to work with the Biden White House to improve access to the internet for individuals who are blind, deaf, and physically impaired.Tony is a former six-term United States Congressman from California, elected in 1978 and serving until 1989. He served on the Agriculture, Interior, Veterans Affairs, and Administration Committees during his tenure, specializing in disability rights. In 1986, Tony was elected House Majority Whip, the third most powerful position in the House of Representatives.After leaving Congress, Tony joined Wertheim Schroder & Company, Inc., an investment-banking firm in New York, where he served as a Managing Director and then as President and CEO of Wertheim Schroder Investment Services, a firm that he grew from $400 million to $4 billion in managed investments. He formed ETC w/TCI, an education and training technology company in Washington, D.C., where he served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. Currently, he serves on a number of corporate boards of directors and i  the founding partner of a national public affairs firm.© 2024 Building Abundant Success!!2024 All Rights ReservedJoin Me on ~ iHeart Media @ https://tinyurl.com/iHeartBASSpot Me on Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/yxuy23bAmazon Music ~ https://tinyurl.com/AmzBASAudacy:  https://tinyurl.com/BASAud

Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) obligations In Preparation for Your Real Estate Exam - Q & A with John Mayfield and Global Real Estate School. FREE Exam Questions at https://www.HelpMePassTheRealEstateExam.com   If you want to pass the real estate exam, you need to follow this advice from John Mayfield with Global Real Estate School. Are you currently enrolled in a pre-license real estate school in the U.S.?  If so, and you need help, subscribe to my podcast for timely tips to help you pass the real estate exam on the first attempt!   You can also download valuable study aids from my website, http://www.GlobalRealEstateSchool.com Like us on Facebook ,https://www.facebook.com/GlobalRealEstateSchool/ Subscribe to our YouTube Channel  Follow me on Instagram @realestatetechguy As always, "thank you" for listening to the podcast!

Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) obligations In Preparation for Your Real Estate Exam - Q & A with John Mayfield and Global Real Estate School. FREE Exam Questions at https://www.HelpMePassTheRealEstateExam.com   If you want to pass the real estate exam, you need to follow this advice from John Mayfield with Global Real Estate School. Are you currently enrolled in a pre-license real estate school in the U.S.?  If so, and you need help, subscribe to my podcast for timely tips to help you pass the real estate exam on the first attempt!   You can also download valuable study aids from my website, http://www.GlobalRealEstateSchool.com Like us on Facebook ,https://www.facebook.com/GlobalRealEstateSchool/ Subscribe to our YouTube Channel  Follow me on Instagram @realestatetechguy As always, "thank you" for listening to the podcast!

