Accessibility in the News — 3/11/2022.

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“I want somehow to tell the story of how the dispossessed become possessed of their own history without losing sight, without forgetting the meaning or the nature of their journey.” ― Sherley Anne Williams

The Guild for Human Services

Feature Stories

ADA lawsuits skyrocketing, website accessibility requirements not followed

March 5, 2022 | Source: RV Travel

Owning and operating a campground has never been a piece of cake. The same holds true for most small businesses, but campground owners had the added burden of dealing with weather, natural disasters, and a mostly seasonal/transient labor force. Now, you can add legal liability for their website content to the liability list, thanks to skyrocketing ADA lawsuits. For the past few years, the number of Americans with Disabilities Act Title III (ADA) lawsuits related to U.S. websites has skyrocketed…

As the Winn-Dixie Saga Finally Concludes in Florida, 181 Advocacy Groups Urge DOJ to Issue Website Accessibility Regulations

March 7, 2022 | Source: Seyfarth Shaw

Landmark ADA Case Leaves More Questions Than Answers on Website Obligations

March 9, 2022 | Source: Akerman LLP

On March 2, 2022, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals denied Winn-Dixie’s request that the full panel of judges reconsider a single Eleventh Circuit judge’s order dismissing the appeal and district court proceeding as moot. This ends what had been an over-six year saga in one of the most-watched website accessibility cases in the country. Here’s your Cliffs Notes version of this drama: In June 2017 a Florida federal trial court ruled in favor of the blind plaintiff, finding Winn-Dixie’s inaccessible website violated the ADA, holding Winn-Dixie responsible for third party content on its website…

National News (U.S.)

Here’s What I Want You To Know Before You Grieve For My Disabled Body

March 1, 2022 | Source: HuffPost

“Don’t look it up,” the white coat cautioned, “it will scare you.” Their eyes glued to the floor, my doctors tried to convey the severity of pain levels, survival rates and lack of treatments for a rare disabling condition to my preteen self. Something I’d never heard of ― now what I embodied ― held the keys to unlocking what my future might contain. My brain was a whirl of medical terminology I never knew I needed. Allodynia. Hyperalgesia. Malfunction of the nervous system. Learning the language of a rare medical condition feels like getting punched in the gut with a Latin dictionary…

Community college district won’t take disability case to Supreme Court following protests

March 3, 2022 | Source: LA Times

Responding to intense protests from the disability community, the Los Angeles Community College District’s Board of Trustees has backed down from appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court over a lawsuit filed by two blind students claiming they were denied equal access to education. During a closed session meeting Wednesday night, the board voted unanimously ahead of a deadline to direct its lawyers to refrain from appealing to the high court over the 2017 lawsuit and to continue instead with mediation…

For The Disabled Community, The Pandemic Has Had Hidden Costs

March 4, 2022 | Source: HuffPost

Two years of pandemic life have forced Crystal Evans to “play pharmacist.” “I’ve been dealing with constant medical supply shortages through COVID,” said the 40-year-old, who has a genetic neuromuscular disease and a spinal cord injury from an accident. Evans uses a ventilator and a wheelchair, but she’s had trouble finding supplies for both. A shortage of ventilator supplies means she’s had to use some equipment longer than she should, resulting in painful airway infections…

South Jersey Nonprofit Jumps Into Action To Build Wheelchair-Accessible Bathroom For Special Needs Man

March 5, 2022 | Source: CBS Philly

A group of contractors spent their Saturday making badly needed repairs at the home of a South Jersey couple. Hammering away at what will soon be a renovated wheelchair-accessible bathroom. “We’re going to make a full shower accessible that way a wheelchair can get in here,” Scott D’Antonio, of Hometown Heroes for Special Needs, said. Ray Rowand has been married to Debbie for six years. Within a year of tying the knot, a slew of health issues began. “Four strokes, colon cancer, C. diff, a super pubic catheter,” Debbie said…

New restrictions causing roadblocks for voters with disabilities

March 5, 2021 | Source: ABC

Don Natzke, who lost his sight at age 12, says still being able to vote has played a pivotal role in his life. “It’s true of all citizens, but certainly for people with disabilities, the people who are making the policies are very important to us,” he told ABC News. “For example, what my community chooses to do to have accessible transportation available affects how I’m able to move around my community.” Natzke, who is now retired, grew up in Wisconsin and says the only way he could vote was to appear at a polling place and have someone read, mark and cast the ballot for him…

DOJ, Travis County agree to bring polling places to ADA standards

March 8, 2022 | Source: KXAN & Austin American-Statesman

The U.S. Department of Justice announced Tuesday it has come to an agreement with Travis County to address issues with accessibility to voters with disabilities. Ashley C. Hoff, an attorney for the Western District of Texas, said the DOJ investigated the county in regards to its “compliance with Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability by a state or local government in any of its programs or services.”…