20240930 Little-Known Provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Originally Broadcasted September 30, 2024, on ACB Media 6   Participants joined Chris Bell for a call to learn about some little known and weird provisions of the ADA, proving, once again, why it is often said that "laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made.” Chris was joined by other members of the American Association of Visually Impaired Attorneys (AAVIA) to get your thoughts about some additional legal issues you would like to hear discussed by AAVIA members on future Community Calls. Sponsored by: American Association of Visually Impaired Attorneys   Find out more at https://acb-community.pinecast.co This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Stephanie Cawthon grew up deaf. She tells us her story of how for her childhood she was quite isolated due to not having good methods of communicating with those around her. It wasn't until college and the advent of the Americans With Disabilities Act that she began to learn to advocate for herself. Through self advocacy and some good teaching she finally learned American Sign Language, (ASL) and finally began to communicate efficiently with those around her.   Stephanie has proven since college to be a dedicated teacher. She now is a tenured professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Texas Austin. In 2023 she founded the National Disability Center for Student Success. This center and the five-year grant that funds it is providing and will continue to offer invaluable information and techniques for including persons with disabilities into society especially within the college and university system.   Stephanie has authored several books including a non-academic one which is being released on September 15 of 2024.   On our podcast Stephanie and I are joined by two interpreters. Amanda is voicing Stephanie's comments to me and Audrey is signing my comments to Stephanie. This episode gives us all a tremendous look into the philosophies and concepts about inclusion of persons with disabilities. I trust that you will enjoy and learn a lot from our time with Stephanie.   About the Guest:   Stephanie W. Cawthon, PhD, is an internationally renowned author, researcher, and consultant who brings relatable insights and real-world skills to her mission that—when we tap the power of accessibility—we ensure disabled people can thrive and succeed.    Dr. Cawthon's groundbreaking research has been funded by over $50 million in federal and other grants. In 2023 she founded the National Disability Center for Student Success at The University of Texas at Austin, where she is a tenured Professor of Educational Psychology.    She also brings a lived experience to her work. In addition to her congenital hearing loss, she has several mental health and physical disabilities that have a significant impact on her ability to engage in important life activities.    Dr. Cawthon earned her Bachelor's and Master's degrees from Stanford University and her doctorate from the University of Wisconsin at Madison.   Ways to connect with Stephanie:   Website: www.StephanieCawthon.com Book Website: www.DisabilityIsHuman.com Social Media: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephanie-cawthon/ Twitter: @swcawthon Instagram: DrStephanieCawthon The website for the National Disability Center: www.NationalDisabilityCenter.org   About the Host:   Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.   Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards.   https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/   accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/   https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/       Thanks for listening!   Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!   Subscribe to the podcast   If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset .   Leave us an Apple Podcasts review   Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts.       Transcription Notes:   Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson ** 01:21 Well, hello and welcome to another episode of unstoppable mindset where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. And it is called that for those who may not know, because inclusion for us comes first, since diversity typically tends to leave out discussions about disabilities, and today, I think we're going to be talking a lot about disabilities, among other things. Our guest is Stephanie Cawthon. And Stephanie is a person who happens to be deaf, so what I say is being signed to Stephanie, and then there is somebody who is going to be interpreting what Stephanie will be saying through sign to me. So you will notice as we chat, there will be some pauses, and that is because signing is going on. And so we will work with that. And I think it will be a fine time all the way around anyway. So let's go ahead and start Stephanie. I want to welcome you to unstoppable mindset. And Stephanie happens to be a person who works in Texas, among other things, in 2023 she founded the National Disability Center, Center for Student Success, and she has had a lot of grants that have helped her, but she is now with her Center at the University of Texas at Austin, and I was telling her before we started, that I will, recent, or soon, be in San Marcos, Texas to deliver a speech. So that's not too far from Austin, and I will be accompanied by my guide dog, Alamo boy. It's going to be a Texas world so it is Alamo, as in, Remember the Alamo? So Alamo and I have been partners for about six and a half years, and that's kind of fun. Anyway. That aside, Stephanie, welcome to unstoppable mindset. We're really glad you're here,   Stephanie Cawthon ** 03:21 and I'm thrilled to be here. Thank you so much for the warm welcome.   Michael Hingson ** 03:26 Well, it is my pleasure. Why don't we start, if you would, by you telling us a little bit about, kind of the early Stephanie, Stephanie growing up and all that, and sort of give us that as a background. It's always kind of fun to go back to the beginning somewhat,   Stephanie Cawthon ** 03:40 okay, sure. Thank you again. So early Stephanie, all right, me growing up, well, I grew up living in Canada, and then we moved to the United States when I was eight years old. And so that's sort of that change was interesting. I grew up without sign language at all at that time, ASL or any signed language was not prevalent, nor was it even allowed to be had. It was speech only, speech therapy, sitting in the front of the room, wearing hearing aids and that type of thing that was my experience. I learned to read lips pretty early on, and so I really paid attention in school, primarily to my teachers, friends, less so really not so much. Communicating with friends and peers was rough as a youth, because it's hard to pay attention to speech, for eating and then socially things. And paying attention to a person with disability is rough. Now the teacher was focused, and so I could focus on them. And at that time, my last name began with an A and so, uh. That was nice. I it was really and I received A's in school, and I cared so much about education because of that, I was in the front of the room. I was paying attention, and I had a pretty decent experience. And then later on, I went to college, and then the ADA happened roughly the same time that law was passed, about the time I joined the college setting, and that was new for me. I didn't know how to advocate for myself. I had no experience in that arena growing up. And so then in college, people would say, Hey, you should have accommodations. What should we do? How can we accommodate you? And I literally had no idea what that meant. I was a young person. I didn't it wasn't meaningful to me. I tried, but I didn't have a lot of training. You know, there wasn't training out there. I didn't have any explanation. There were no deaf peers for me at the time, and in that space, I was still kind of alone and isolated in that in that space. And so within that experience, in my early college college years, I did take an American Sign Language class, or ASL class, and I remember the first day of class, and I was thinking, Oh, this communication is so clear. Wow. How have I survived every day with communication? It's struggling. There were breakdowns constantly. It's what I did, and then it was my responsibility. It was on me to fix it and understand it and repair that. But there was a Deaf instructor for my ASL class, and they called on me to make sure I was understanding clearly the first time. They called me to that action like No, no, you understand clear the first time, not the second or third time. Make sure you get it that first time around. And so for me, that really helped shape my idea of what is it mean to be part of a group that communicates clearly, not always only paying attention to the teacher, but also having like people behind me and students and peers that I could engage with and still have that accent, that access and then have a full fledge, like a full whole experience. So that that really shaped me. So I'll stop there. Well,   Michael Hingson ** 07:30 what's interesting is that people did say to you, you have to get it right the first time. That immediately makes me think of something that I spent time learning, which is about Morse code. Everybody thinks of Morse codes as dots and dashes and so on, but the really good teachers of Morse code teach that you need to really, really recognize the sound, and they they actually the best Morse code course I ever encountered transmitted all of the the Morse code as they were teaching it at a fast enough speed that you couldn't sit there and count dots and dashes. You had to really learn the sound of of an a, of a B and a C and so on. And the people who were successful with that course because they focused on it and they focused on learning the sound. Really learned code very well. So I kind of empathize with your instructor, who said, No, you got to get it the first time, because it's all about really being acclimatized or becoming accustomed to something that you never really experienced before. So that was probably pretty cool. I would would assume you think so. Well,   Stephanie Cawthon ** 08:47 really, I think the the point for me was now that it was possible for me to get it the first time right, the first time that information was communicated without ASL, because I was struggling, I struggled to communicate. I struggled to hear and discern that information. Right now I'm able to access it and retain it that first time because of access to ASL,   Michael Hingson ** 09:12 and it was learning, in a sense, a whole new language. And for you, it was a very visual language, but at least you you sound, it sounds like you had a good teacher to to help with that. I know even today, for people who are low vision, the emphasis is on getting better glasses, enhancing your eyesight. And unfortunately, what all too often doesn't happen is when children are in in class, in lower grades and sometimes even going higher, they aren't really taught some of the blindness skills that would really enhance their life, like learning Braille, which doesn't mean you don't use your eyesight. But learning Braille because you can probably read it faster than you can read with low vision environment that you have, and also because you can read with Braille a lot longer than you can with eyesight without getting headaches. So there's a lot of evolution that needs to go on. And unfortunately, a lot of the professionals really doing the best service, because they're still approaching what happens with eyesight. And I suspect, although it's getting better, I think for you, probably a lot quicker. For people who are deaf as well, it isn't all just about using your ears, and people are starting to learn that,   Stephanie Cawthon ** 10:44 yeah, for sure. And I understand the idea of it not only being about an accommodation or accommodating the thing, but it's also about how we navigate the world, right? I think that that physically, as you said, it's two things so that, but in addition to that, but how we think about information sharing? You know, do we make things accessible for more than just one type or kind of audience? Are we reading plus hearing, plus a transcript and a video? What kinds of things are in place to communicate? And that's critical for me. That's so important. I think giving people options for how they access that information, and then they get to figure out which one works best for them today, in that situation, I think that's so important, is those options and allowing for that piece.   Michael Hingson ** 11:47 And I think as part of that, it's engaging, or becoming more involved in the conversation about disabilities and about everything else, so that people become comfortable enough. How can we best accommodate, or how can we best help, rather than being afraid to ask, because they grew up thinking that they could offend if they start to talk about a disability. So it is important that the conversation needs to happen, because, in reality, we know best what's going to work for us,   Stephanie Cawthon ** 12:21 certainly. And one thing that people often will say or ask me is, what do I say? How do I talk about this? How do I talk about disability? And so that's a very basic level thing that people often don't know what to do about it, or what to do with it. And so for me, my recent work has been to figure out how to share ideas, share stories, and connect people. And so it's not just feeling weird about it, you know, but putting that information, those stories out there.   Michael Hingson ** 12:56 But why do you think people do feel weird about it? What do you what do you think the basic reason for that is, and how do we address it?   Stephanie Cawthon ** 13:04 It's fear based. People are afraid is where it comes from. You know, disability is scary, and so I think for a lot of people, that's what it is, and that's the bottom line is in that it's fear based.   Michael Hingson ** 13:20 I agree, absolutely. I think it is fear based. It's needlessly fear based, but it still is fear based because we're not teaching people in general that disability doesn't really mean a lack of ability, but rather it means that you may be doing things in a different way, but you're still doing the same thing. And we've got to get people in general over this this fear and this perception that they have, that if you have a so called disability, then you are less than I am, whoever I am, and we've got to get enough into the conversation so that people begin to recognize, hey, you're really no different than I am. You just do things in a different way. And the reality is, everyone does things in a different way from a lot of other people. So why should it be an issue? But it is,   Stephanie Cawthon ** 14:21 yeah, and for me, one thing that I respect is that many people, it's their experience and their attitude surrounding disabilities, and they vary widely so that fear is from a real place. They're coming from somewhere, some experience or something. So that's part of how I approach and support people and help them recognize and understand the impact of that negative negativity and. The ableism that comes with it. And if we ignore oppression and we ignore that, that is not helpful, that's not helpful. So just to recognize and respect that once it's been disclosed, I find useful.   Michael Hingson ** 15:14 I think that the whole issue about disabilities and fear and so on. Is is something that that we do talk about a little bit and need to talk about more. But I also point out to people that, in fact, everyone has a disability on this planet. Everyone on the planet has a disability, and for most people, the reality is, eyesight is a disability because you're light dependent. And the fact of the matter is that we have done a lot since Thomas Edison invented the electric light bulb to make sure that light is available on demand, but all that's doing is covering up the disability of light dependence. And so it works until it doesn't but, but the fact of the matter is, most people don't view that as a disability, because it is so common. Most everyone is light dependent, and we have light available when we need it, as I said, until we don't, and then it becomes an issue. Again.   Stephanie Cawthon ** 16:20 Yes, and you know, covid taught us a lot, just to kind of tag on to that about how tech technology can support those with disabilities in different ways. And in addition to that, like you said, All people need access to options. You know, we all have a disability, and as I was stating, having those options is good, because there can be a breakdown at any time, but having options available, like I said, I think I feel like we learned that from covid, covid is how what do we do? And people feel like they have a disability when their internet goes out, right? They just don't know what to now, what? So it's interesting. It's, it's real interesting, living in this time, in this place   Michael Hingson ** 17:05 you're familiar with a device that's not, I think, so much around anymore, called Blackberry, one of the early devices that people use to communicate electronically.   Stephanie Cawthon ** 17:18 Oh, I'll, I'll clue you into something. I'm old enough, I do know what a Blackberry is. I   Michael Hingson ** 17:22 figured you were well, I remember, gosh, it's got to be now, 15 or more years ago, that suddenly Research In Motion, the company that that makes them and has all the servers and so on, had an outage, and it happened late at night, but BlackBerry suddenly went silent for about 12 hours, and I heard that there were people who committed suicide. A lot of people panicked and so on, because suddenly they lost access to the technology that they were so used to, which I guess is an interesting thing. They became so comfortable with it, they were able to use it. But the other side of that is that they didn't learn that it's always good to have options rather than just relying on one thing,   Stephanie Cawthon ** 18:13 you know, and for me, that becomes a design issue. Yeah, that's how I look at that, how we design our lives. Specifically, it's important to have options not wait until something breaks down or So similarly, don't wait for a disabled person to show up before you think about accessibility. Let's think about this. Let's think about the design from the get go. For me that is so important to really think about that in advance and plan around that and not wait for something to come up, have options in the design phase of anything. Right?   Michael Hingson ** 18:49 It's, it's important to do that, and we don't do it collectively or even individually, nearly enough. It is. It is why I always emphasize to people that although I use a guide dog, the dog's job isn't to know where to go and how to get there. That's my job. The dog's job is to make sure that we walk safely. And when I was working in the World Trade Center, I spent a fair amount of time learning all of the various options of ways and ways to get out of the World Trade Center from where I was and wherever I might be in the World Trade Center, not ever obviously wanting there to be an emergency, but at the same time, knowing that something like that could occur, and wanting to be as prepared as possible. And of course, as it turned out, that was something that ended up needing to be addressed and accomplished. But the other part about it is knowing that kind of thing and knowing your options is is crucial to be. Because it develops a mindset in you that when suddenly you have to deal with figuring out the options. If you really know what your options are, your mindset allows you to analyze and decide what you want to do. And I think that all too often dealing with emergencies, for example, people don't, oh, I can just follow the signs that'll tell me where the emergency exit is. That works until maybe you can't get out that way. But the real issue is knowledge helps your mind and your mental faculties learn to focus and not allow yourself to be completely overwhelmed by fear.   Stephanie Cawthon ** 20:42 And for me, I think that that's one characteristic of a disabled worker or employee that's a gift to the team, right is that flexibility and that flexible mindset, how to problem solve and what are the options there and available to you, and then what happens when one of those options breaks down? That's always something we're considering. And one thing that I typically notice that is actually quite surprising is when a disabled person gives these options, some people on the team will say, I never thought of that. And they respond with such shock. It's very surprising to me, because the person with a disability will then say, well, this is my life. This is every day I think of this. I do this, I bring this. This is just what I'm used to. This is this is how I do it. And so it's very interesting. Sometimes I'll post on social media, on different platforms and stuff. Why hire disabled people? And I'll say reason number one, and etc. And the first one is typically problem solving skills, because they have to that is how they navigate the world. So   Michael Hingson ** 22:02 and you're absolutely correct. And another is that if you hire a person with a disability, the odds are overall, you will be gaining a much more loyal employee, because we know how hard it is to find that job in the first place. And if you're going to be welcoming to us, we're going to want to, if at all possible, stay where we're welcome, rather than having to go off and face the same challenges of trying to retrain or train people and invade a new environment and make it work again. So it's always better if we find a welcoming place, we're going to want to stay there. And that says is true, not only for employment, but for brand loyalty. If I go online and find a website that's accessible to me and I can shop on that website, I'm apt to want to try to continue to shop at that website, as opposed to going somewhere else, if I possibly can, because that website was welcoming enough to make sure that I was included in their shopping experience.   Stephanie Cawthon ** 23:11 The same is true of technology and software in that realm, if it works for you, you're not going to be hopping around and trying to find something different. The system is set up to be hard enough already, so to find some sort of assistive technology or software, people typically stick with what works   Michael Hingson ** 23:34 well. And you're you're absolutely correct by any standard. And I think it's important to recognize that, and that's why we live in a pretty exciting time, technologically speaking, and we're getting into a more exciting time disability wise speaking, because more and more people, although it's happening a lot slower than a lot of us would like, more and more people are beginning to be a little bit more sensitive to the fact that we don't all do things the same way, and that there's there is value in making sure that disabilities are included. But it does happen slowly,   Stephanie Cawthon ** 24:20 and I think outside of the disability or disabled community, that is where we'd like to see the biggest improvements, right, right? It's typically, as you mentioned, slow or incremental disabled people talking to disabled people is one thing, and that's a limited impact until we become leaders, until we become creators, until we are part of the decision makers and that process, then that's when I think the impact is considerably greater.   Michael Hingson ** 24:58 Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Well, for you, having disabilities has certainly had a lot to do with shaping your life the way it is. Do you think you'd be doing something much different if you didn't happen to have disabilities? Or, you know, has it really shaped your life in a lot of ways   Stephanie Cawthon ** 25:23 that's an interesting question for me, because I think it'd probably be similar, you know, I'm in education, so I would have probably become faculty at any university, at a university somewhere that seems, you know, for me, that's a core value. So that's something that would have remained the same. I definitely would not be studying disabilities. I would think if I didn't have a disability myself, I don't think that that would have ever occurred to me. Now, maybe from the beginning, you know my first interest that it was language and language acquisition that was my, my first focus, and that was rooted in my understanding of deaf children. And so that might have been different, also, because that was my experience. Mine was different, right? And so that really motivated me and my interest in language and language acquisition, it was based on my experience. So that could have been different.   Michael Hingson ** 26:37 I can appreciate that. Well, how do you in terms of your experiences and so on? How do you define accessibility, and why is that important?   Stephanie Cawthon ** 26:51 So that definition really becomes a part of a larger picture. For me, I think really, there are three pieces that I think about. I think about accessibility, meaning connection, and then there are three pieces to that connection to myself or yourself. So an individual relationship. How do I know myself? How do I envision me and my future? What are my individual personal goals that I've set? Do I have a positive self confidence, all of those things, any those all relate to accessibility for me in terms of connection to self. And then the second piece of that is connection to information. So many things out in the world are based on shared communication and information that is out there. Think about how much community development and how local, national and worldwide. Information is just shared at them. It's out there. The content is out there, these ideas and this information. So accessibility to information, for me, is a major key. I have noticed a lot of negative impact on disabled people who have deprivation of that access to information and and just lack of access, it's not acceptable they don't have that information. So that second piece is key, connection to information. The third piece of it is connection to others, to other people, accessibility to other individuals. So if you remember my story about growing up when we first got together today, I did not have access to that third piece. There was no access to communication, to friends or peers. I was very isolated early on. I didn't have access to other deaf people at all in my younger years. And so for me, accessibility has got to include the social aspect and communicating with other humans that that's just key. And so when I take a look at or observe a situation or a product, I think about how all of these things intersect. If it's going to be accessible, is it accessible to self, that connection to yourself, the information and the connection to others, those three things always are in the forefront of my mind when I'm asked that question, when I approach something,   Michael Hingson ** 29:33 yeah, and I think that's although a longer definition, I think it's a much more important definition than what probably most people think about when they think about accessibility and access, but I think it is all about connectionalism in so many different ways we can talk about making the internet accessible, and what does that mean? I. Ultimately, it isn't just labeling links for blind people or closed captioning for people who are deaf or hard of hearing. It is still ultimately a connectional issue, and I think there's a lot of value in looking at access that way. And I do think that we need to do more to make sure that people really get that connectivity, something that just comes to mind. I was looking at buying a vehicle last year, and I'm not going to drive it right now, the technology isn't perfected for me to be able to drive, and I don't mean an autonomous vehicle, but there are ways to transmit information so that a blind person can drive, but it's not ready for street use or anything like that yet. But by the same token, my decision about the car and what to purchase or not to purchase ultimately came down to the fact that sitting as a passenger, I reached up to turn on the radio, and there was an on off switch, and everything else was touchscreen, which meant that I could not utilize the radio, and I could use the term so it wasn't accessible. But I think it's better to say I wasn't able to connect at all with that radio. There was nothing I could do to interact with that radio in any way, because everything was touchscreen. And that is, to me, fascinating, because that means that anyone who is going to use that radio like a driver has to look at the screen in order to see where they want to touch. And doesn't that sort of make life a little bit more dangerous, because they have to take their eyes off the road to see it, rather than using knobs which they could find by touch.   Stephanie Cawthon ** 31:58 I love that example, Michael, because technology is seems so advanced with a touchscreen, but really, it's not always the best fit for all the people. It's just, just because you can doesn't mean you should, right? So what a great example. Thanks. Yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 32:23 well, and again, it seems to me that the more fascinating aspect, in some ways, is that it still makes the driver take their eyes off the road in order to to interact. And maybe they can do that quickly and all. But still, it does mean, for some fraction of time, you have to take your eyes off the road. And the reality is, there is so much that we could do with technologies that we don't so people are just sort of skirting around the edges of doing more with voice actuation of technology in their cars. And it would be helpful, I think again, if we could do things to really encourage drivers to keep their eyes on the road and not worry about all the other stuff and give them alternatives that allow them to do that. But we, we still don't see that in the industry yet either.   Stephanie Cawthon ** 33:29 Yeah, and I'm assuming that that car developer maker really didn't have a low vision person in mind as a driver or any sort of customer or consumer in that vehicle, I will imagine that they did not consider that because, potentially not the target audience. Yeah, and it was invaded, tested with the broader public. So yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 33:56 that's, that's what we what we discover, but hopefully, over time, some of that will change, but it's it's a process well, so um, since we're kind of skirting around this subject, what are some of the barriers to accessibility that that you would like to share and you think People need to become more aware about   Stephanie Cawthon ** 34:21 so more awareness is a key thing. Certainly, I think often people have good intentions, but they just don't know what the impact is on people with disabilities. One example is that shows up regularly. Is low expectations. Disabled people can't fill in the blank, however you'd like to say it, and so that, for me, is just on repeat. That's, that's what is a. Space of attitude, and then out there with young people in my research, in my writing, and then in my teaching of people with disabilities and working with those younger folks, they often say, dang, these low expectations. That makes it worse. Like, that's the hardest is facing low expectations. Yeah, that's great. Technology is not the hardest thing for me. Accommodations also not the hardest thing for me. The biggest thing that I find is what the young folks are telling me is these these low expectations. That is what is creating barriers to opportunities for them. And so when taking a look at the research, and it's been many, many years, I've seen a lot of research done in this area, and you can measure expectations from parents and teachers, and so then 10 years later, the outcomes from those youth are so low, if there's a negative or low expectation early on, the outcomes are very poor, and in a longitudinal study,   Michael Hingson ** 36:12 yeah, well, and I think expectations, or lack of expectations, is probably the biggest thing that that we face. I mean, for years, and it still is true, the unemployment rate among employable blind people, people who are deaf or hard of hearing or who have other disabilities has been significantly, or better yet dramatically higher than the unemployment rate for employable persons who do not have What we would regard as a traditional disability, and it isn't because we can't work, it's because people think we can't work, and that, of course, is ultimately what we need to address. And hopefully, as we are able to carry on more of the conversation, we'll be able to to educate people about that.   Stephanie Cawthon ** 37:02 When I think also, people assume a lot of things about what they see in someone's behavior. There are a lot of assumptions that go on. So if there's a person with a disability, specifically mental illness, or a mental health related issue that has skyrocketed now mental health issues really, really increased number of folks experiencing that, and then still others make assumptions about, oh, that person's lazy. They're just lazy, or they're unreliable, and most things are not real positive. When those assumptions come up, there is like, hey, let's give some people some credit, you know. And so I think that that type of assumption and attitude is really where, where some of this comes from is about behavior and performance on the job or at school, and if someone is not meeting what those expectations of what they should be doing, and they have a mental health issue or a disability, then I think about, well, where are these assumptions coming from? Is it about their ability? Actually? Do they need treatment? Do they need accessibility? What are the different or what kind of flexibility could they be afforded? So sometimes it's a systemic issue that that person just needs a little bit of support within that system, and it changes everything. So I think those assumptions really come into play in that space,   Michael Hingson ** 38:44 yeah, and that is the, I think the biggest barrier that we have to address is the whole assumption syndrome that we tend to encounter, because people make assumptions that are absolutely not true, and oftentimes we don't even necessarily know about them, because they don't verbalize the assumptions that they have either.   Stephanie Cawthon ** 39:13 Yeah, and that fear just surrounding the word disability. And so it's real interesting how that then becomes a reason for silence.   Michael Hingson ** 39:30 Yeah, and so it all comes back down to the same thing, and I think you're absolutely right, and it is just something that has to be more of a growth issue. I remember, and I've talked about it a couple of times on this podcast. One time, my wife and I were going into a restaurant for breakfast where we lived in San Diego County. So with some time, probably around 1993 or 1990 Four, and my wife Karen was in a wheelchair her whole life. So as I love to tell people she read, I pushed worked out really well, but still, when we went into this restaurant, we were standing at the counter waiting to be seated. The poor hostess behind the counter had no clue how to deal with us. She kept looking at me and I'm not making eye contact, most likely with her. She looked at Karen, who's down lower, sitting in a wheelchair and all that, and this woman didn't even know how to say, Can I help you? She was just totally lost because she was confronted by a situation that just overwhelmed her with a lack of knowledge or certainty as to how to deal with it. And so finally, Karen said to me, the hostess is behind the counter, and she does know who to talk to. And so I just Well, well, you know, she should just speak up and we'll take it from there. And that finally broke the ice. But people don't learn very well, or we don't, collectively as a society, teach people very well how to deal with difference.   Stephanie Cawthon ** 41:09 And I think that part is sort of what motivated my book, the new one that's going to be released soon, is it's in there. There's there's two thing and one the book itself is really just figuring out how to connect people to that, the topic of disability, that disability thing, you know, and having a to do list and a checklist is just not enough that that doesn't quite cut it. We need to know why and what's what. There's more to it, what's underneath that uncertainty or that, that frozen response. And so then also make an action plan. Let's get that list in place, and from there, how do we approach these things? So connecting our thinking, our feeling and the humanness of it with what's next? What do we do? How do I respond in that situation? We now have new information. What do we do? And so really linking those two pieces together, you know? And I see that in my students. I see that in my colleagues, if people know what to do. And so, one moment, please. And so again, that's sort of what motivated. That's my motivation for the book. So,   Michael Hingson ** 42:25 so tell me a little bit more, if you would, about the National Disability Center for Student Success. What, what prompted that? What it does, and what have you learned?   Stephanie Cawthon ** 42:36 All right, well, it's funded by the federal government, by the feds, and so they saw a gap in the research related to disabled students in higher education spaces, and they don't know how to support it well. And then they're like, What? What? What are the barriers to success? There's a lot of stories out there, but not a whole lot of actual research based in, you know, foundational research related to what to do and how to improve outcomes for disabled students in higher education. And so that was the motivation for the center, to create a center, a place for that research to happen and then training to also happen. And it's a five year proposal, and we've finished year one just recently, and we are now into the second year, and we'll have 234, and five years. The overarching goal is to do several things. We have some new information to collect about accessibility. Go figure, you know, you know what it looks like like. This is our framework, right? This is what we're doing. My definition that I just shared with you is, is really the framework and the jumping off point as well. And so the real interesting thing about why disabled students choose to disclose or not to disclose that disability, that is a fascinating thing, and it's about half, half of the students will disclose and half will not. So the barriers to perception. What is that like for them when you don't disclose? What do you do, right, and why? Why don't you disclose? And so all of that type of research is critical to change how we even set up accommodations. How does the system get established? What is the disclosure process look like, and it's not just a legal issue, but it's more about an institutional issue, the leadership, the culture of that space, and what that could and should look like. So that's one thing. Another thing that we focus on is really taking a look at how an institute. Institutional at an institutional level, or program level, how the policies and programs are designed for the people it's meant to serve. And so one example that says a real easy one is if a student says, I'd like to apply to that school, is the website accessible? And how do we know? How do we know about the content on the website? How do we determine, is it accessible? Let's say they apply and get in. What is orientation like? Is that accessible? How do people with disabilities experience fully, experience and on campus visit after school, or they go do an on site visit. What is that like for them? So just that kind of thing. It's real interesting getting into those specific pieces of institutional awareness and for their planning purposes and their quote brand, you know the how do they want students to experience them as and how much are they including students with disabilities in that? And later on, we'll be doing some research in terms of the outcomes and careers and job success and such like that. But that's sort of where we're at now in the center.   Michael Hingson ** 46:19 Well, I would think, like most anyone who is doing research, you're, you're studying and being objective, but at the same time, having been a person with a disability your whole life, you probably have some general thoughts as to how things will turn out as you're as you're continuing to to research. But the question that I have is, have you found or have you encountered any real surprises? Have you learned something or discovered something that you thought was a certain way, and turns out it's not so you totally were, were surprised. There   Stephanie Cawthon ** 47:02 was one surprise, and it's that, you know, intersectionality is important, and so and men and women are different. Big surprise there, right? But how they experience a disability also different accessibility and access, different disclosure, again, different and and then also it often depends on other oppressive type experiences or identities. So that that was a surprise. And then another surprise that I remember is that students often go to their instructors and disclose and ask for accommodations without an official letter or an official anything from any sort of university affiliated office, they will just go directly to their professor and say, Hi, I need help. I need access to XYZ. But without going through this system and getting that official piece, they sort of go the roundabout way. And so that was surprising to me as well. Why   Michael Hingson ** 48:13 do you think that is that they take the roundabout approach?   Stephanie Cawthon ** 48:17 I think when it's time sensitive, that's when they're like that. This is what I need. This need has shown up. It's potentially the last week of the semester. The test is today, these sort of things. And the system takes time, right? And so I believe that, yeah, and sometimes months to get these things in place. And so time sensitivity is a big one. And the feeling of safety this one instructor that they can go to. You can pick and choose when to disclose. You don't have to disclose everything right at the beginning and have something in your file that follows you. This is one professor, one time as needed, you know, and it might also be a personal relationship that they've established with that particular instructor in person now they're comfortable. The system is not personal. It is not friendly. It is a system whereas an instructor over time, that is personal. And so a feeling of safety, I think, plays into that.   Michael Hingson ** 49:15 Yeah, one of the things that that I did in college was I took the initiative of going to meet the Chancellor and made an appointment to meet the chancellor of the university, and actually ended up having several conversations with him and meeting some of the other higher End school officials. And I think that was valuable to do because they got to know me as well. But I again, I think I, because of that, made it personal to use your terminology, and I think that makes a lot of sense. So with the grant that you have, what do you expect? To accomplish by the time five years have have gone   Stephanie Cawthon ** 50:04 well, I'm hopeful to have some foundational research in place for some other people to take that and run with it. That's that's what I'm hoping for. In addition to that, develop a measure that is culturally sensitive to disability, and really have that developed and in place a measure of accessibility, and that's really important, because we've got students who have disability who are leading and in the process of leading, and so it's not just me, right? There are many students involved in this effort, and with this grant and center and so, and as peers, they're developing things and so getting those measures in place. Third, really is to raise awareness. You know, disability is there. There are students with disabilities on campus. That's not just an ADA issue. It's not just a legal requirement we need to satisfy. It's more of understanding the culture of the campus and that the culture of disability needs to be included when we talk about diversity and that population, you've got to include disability in that conversation. Yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 51:31 and I would imagine one of the main goals of the grant is to create a vehicle to help raise that awareness.   Stephanie Cawthon ** 51:39 Yes, we've got 30% of our budget, so to speak, is placed for outreach specifically. So yes, we've got that allocated.   Michael Hingson ** 51:53 Well, now you are writing, you mentioned it earlier, a new book. Is this your first book? Or have you written other books? I   Stephanie Cawthon ** 52:00 have, I believe this is book number five for me. Wow. There you go. One of those. My first was not an academic or academia type book, but where, excuse me. This is the first book of all of them that is not academic or academia focused. This is, this is my first one, a little outside of that. So more for a general audience, the general population.   Michael Hingson ** 52:29 What's the name of the new book?   Stephanie Cawthon ** 52:31 Disability is human, and   Michael Hingson ** 52:34 what is well,   Stephanie Cawthon ** 52:36 so sorry, there's more to it, the vital power of accessibility in everyday life.   Michael Hingson ** 52:49 And so what is it mainly about? Or can you tell us a little bit about it? And when will it be released?   Stephanie Cawthon ** 52:54 All right, so the release date is set for September 15. So it's coming up just yesterday that was decided, and they let me know that. So that's a good thing. The book itself is really just trying to give people without disabilities an idea, a concept, an understanding, and some language about kind of navigating the world with a disability and accessibility, you know? And really, it's a it's a way to reduce the fear surrounding all of these things. I mean, that's the key point, really, from the beginning of our conversation, right? It's the fear giving options to make accessibility just a part of the design as we design life. So when people, when you think about your work, your community, your people that you interact with on a daily basis, sporting teams, you name it, it's in there, but about a group of people, and how we think about the disability part of that, the characteristics that define that or that are present there in that group. Things that you can do when a person with disabilities is involved, they typically are. What can you do? So it's a really more of that type of feel, and lots of stories in there, lots and lots of stories and anecdotes, some from me, many from other people, included in in the book. So yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 54:32 who's publishing the book? T,   Stephanie Cawthon ** 54:35 s, p, A, the self publishing agency, okay, it's an amazing group, perfect. And yet my four other books were all published in a traditional way. And I don't have two years to wait for this, but we don't have two years to wait for this, so that's why i. Yep,   Michael Hingson ** 55:02 now you I gather, wrote a workbook to go along with the book. Tell me about the workbook, if you would   Stephanie Cawthon ** 55:09 sure. So just part of my own history is interacting with teaching and teachers and teaching myself, and so I also had a theater background, and so those two things together really helped me sort of figure out how to create activities for people to interact and engage and have some more applicable information to go with it. It's so the workbook gives different options and activities of how to creatively do these things. You could do it alone. You could do it with other people. This workbook and the activity so it could be like a book club experience. It could be a training experience. You know, people maybe want it for professional development in a group setting or in an individual setting. Maybe, let's say, a person's teaching a course and they want to know what to do with their group or their class, this workbook will come in handy for that. And so that's the reason that that I even came out with a workbook. There's some assignment ideas in there. So all kinds of options for that workbook. Well,   Michael Hingson ** 56:23 it sounds exciting, and I'm looking forward to learning about it. And you said it's coming out on September 15. Will there be an audio version of the book? Do you know? Yes,   Stephanie Cawthon ** 56:37 those will be released separate from each other, but yes, there will be an audio version released Cool.   Michael Hingson ** 56:44 Well, I want to thank you for coming and spending an hour with us today. I think it has been fun, and I have definitely enjoyed getting to have a really in depth discussion about the whole issue of disabilities and accessibility and so on. I hope that you have enjoyed it as well. So I really do appreciate you being here, and I hope that those of you listening found this to be valuable as well, and that you learned a lot from Stephanie I did. So we'd love to hear your thoughts. If you would, we'd love to hear any of you who are listening. So if you'll contact us, I would appreciate it. You can reach me at Michael H, I m, I C H, A, E, L, H i at accessibe, A, C, C, E, S, S, I b, e.com, you can also go to our podcast page, which is www.michaelhingson.com/podcast Michael Hinkson, is m, I, C, H, A, E, L, H, I N, G, s, o, n.com/podcast, and wherever you're listening, I hope, especially with this particular episode, give us a five star rating. We value that very highly. And for all of you listening, and Stephanie you as well. If you know of anyone else who ought to be a guest on unstoppable mindset, we would really value highly you letting us know or introducing us, because we're always looking for people who want to come on and help us all recognize that we're more unstoppable than we think we are. So with that, again, I want to thank you for being here. I have enjoyed it, and it's been a pleasure to have you on today. Thank you   Stephanie Cawthon ** 58:21 well. Thank you so much.   Michael Hingson ** 58:27 You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you're there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free eBook entitled blinded by fear. The unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessiBe and is sponsored by accessiBe. Please visit www.accessibe.com . AccessiBe is spelled a c c e s s i b e. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for Listening. Please come back and visit us again next week.