Employee can bring disability claim against company

March 8, 2022 | Source: Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly

An employee whose Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder was triggered by confined spaces and stressful situations could bring a disability bias claim over her employer’s alleged failure to provide her with a private office with a window, a U.S. magistrate judge has decided. Plaintiff Jennifer Lee Rivera, a clerical employee for defendant Altranais Home Care, was initially permitted to work out of the rarely used office of the company’s co-owner, Shakira Lubega. After her boyfriend was murdered, the plaintiff suffered further psychological trauma and was allegedly permitted to continue to use Lubega’s office on a temporary basis…

Start with hi: A primer in getting comfortable talking to people with disabilities

March 8, 2022 | Source: The Herald-Times

Sometimes when I speak to groups, particularly groups of young people without disabilities, about my life and my experiences, I get the feeling that many of them — most of them even — are genuinely interested and curious about my everyday situation and what life is like for me. However, during the question-and-answer portion at the end of each speaking engagement, they are not always so forthcoming. Earlier this year, I did some research into what, from a scholarly standpoint, leads people to feel awkward or uncomfortable around people with disabilities…

An idea for advancing transit equity through increased accessibility

March 8, 2022 | Source: GreenBiz

Over 46 million people in the United States are underserved by traditional forms of public transit. Most of us who live in San Francisco are fortunate to have a wide variety of transportation options at our disposal. We have a top-ranked public transportation system, with buses running all over the city every five to 10 minutes, an expansive train network and probably every ride-hailing platform available in America. It’s easy to take for granted the ability to catch any form of transportation we want to take, whenever we want it…

Take accessibility standards to new levels in hotel design

March 8, 2022 | Source: The Caterer

With the Covid-19 crisis far from over, it may seem like an odd time to be talking about opening new hotels. But with both Hotel Telegraph – which will be making headlines in Coventry in October, and Hotel Brooklyn – a new ‘lair’ in Leicester scheduled for early 2022, Bespoke Hotels is aiming to take accessibility standards to new levels. And for those familiar with the disabled world, there is no time like the present. Several months of lockdown have given able people an unprecedented insight into how it feels to have your freedoms restricted, every hour of every day…

Biden’s HHS Pushes ‘Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Accessibility’ Agenda to Racialize Government

March 9, 2022 | Source: The Daily Signal

The Department of Health and Human Services is creating a “strategic plan” to advance goals for “diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility” in the federal workforce, according to an internal document obtained by The Daily Signal. The strategic plan at HHS, implemented in response to Biden’s executive order in June 2021, will build on existing diversity initiatives already in line with administration policy. Because HHS is the largest grant-making agency in the federal government, awarding more dollars than all other agencies combined, its final strategic plan to increase diversity likely will influence who or what entities will be awarded grants in the future…

Federal Judge Strikes Down Indiana’s Mandatory Absentee Voter Traveling Board as Discriminating against Voters with Disabilities for May 2022 Election

March 10, 2022 | Source: Disability Rights Advocates & Tribune-Star

Yesterday, the Honorable Jane Magnus-Stinson of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana struck down Indiana’s rule that absentee voters who could not independently mark their own ballot may vote absentee by mail only by appointment with a “traveling board” of elections officials in the May 2022 election. The traveling board rule was the most restrictive in the country for voters with disabilities and had resulted in at least one voter being unable to cast a ballot in the November 2020 Presidential Election because a traveling board never came to her home to help her vote…

When suing a theater festival over accessibility didn’t work, a Utah school official started her own

March 10, 2022 | Source: The Salt Lake Tribune

Michelle Tanner was looking for a way for deaf students in Utah to experience the theater — and when suing the state’s most prestigious theater festival didn’t work, she decided to start her own. That’s how the National Deaf High School Theatre Festival — marking its second year, but its first with in-person performances — got its start. The festival runs Thursday through Saturday in Salt Lake City. The festival will draw students, ages 14-18, from 10 schools around the country — including from Texas, Minnesota and Oklahoma — to perform theater, as well as dancing, storytelling and visual vernacular…

The Car-Free City Movement Could Lead to More Accessible Cities

March 10, 2022 Source: MotorBiscuit

The invention of cars revolutionized modern transport, making it easier to move out and about. Nowadays, cars have become a must-have, with thousands of these contraptions dominating the urban outlook in most cities worldwide. However, while vehicles have improved transportability, vehicle emissions have also brought about undesired impacts on the environment, such as air and noise pollution, in addition to congestion that impedes movement. Based on these challenges, a small but developing number of cities have decided to cut down on cars by designing car-free urban landscapes…