CEO and Creative Director at SeaMonster Studios, Wes Buckwalter manages a small team of geniuses, keeps them paid, and fights for their rights as employees of what he hopes is the best job they've ever had. He advocates for the creativity of my employees and contractors, managing day to day operations, finance, and client relations. SeaMonster Studios have delivered over 1500 websites to clients over the last 18 years. They are a proud Shopify Plus partner and have become a top-tier partner with several app developers within the Shopify ecosystem.Wes started out in the trenches, designing and building websites before a small screen had ever been considered and have continued to champion and pioneer skills in the web and ecommerce fields that gave him a start in this industry.In This Conversation We Discuss: [00:49] Intro[01:50] From early ecommerce venture to a thriving agency[03:19] Navigating the gray areas of ADA & WCAG guidelines[04:48] Balancing site compliance with brand aesthetics[06:06] Compliance as a continuous improvement process[08:08] Accessibility from different user perspectives[09:28] Starting accessibility with thorough site reviews[10:05] Preventing lawsuits with digital accessibility[11:25] Improving awareness on accessibility issues[12:19] Directing legal threats to small Ecommerce sites[14:02] The financial dynamics behind lawsuits[15:29] Parallels between tech fixes & construction audits[16:21] Addressing agency flaws by reviewing past work[17:14] Understanding varying WCAG compliance across states[18:34] Balancing agency & business' responsibility[19:47] Exploring limitations in automated accessibility [21:01] Managing compliance when stacking Shopify apps[22:07] Shopify's limits on compliance control[23:56] Using Shopify's flexibility while avoiding pitfalls[25:39] Combining AI tools and human testing for site fixes[27:26] Accessible Web for efficient compliance scanning[28:39] Restraints in plug-and-play accessibility tools[29:25] Critiquing overlay tools for accessibility issues[30:33] Image descriptions for better user navigation[31:56] Setting standards for product compliance & SEO[33:22] Free site review from SeaMonster StudiosResources:Subscribe to Honest Ecommerce on YoutubeFriendly, full-service digital agency offering data-driven strategy and development seamonsterstudios.com/Follow Wes Buckwalter linkedin.com/in/seamonsterwes/If you're enjoying the show, we'd love it if you left Honest Ecommerce a review on Apple Podcasts. It makes a huge impact on the success of the podcast, and we love reading every one of your reviews!

Eleanor Goldfield hosts this week's show. July 26 marked the 34th anniversary of the signing of the Americans With Disabilities Act. But is the ADA as far-reaching as it should be? Are the large disability-rights organizations keeping too close to the country's ruling institutions and, in doing so, defeating their own professed objectives? In the first segment of the show, Eleanor's guests talk about the limitations of the ADA and the inherent lapses that disability-rights groups make by not confronting the institutions that inflict disabilities and worsen the lives of those already living with disabilities, most notably in Gaza. In the second half, Eleanor and guests discuss the prospect of humans inhabiting Mars: is it a harmless sci-fi concept, or are “astro-colonial” ideas a distraction from the urgency of addressing the climate crisis on planet Earth? Jen Deerinwater and Ezra Star are members of Disability Divest (www.disabilitydivest.org), a collective that demands that “the disability establishment ends its relationships with war profiteers.” Zara Zimbardo is one of the creators of “Marsification” (www.marsification.com), a concept album that explores the idea of inhabiting space and finds it to be a continuation of colonialist ideology.   The post Systemic failure of major disability organizations / What is Marsification? appeared first on KPFA.

Under the Americans With Disabilities Act, businesses are supposed to make their websites accessible to the visually impaired. WSJ's Ruth Simon found that this requirement has led to an explosion of lawsuits, many of which are against small businesses. Further Reading: - The Law Firm Hitting Businesses With Thousands of Disability Suits  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Find out on the Alex Garrett Podcast Network how David Jensen and Elysia Everett Burns are making sports and life more accessible through their app, Friendly Like Me! Find out more about the App here : https://www.friendlylikeme.com/Great conversation with Yankees Twitter member Jacob P.M., about what to expect in 2024. In addition, we go BTS with Jacob about his life off twitter and his public speaking experience discussing his overcoming of cancer.Thanks to Danny Voyes (human_transformer_90 on Instagam) and Derrek Cooke, owner of Derrek's Bags , for joining the Alex Garrett Podcast Nework. Derrek's Bags is an online store you can visit here: https://www.etsy.com/shop/DerreksBags. We talk about Spina Bifida and the love of baseball! I implore to also visit the New York State Spina Bifida Assocation here: https://sbanys.org/Thanks also to Anthony Fitzgerald , Mike Vaccarro, Mary Johnson and Lou Terminello as well as Yankee pitcher Jim Abbott for their discussions surrounding adaptability and Americans With Disabilities Act anniversary!I present to you these conversations in hopes of finding that you are not alone on your journey as well as resources you may not have known about prior to this podcast! Thanks for listening!