This eye clinic was designed specifically for people with low vision

March 10, 2022 | Source: Fast Company

When Casey Eye Institute set out to build its new Elks Children’s Eye Clinic in Portland, Oregon, the institute’s director, Dr. David Wilson, knew that for the patients he was serving, it had to be a different kind of building. “We, as a culture, have determined that vision at the level of 20/40 is what we’re going to design to,” Wilson says, of a vision level considered to be slightly worse than the 20/20 average. Though that level works fine for most people, those with vision impairments or vision loss—the exact people coming to an eye clinic—will have a harder time seeing and navigating their way through a space…

American Sign Language Duet: The change starts with us – educate, listen, empower

March 10, 2022 | Source: Daily Evergreen

Discrimination happens all around us. Most of the time, we are unaware of unjust or prejudiced treatments because we do not personally experience them, but it still exists. Many of you are familiar with discrimination based on race, age and sex, but there are other types of discrimination. One is audism. In his 1975 doctoral dissertation, Tom L. Humphries coined the term audism: the belief that one is superior to another based on their ability to hear or act in a manner consistent with someone who can hear…

A Quiet Place Part II star Millicent Simmonds: ‘Deaf people don’t want to be seen as victims’

March 10, 2022 | Source: iNews

Growing up in Utah, Millicent Simmonds loved video games, hiking, cycling, the frogs and lizards outside her house and playing with her pet rat, Spot. Her dislikes? “Anything that was labelled girly.” Yet, today her job requires a fair bit of Hollywood glamour, including posing on the red carpet alongside co-stars such as Julianne Moore and Emily Blunt. Helpfully, now she’s 19, she’s no longer quite so revolted by the idea of a bit of nail varnish. Besides, there’s another side to the pageantry. “Now people come up to me and they say: ‘I want to be like you. I feel like I see myself represented’…

Jack Fact — According to the World Health Organization, over 1 billion people live with some form of disability globally or about 15% of the population. That number is increasing rapidly due to a rise in chronic health conditions and population aging. The WHO also predicts that almost everyone is likely to experience some form of disability, temporary or permanent, at some point in life.

Hit The Road Jack — ‘We take care of family’: When accessible travel is hard to find, families forge their own paths& Acadia study shows need for improved accessibility

International News

Great abs, but killer music: Can a gym workout destroy your hearing?

March 5, 2022 | Source: The Jerusalem Post- Israel

There is a lot of noise in gyms; from different electronics blaring music, from people working out, from background music or music people listen to through headphones to drown out external sounds. Many group classes such as spinning, aerobics or Zumba use high-volume music to stimulate people, averaging 93 decibels. The problem is that exposure to such volume for 60 minutes can impair hearing. A 2019 study conducted at Hadassah College in Jerusalem found that the average noise level in gyms was 95 decibels and an online survey found that 41% of people working out were aware that the volume of music was too high…

This is how to make travel in New Zealand more accessible

March 6, 2022 | Source: Stuff- New Zealand

After becoming disabled in 2019, it struck me how often people underestimated me after seeing my disability. Amazed that I could drive, or do basic things like grocery shopping for myself, people seemed to be constantly underestimating exactly what I am capable of. In the same way, I think the tourism industry may be underestimating disabled people as potential clientele for all sorts of tourism activities, with one in four New Zealanders experiencing some kind of disability…

More than 80 bus stops across Canberra to get an accessibility face lift

March 6, 2022 | Source: Riotact- Australia

Just over 80 bus stops around Canberra will be upgraded, improved or constructed throughout the year as part of the government’s commitment to ensuring the transport network is accessible to all Canberrans including the elderly and people with a disability. Council on the Ageing (COTA) ACT CEO Jenny Mobbs warmly welcomed the news of the upgrades given public transport often plays a vital role in the lives of many senior Canberrans. “As older people are challenged by mobility issues, any level path is better than what we’ve seen in the past,” she said…

As war rages, Paralympics open in Beijing without Russia

March 6, 2022 | Source: KTUL- China

Winter Paralympics: The lowdown on being disabled in China

March 4, 2022 | Source: BBC- China

IPC vying for change with accessibility overhaul in Beijing

March 6, 2022 | Source: InsideTheGames- China

Excellence in accessibility to leave lasting legacy

March 7, 2022 | Source: China Daily- China

IPC specialist: Beijing 2022 sets bar on accessibility

March 7, 2022 | Source: CGTN- China

Ukrainian athletes are dominating the Paralympics, despite the uncertainty at home

March 8, 2022 | Source: NPR- China

Beijing 2022 Paralympics Winter Games: Equality and Respect makes Accessibility

March 10, 2022 | Source: China.org.cn

The Winter Paralympics opened Friday in Beijing with the Russian athletes sent home, the Ukrainian team escaping a war zone to get to China and an impassioned call for peace. Andrew Parsons, the president of the International Paralympic Committee, declared his horror at the fighting in Ukraine and called on world authorities to promote peace. “Tonight, I want, I must begin with a message of peace,” Parsons said in brief remarks to the athletes and spectators at the Bird’s Nest stadium…