Thirty-four years ago today, President George Bush signed into law the Americans with Disabilities Act, the world's first comprehensive declaration of equality for people with disabilities. Our guest today is a young woman with a very special perspective on the doors that were opened, literally, by the ADA, and a painfully special insight into the consequences of inner-city gun violence. Her name is Rolanda “Dolly” Coleman, a soon to be second year law student at Fordham Law School, who was interning this summer with the New York City Criminal Court. Rolanda was only 17 years old and living in public housing in East New York when she was shot three times in a stairwell, paralyzing her and leaving her to navigate life in a wheelchair. Transcript: https://ww2.nycourts.gov/sites/default/files/document/files/2024-07/Rolanda.pdf

The ADA prevents discrimination in public life against those with physical, intellectual and developmental disabilities. Three advocates join us to reflect on what it's changed for life here in Massachusetts and look ahead to what more needs to be done.

Churches and other religious institutions are exempt from the Americans With Disabilities Act. Here's why that's BS.Support the Show.Apply to be a guest: Guest ApplicationWatch my TEDx talk Email badattitudespod@gmail.comFollow @badattitudespod on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok Subscribe ko-fi.com/badattitudespodBe sure to leave a rating or review wherever you listen!FairyNerdy: https://linktr.ee/fairynerdy

"From the EEOC's perspective, whether an employment action, employment decision is made by a human or an algorithm, liability is going to be the same for those companies." "AI tools really have the ability to prevent discrimination, but at the same time, they have the ability to discriminate more than any one individual human being." -EEOC Commissioner Kieth Sonderling. Before we begin- Commissioner Sonderling requested that I share a link to this important report (Algorithms, Artificial Intelligence, and Disability Discrimination in Hiring).  While the report focuses on the Americans With Disabilities Act, the ideas put forth apply directly to employment decision making and is an important missive summarizing the government's position on the relationship between AI and foundational regulation related to concepts such as the ⅘ rule and disparate impact.   Summary: How lucky are we?  My guest for this episode is none other than the grand poobah of employment regulations in the US, EEOC commissioner Keith Sonderling.  The Commissioner has many great attributes that underlie his approach to the creation and enforcement of legislation critical to ensuring everyone gets a fair shake when it comes to employment opportunities.  But I think one of his greatest attributes is his mission to make himself accessible to all channels of media and communication, including humble podcasters such as myself.   In some sense, my big takeaway from our discussion is the idea that the more things change, the more they stay the same. By this I mean that the central tenets of fair and equitable hiring practices are immutable.  While the tools that support employment decision making have, and will continue to become infinitely more complex, ensuring that signals used for hiring decisions are job related, and thus free of systematic differences based on irrelevant factors, is all that matters. The Commissioner and I have a really awesome and enlightening conversation about the evolving landscape of government regulation on AI in hiring. We begin with a discussion about his career trajectory, his insights about the integration of AI within HR practices, and the critical balance needed between innovation and ethical considerations.  We have fun delving into the specifics of current regulatory frameworks, including the seminal Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures and the recent developments in laws such as New York City's Local Law 144.  Commissioner Sonderling shares his perspective that the future of regulation will likely be driven by state initiatives rather than new federal legislation. Takeaways:State-Led Initiatives: Commissioner Sonderling highlights that while the federal government may not introduce new legislation soon, states like New York and California are likely to lead the way in regulating AI in hiring. Employers should stay informed about state laws and consider adopting best practices from these regulations proactively.Navigating a Patchwork Regulatory Environment: With states potentially leading regulatory efforts, HR professionals must prepare to navigate a patchwork of regulations that may vary significantly from one state to another. This emphasizes the need for adaptable compliance strategies.Existing Federal Standards: Even in the absence of new federal legislation, existing laws and standards, such as the EEOC's Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures, still apply to AI-driven employment decisions. Organizations must ensure compliance with these standards to avoid legal pitfalls.Proactive Compliance through Audits: Commissioner Sonderling advises businesses to conduct regular audits of their AI systems to ensure compliance and prevent discrimination. These audits should be thorough and based on relevant data to identify and mitigate any biases in the system.Vendor Responsibility and Data Integrity: The discussion highlights the importance of holding vendors accountable for the AI tools they provide. Employers must ensure that their vendors comply with ethical and legal standards and provide necessary data for compliance checks.  We can expect vendors to be required to participate in 3rd party audits of their tools at some point in the near future.

The Americans With Disabilities Act was signed into law in 1990, but who and what it covers has evolved over the decades. Behavioral health issues, long COVID or other conditions that substantially limit one or more major life activities can fall under the ADA. Joining the podcast are Eve Hill, one of the nation's top disability rights lawyers and the policy and legislative counsel for the U.S. Department of Labor's State Exchange on Employment & Disability or SEED, and Nevada Assemblywoman Tracy Brown-May, who has worked on numerous initiatives to aid those with disabilities. Both joined the podcast to discuss the current state of the ADA.Hill explained how interpretation of the law has changed since the early '90s when she started her law career, how it has been further altered by legislation and the substantial role state legislators can take in their states around the issue. Note that's Hill's personal observations do not represent those of the U.S. Department of Labor.Brown-May explained how her background working with people with disabilities has informed her legislative efforts and her experience with fellow lawmakers who come to her for advice on how to address a disability-related issue in legislation.ResourcesAssemblywoman Tract Brown-May, Nevada LegislatureEve Hill, Brown, Goldstein and LevyState Exchange on Employment & Disability, U.S. Department of Labor

In this episode of the Friends for Life Podcast, we delve into the profound impact of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), a pivotal piece of civil rights legislation in the United States. Designed to eliminate discrimination against individuals with disabilities, the ADA spans several critical areas including employment, public accommodations, government services, telecommunications, and transportation. We explore how the ADA has transformed societal views and infrastructures, from increasing employment opportunities to enhancing physical access through innovative assistive technologies like wheelchair ramps and Braille signage. This legislation not only safeguarded rights but also heralded a new era of inclusion and equality, ensuring that people with disabilities enjoy the same freedoms and opportunities as everyone else. Join us as we discuss the ADA's ongoing legacy of fostering a more inclusive society, where diversity is not just acknowledged but celebrated.

In this episode, we will examine one of the most important pieces of civil rights legislation passed since the 1960s. It was the Americans with Disabilities Act, and it insured for all Americans the basic right to equal access to all of American Life. It is hard to believe that there was actually a day when people with disabilities were forced to stay home, hidden from the rest of society. They were often discriminated against in employment opportunities, in restaurants, and other public places, and they had to figure out how to make do in a world designed to leave them behind. That all changed with the stroke of George H. W. Bush's pen. He pushed for the law and worked to see it passed even though one of his strongest allies, the  American business community was staunchly against it due to the costs it would have to bare.  Strangely, George Bush would have allies in this fight, allies from unlikely sources, and places. He had the help of Senator Tom Harkin, a Democrat from Iowa, whose own brother was deaf, and he would have the help of an old nemesis he had had to battle to find himself in the Presidency at all. His old 1988 primary opponent, Senator Bob Dole of Kansas.  Dole, a veteran of World War 2, had been gravely injured in Italy toward the end of the war. He had lost a kidney, was paralyzed from the neck down for nearly a year, spent 36 months in an Army hospital, and lost the use of his right arm, and some of the feeling in his left hand as a result of his war wounds. Bob Dole had a daily reminder of the sacrifice he and others had made for their country in war. He also knew what it was like to go from being an able bodied person to an American with a Disability, and he wanted to even the playing field for all of  them. Dole wanted to give them the opportunity for a better life and it was through this effort that Bush and Dole would work together for a cause so much larger than themselves.  A cause that has helped millions of disabled Americans forge for themselves the full blessings of American Life. It is quite a story, and we try to tell it from the start to the sunny , hot day in July of 1990 when George H. W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act into law on the White House Lawn with Senators Tom Harkin and Bob Dole by his side. It was an amazing day. But just as the sun set on this amazing accomplishment in domestic civil rights, a war would explode onto the scene on the other side of the world that would demand the President's attention, and set the example on how to handle conflicts every President and leader could learn from.  Iraq would invade Kuwait.   Questions or comments at , Randalrgw1@aol.com , https://twitter.com/randal_wallace , and http://www.randalwallace.com/Please Leave us a review at wherever you get your podcastsThanks for listening!!

 National security expert John Guandolo joins us to explain how the political left is working with jihadis to kill Americans. As the Biden Administration proves again and again that it is incapable of vetting the sea of alien invaders, protection and safety are up to us. John asks: Where are America's men? Where are our warriors? PLUS - in a baffling move - the Biden regime moves to protect prostitutes who knowingly transmit HIV or AIDS by invoking the Americans With Disabilities Act. (BONUS: Don't miss our good news and bad jokes!) 

Host Talaya Dendy discusses a sad and unfortunate incident involving a stage four cancer patient named Andrena McMayo. Andrena was let go by Wayfair while she was on disability, which came as a surprise to her. Talaya shares Andrena's story and highlights the gaps in support and understanding that exist for cancer patients. This episode sheds light on the challenges faced by individuals navigating cancer and emphasizes the importance of awareness and advocacy.✨Highlights from the show:00:01:29 - Andrena McMayo's Story: Job Loss During Cancer00:05:36 - Understanding the Americans with Disabilities Act00:06:44 - The Impact of Cancer on Career and Identity00:09:39 - Reevaluating Life and Career Post-Diagnosis00:13:27 - Strategies for Protecting Your Job00:19:24 - Focusing on What You Can Control

Vadim Mozyrsky is a federal administrative law judge who specializes in disability law. He is a former candidate for Portland City Council, and he helped initiate the lawsuit against the City of Portland on behalf of disabled individuals, arguing that blocking sidewalks violates the Americans With Disabilities Act. He served on the city's charter commission, but resigned from that commission and formed the Partnership for Common Sense Government, urging voters to reject the charter commissioners' recommendations. He is the President of Neighbors West-Northwest, which brings neighborhood associations together in Portland, and he is the Director of the Goose Hollow Neighborhood Association.https://nwnw.org/about-us/our-board/https://x.com/LeslieBienen/status/1696257457331585423?s=20https://www.oregonlive.com/crime/2023/12/man-20-accused-of-selling-fentanyl-laced-pills-to-teen-who-died-of-od-in-ne-portland.html?outputType=amphttps://www.multco.us/board/about-board-meetingshttps://x.com/rationalinpdx/status/1658944569084641280?s=46https://sos.oregon.gov/admin/Documents/irr/2020/044text.pdf

2 Lives - Stories Of Transformation Beth Pizzarello's blindness saved her life in a hurricane when she used her heightened senses to get to safety but she had to figure out a way to help herself before the Americans With Disabilities Act passed and when she didn't qualify for disabilities. 2 Lives “The second begins the moment we realize we have only one.” 2 Lives is created by Laurel Morales. Valerie Shively is the assistant producer. Christian Arnder is our illustrator and website designer. Music from Blue Dot Sessions. Become a 2 Lives patron at https://www.patreon.com/2lives Drop us a note on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. You can learn how to support the show here. Or order merch here. Episode transcripts are posted on our  website. Find out more about Beth Pizzarello and her book at our website.  

This week, Imani and Jess dive into civil procedure (sorry Jess) as they discuss whether the Supreme Court will kick a case that could interfere with enforcement of the Americans with Disabilities Act. They explain what civil rights testers do, what case mootness is, and why the Court should—and probably will—decline to rule in Acheson Hotels v. Laufer on standing.Rewire News Group is a nonprofit media organization, which means Boom! Lawyered is only made possible with the support of listeners like you! If you can, please join our team by donating here.And sign up for The Fallout, a weekly newsletter written by Jess that's exclusively dedicated to covering every aspect of this unprecedented moment.

This week, Imani and Jess dive into civil procedure (sorry Jess) as they discuss whether the Supreme Court will kick a case that could interfere with enforcement of the Americans with Disabilities Act. They explain what civil rights testers do, what case mootness is, and why the Court should—and probably will—decline to rule in Acheson Hotels v. Laufer on standing.Rewire News Group is a nonprofit media organization, which means Boom! Lawyered is only made possible with the support of listeners like you! If you can, please join our team by donating here.And sign up for The Fallout, a weekly newsletter written by Jess that's exclusively dedicated to covering every aspect of this unprecedented moment.

In "Multifaceted Discourse" John discusses various topics and gives shout-outs. Here's a summary of the episode: The humorous and diverse "Multifaceted Discourse" delves into a smorgasbord of subjects, with the usual touch of self-deprecating charm. Being a jazz vocalist is a real thing We saw Kurt Elling & Charlie Hunter at Yoshi's, where they always have a great accessible seating setup It was cool to see a jazz vocalist headliner; they scat on every song Bow Down John dishes out shout-outs, paying homage to a variety of individuals, and even reflects on reaching a milestone 201st episode. Shout out to slartibartfast who loves the production Shout out to Jersey girl, who ideated the blind musicians kfjc special Shout out to Nathan Mary tibby & butters who wrote in to Let me know, this is my 201st episode Shout out to the sandman who said "it's good and reassuring that AI cannot describe your show. Your show is about a specific human experience. I am glad that AI does not understand that yet, it means we still have time" Onus Removed? This could be a moment to rethink the A.D.A.'s framework. The Justice Department could take a larger role in enforcing the law, and Congress could amend the statute to give businesses a window to correct violations. Evelyn Clark We nearly take a thought-provoking turn reading The New York Times' article, "It's Time to Rethink the Americans With Disabilities Act," shedding light on disability-related discussions. Always Protect Yourself A viewing of the film "Million Dollar Baby"; delving into thoughts on body limitations and the pursuit of perfection. As Lennard Davis himself has written, "what is universal in life, if there are universals, is the experience of the limitations of the body". Yet in films like Million Dollar Baby, and seemingly in every other ideological corner, we confront what Davis calls a "fantasy…of the perfection of the body and its activities". We cannot step into this ring alone. Jay Dolmage &William DeGenaro, Ph.D. Submission The episode then takes a poetic turn, inspired by Joe Imwalle. I've submitted my poetry around to some places and that's a lot of fun and disheartening, but I'm more having fun with it. Still need a lift Wheelchair lift issues are ongoing. Book Rundown Book reviews include "2021 Best Sports Writing" anthology, Brandon Taylor's "The Late Americans" and "Biography of a Phantom" by Mack McCormick. Letting AI sum up "Multifaceted Discourse" is a delightful blend of humor, insight, and intrigue.

The ADA demands all kinds of attention, every day—not a once a year pat on the back about "how far we've come." The post Kehsi Iman Wilson on Americans with Disabilities Act appeared first on FAIR.