Expert Opinion: Aberdeen specialist on glaucoma, its signs and treatments

March 7, 2022 | Source: The Press and Journal- UK

Around 80 million people worldwide have glaucoma and, unaware of the signs, many find themselves facing gradual “silent blindness”. The irreversible eye condition affects around 500,000 people in the UK, and this number is predicted to soar to more than 700,000 by 2035. Today marks the start of World Glaucoma Week, with campaigns globally raising awareness of the signs and treatments for the illness. Aberdeen ophthalmologist Sudipto Bhatta, who has 18 years of experience, says he often speaks to patients who aren’t aware they are already suffering the effects of glaucoma…

Over the bar

March 7, 2022 | Source: Modern Ghana

Yes, exactly, that is the term commonly used by sports commentators, particularly in football commentaries. Upon hearing the phrase (over the bar,) many minds are averted to the situation where soccer players strike the round object high above the goal post. I am sure you are nodding your head now, of course; you are right. But in this context, we are paying attention to the situation where our colleagues, persons with disabilities maneuver their way around obstacles and can rise high above impediments in their paths…

Teacher from Leeds goes viral on TikTok for British Sign Language lessons viewed over 100,000 times

March 7, 2022 | Source: Yorkshire Evening Post- UK

Peter Bracchi, 56, is a qualified teacher of British Sign Language and Deaf Awareness. Disappointed due to the Covid pandemic putting a halt to his teaching, Peter – from Kippax – set out on finding a new way to reach people with his interactive lessons. Despite “not knowing the platform existed” until recently Peter set up his TikTok page in early January, 2022. Since then, his “Deaf Peter” account has soared, with thousands of people tuning in daily for their latest lesson snippet on a new word or phrase…

Millions with disabilities ‘abandoned’ in Ukraine, charities fear

March 8, 2022 | Source: Independent- Ukraine

Millions of people with disabilities are feared to be “abandoned” in Ukraine as aid organisations warned that few are reaching the borders. Charities trying to help people with disabilities, particularly those with learning disabilities, within Ukraine have told The Independent there has been a “frightening […] black hole” of information about these groups. More than a million Ukrainians have crossed the border to flee the country since the start of the Russian onslaught last week, but fears are mounting that some are struggling to get out, including many disabled people…

New accessibility duties for federal employers in Canada

March 8, 2022 | Source: Ius Laboris- Canada

From 31 December 2022, federal public sector employers in Canada will have new duties in relation to making workplaces accessible. These duties will extend to private sector employers in June 2023 and June 2024, with the timing dependent on number of employees. On 13 December 2021, the Accessible Canada Regulations (SOR/2021-241) came into force. These Regulations set out obligations for federally regulated employers under the Accessible Canada Act (the ‘Act’), including obligations to prepare and publish accessibility plans, descriptions of feedback processes, and progress reports…

City accessibility policy needs awareness and enforcement, advocates say

March 10, 2022 | Source: Taproot Edmonton- Canada

The city has not taken sufficient action to enforce the accessibility policy council passed in 2019, nor has it educated Edmontonians about it enough, say two members of Edmonton’s accessibility advisory committee. “There’s a sense of not being able to enjoy your city as much as the next person,” said Zachary Weeks, a disability advocate and accessibility consultant who was involved in the creation of Policy C602. Fellow committee member Crystal Jones agrees. “A lot of work went into this policy. A lot of people, especially disabled people, were consulted on this…

What colour is this? What colour is that? Do you see in black & white?

March 10, 2022 | Source: The Badger- UK

It is common knowledge that red and green are the definitive antagonistic colours to represent many aspects in our daily lives. Yet, this acceptance seems extraordinary when 1 in 12 men (and 1 in 200 women) have difficulty distinguishing between the two colours. I was born with deuteranomaly – the inability to see certain hues of green, due to the lack of certain colour-sensitive cells (cones) in my retina. This also has the added consequence of my eye not being able to differentiate some shades of green from red – hence the collective name red-green colour blindness…

Ray of hope to treat corneal blindness

March 11, 2022 | Source: Telangana Today- India

An ongoing study by researchers from multiple scientific institutions in Hyderabad holds promise for millions of patients suffering from corneal blindness and even has the potential to resolve the perennial shortage of corneas needed for transplantation. In the ground-breaking research, scientists from Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), LV Prasad Eye Institute (LVPEI) and IIT-Hyderabad have developed a unique biomimetic corneal hydrogel, made up of discarded human corneas, which can be used to treat corneal scarring, a major cause of corneal blindness…

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