Show NotesInstructive irony: Evan's disabling experience of setting up a microphone for a podcast interviewThree ways to think about disability: Minority Model (Impairment of Individuals), Social Model (Societal factors create impairment), and Political Model (emerges from collective action and identity; generated from Americans with Disabilities Act)Chronic pain, real sufferingAll three models are important“Look at the arrangement of society—the conditions of possibility that empower our lives or that create obstacles to our flourishing.”How to Speak About Disability 101Care, solidarity, advocacy, and inclusionUnderstanding the ethics of disability through stories: narratives of the body, biblical narratives of healing, and theological storiesAugustine's City of God and moral impurity and the wounds of martyrs as glorified and amplified in resurrected bodiesThe hurt of “fixing” those with disabilitiesDoubting Thomas and exploring the resurrection wounds of ChristStory: Physical disability and amputation“It always starts with thinking about the loss”Hope and possibility through the lossReligion and spirituality as a tool to both help and also a self-critique of the “wholeness” or “normal” narrative.Critiquing the brokenness-wholeness narrative of disability“Drawing attention to the site of divine activity.”Is disability connected to sin?John 9:1-41: Jesus Heals the Man Born BlindSlowness, constancy, unwavering faithStory: Intellectual disability and autismOxana's CymbalsternCymbalstern (or Zimbelstern) is a star-shaped organ stop that makes a clanging, ringing sound during organ playing.Xenophobia, fear of difference, and stigmaCalli reacts to the truism: “There are only two kinds of people: those who are disabled and those who will be disabled.”Visible and invisible disabilities: depression, anxiety, and mental healthAre disabled lives worth living?Story: A surgeon develops multiple sclerosisRadical dependence on othersPower, agency, and interdependency on othersStart with the bare conditions of possibility, and then how those conditions of possibility change when disability emerges?AboutCalli Micale obtained her PhD in Religious Studies at Yale University and MDiv from Princeton Theological Seminary. Her dissertation, "Crip Conversion: On Affect, Disability, and Grace," brings resources from affect theory, feminist theory, and queer/crip theory to bear on questions concerning intellectual disability and the experience of grace. She has presented research at conferences in both the US and the UK. Calli currently serves on the steering committee for the Schleiermacher Unit of the American Academy of Religion. In addition, Calli is an active member of the ELCA. She currently serves as Vice President of Bethesda Lutheran Church in New Haven, and she chairs the church's Mission Endowment Fund Committee. While she regularly preaches in and around New Haven County, over the years her preaching has been heard at a wide-range of locations—from a small island along the Atlantic coast to her hometown in northeastern Wisconsin. In her spare time, you can find Calli enjoying long walks with her daughter, Lily, and their pup, Rosie.Production NotesThis podcast featured Calli MicaleEdited and Produced by Evan RosaHosted by Evan RosaProduction Assistance by Logan Ledman, Macie Bridge, and Kaylen YunA Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/aboutSupport For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/giveThis episode was made possible in part by the generous support of the Tyndale House Foundation. For more information, visit tyndale.foundation.

July 26, 1990. Disability rights activists' achieve a major victory for equality when President George HW Bush signs into law the Americans with Disabilities Act.Go to HistoryDaily.com for more history, daily.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this week's episode of Let's Get Civical, Lizzie and Arden talk about the Americans with Disabilities Act or the ADA! Join them as they talk about who and what it protects, discuss how it was passed with the help of the Capitol Crawl, and take the NYC MTA to TASK!  Follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @letsgetcivical, @lizzie_the_rock_stewart, and @ardenjulianna. Or visit us at letsgetcivical.com for all the exciting updates! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

July 26, 2023, is the 33rd anniversary of the Americans With Disabilities Act. If you're doing the math in your head, let me give you a shortcut: That means the ADA wasn't passed until 1990. 1990?! It took quite a while for Americans with disabilities to officially be named a protected class as neither the 1964 Civil Rights Act nor the 1965 Voting Rights Act included people with disabilities — and the United States still has a long way to go in making our public spaces, businesses and communities truly accessible. In honor of the 33rd anniversary, I wanted to invite a very special guest — Amy Webb — on the podcast to teach us about how to talk to children about disabilities.  Amy is a DREAM guest of mine. She exudes passion for all of the things that she does, and that's just one of the many reasons why I admire her so much. Amy is an artist, writer, mother and creator of the blog This Little Miggy Stayed Home. As the mother of a disabled daughter, she advocates for the disability community through her writing and Instagram platform. She is the author of two children's books. Her first, “When Charley Met Emma,” teaches children about disability, friendship and inclusion and her second book, “Awesomely Emma,” is a sequel that teaches the power of self-advocacy. Amy lives with her husband and three beautiful daughters in Ohio. This interview is full of Amy's thoughts and wisdom, and she teaches us about: Identity first vs. person first language. How to respond when our children point out disabilities. Why it's important to never ever touch someone's wheelchair without asking.  The importance of having a plan for supporting disabled children during emergency situations. How a place is not accessible if a bathroom is not accessible.  What action steps non-disabled people can take when we come to a place that is not accessible. The intricacies of the “just ask” philosophy   Get our resource email to learn more about the ADA July is Disability Pride Month, a time to recognize people with disabilities, their inherent worth and their invaluable contributions, as well as to bring awareness to the ongoing fight for disability rights. July 26 is also the 33rd anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act being signed into law. We put together a resource email to help you learn more about the ADA, how you can get involved in disabilities rights advocacy and for ideas on how you can teach children about disabilities. Head over to firstnamebasis.org/ADA to get the email sent straight to your inbox!   Get your Little Allies Activity Book If you're looking for activities for your kids or students to do that are both fun and meaningful, we've got something for you! Our Little Allies Activity Book is now available! It's basically a coloring book that is focused on allyship, and all the activities are based around anti-racism. The Little Allies Activity Book includes:  Color by number  Protest I Spy  Dot to dot Anti-racist word search  Black history unscramble  And more! Get your hands on it today by heading to firstnamebasis.org/store!   Articles, Studies, & Podcasts Referenced in the Episode Amy Webb's blog, This Little Miggy Stayed Home Amy Webb's Instagram @thislittlemiggy  “When Charley Met Emma,” by Amy Webb “Awesomely Emma,” by Amy Webb

This show is made possible by you!  To become a sustaining member go to LauraFlanders.org/donate  Thank you for your continued support!Description:  The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was passed in 1990, a significant milestone in the fight for civil rights, with a vision of inclusion and respect for people with disabilities. But ableism, or discrimination in favor of able-bodied people, persists, affecting the one in four Americans with a disability. What does ableism mean and why is it still a prominent problem? Anita Cameron and Keith Jones, leaders in the disability rights and disability justice movements, have answers.Cameron, who has been arrested nearly 150 times, participated in the "Capitol Crawl" for the passage of the ADA in 1990 and, later in 2017, she was part of the widely-publicized Rotunda Takeover with the disability advocacy group, ADAPT, to protest proposed Medicaid cuts. Her influential writings shed light on topics like ableism in media and the intersection of ableism and mental health. She currently heads the Minority Outreach at "Not Dead Yet", an organization committed to fighting ableism, or discrimination veiled as physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia of persons with disabilities.As an African-American activist, entrepreneur, and father living with cerebral palsy, Keith Jones advocates for quality independent living for persons with disabilities. He also strives for equal access to housing, education, and voting rights - for all. In addition to his human rights work, Jones is the founder of SoulTouchin' Experiences and has earned an Emmy award for his song "Rising Phoenix," a documentary about the Paralympic Games. This far-ranging feature, timed to coincide with the signing of the ADA on July 25, 1990, concludes with a commentary by Flanders.“The lives of people with disabilities are so regulated, we don't have true autonomy. I can guarantee you that the access to healthcare, reproductive rights and all of that, we disabled women have to fight for that access anyway.” - Anita Cameron“They like to either say, you're disabled or you're a woman, you're disabled or you're queer, you're disabled or you're Black. That's not the case. We are an intricate mosaic of identities.” - Keith JonesGuests:Anita Cameron: Disability Justice Activist; Director of Minority Outreach, Not Dead YetKeith Jones: Human Rights & Disability Justice Activist; President, SoulTouchin' Experiences Full Episode Notes are located HERE.  They include related episodes, articles, and more.Music In the Middle:   “So Hip Hop” by Fezo de Mad One featuring Toni Kickman courtesy of the artist and Soul Touchin' Experiences.  And additional music included- "In and Out" and "Steppin" by Podington Bear FOLLOW The Laura Flanders ShowTwitter: twitter.com/thelfshow Facebook: facebook.com/theLFshow Instagram: instagram.com/thelfshow/YouTube:  youtube.com/@thelfshow ACCESSIBILITY - This episode is available with closed captioned by clicking here for our YouTube Channel

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Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes was convicted of seditious conspiracy, in the highest-profile Capitol-attack case yet. CNN has the story. NBC reports on how top Democrats in the House are stepping down from key posts to make way for younger politicians, and how House Republicans are battling over who will lead them when they take over the chamber. Decades after the Americans With Disabilities Act became law, many people with disabilities say much of medical care is still inaccessible to them. The Atlantic and Undark detail the problems. Our soccer podcast After the Whistle With Brendan Hunt and Rebecca Lowe looks at how the U.S. team’s narrow win over Iran has kept the Americans in the tournament.