Bill Frezza And The ADA

Feedback and Frezza's Response

For instance, Mr. Frezza calls the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) "an act of charity that has become a swelling tithe, enriching class-action lawyers quick to feast on vague legislation promoting poster-child plaintiffs." Quite the contrary, the ADA, and its complementary Workforce Investment Act (WIA), recognize that disabilities are a condition of life that nearly all people will experience rather than drawing an imaginary distinction between "us," people who do not currently have a disability, vs. "them," those who do.

It would seem that Frezza clings to the archaic paternalistic notion of "handicap" derived from the "cap in hand" stereotype of people with disabilities as beggars (i.e. "unfortunates"). Moreover, he embellishes it by referring to "lawyers ready to feast." The Dickensian caricature would have been complete if he had only thrown in a little more snow.

Equal access to all does indeed entail initial costs as did eliminating slavery, granting voting rights to women and abolishing segregation. One must agree that the benefits of these actions far exceed those costs. The "$26 billion-a-year procurement power of the federal government" is not a threat nor designed "to strike fear into the hearts of IT vendors." It is an opportunity. Engineering systems software and hardware with maximum flexibility for end-users is not a new idea in R&D.

Frezza states that vendors that don't conform to the Architectural Board's specifications for procurement "won't be allowed to sell equipment or services to the federal government." Absurd. Those vendors who meet the specifications will have a competitive advantage.

To be sure, R&D is expensive. As argued by NASA, technologies developed with one purpose in mind readily provide unforeseen benefits to all. Curb cuts on sidewalks help people with strollers as well as those who use wheelchairs. Technological curb cuts on the Information Highway will inevitably have their benefit.

Moreover, such costs are the consequence of miss-steps in our journey to form a more perfect union. It is not "them" vs. "us." In the U.S., there is no "them" only us, i.e. one people with freedom and justice for all. No Mr. Frezza - the sky is not falling. The barriers to equal access are.

Stephen A. Spillane
Learning & Training Specialist
Centerville, Mass.

I am surprised after reading your article on the ADA "stalking" the Internet that you feel so intensely that making Web sites accessible is such a burden.

As for the big companies like Yahoo and AOL -- they need simply to realize that the ADA is a civil rights law. Just as you would be up in arms if for some reason African-Americans or Hispanic Americans or women were somehow categorically denied access to the Internet, so you should be writing supportive information about accessibility of Web sites so that people with vision difficulties or blindness can access the same information that you as a sighted person can.

Large Internet companies cannot be so ignorant of the law as to be ignoring their responsibility -- do you not think they are working on it? Of course they are.

Do you not realize the boost to our economy when sightless people are able to go back to work (and often work from home) and get off welfare? A society which mandates the opportunity for full participation is a society which believes that all men are created equal -- you would denigrate that belief?

I am saddened by your scenario of what will happen if these companies are required to make their Web sites accessible -- a proliferation of cases "enriching class-action lawyers." Perhaps you would be interested to know that it is not even necessary to retain a lawyer to file an ADA discrimination complaint, and, in fact, most people do not. You should know also that the ADA does not allow a private individual bringing a lawsuit to receive general, compensatory damages, including damages for pain and suffering, or punitive damages, as you stated in your article.

Nothing in the ADA, however, precludes a plaintiff from also suing under a state law for emotional distress or other money damages. Because you did not make that distinction in your article, you have left multitudes of people with the impression that the "millions in damages" can come from damages awarded under the ADA, when that is not the case; it is the case that any large damages awarded would be as a result of filing the case under some existing state law.

I must tell you that your reference to "vague legislation" in my opinion reflects a misunderstanding of the intent of the ADA. What seems "vague" to you does in fact allow each complaint to be handled on a case-by-case basis.

Disabilities are different for each affected person; what works for one person with a disability may not work at all for another person with that same disability. For example, two profoundly hard of hearing individuals with identical otological profiles may compensate in different ways based on their upbringing, one using sign language exclusively, whereas the other may speak and read lips. To write a law which will protect all persons with disabilities cannot be written narrowly.

You may wish to access www.w3.org/wai to find complete guidelines and a checklist for making a Web site accessible -- it's just NOT that difficult to do if you can be a creative thinker. Another site, www.cast.org/bobby, will check any Web site for you and tell you what needs to be done to make it accessible.

Denise M. Spielman
ADA Program Coordinator
Independent Living Resources
Portland, Ore.

I have just read your article and although I am sure it was not your intent, I found it offensive and misleading. My husband and I are both totally blind. We have been gainfully employed our entire adult years and have paid taxes accordingly. We do not ask for charity with regards to accessing Web sites; we are asking for equal opportunity to access information, entertainment and other online services provided to non-disabled persons.

For the first time in the history of mankind, the blind have the opportunity to acquire information via the Internet alongside of, and with the relative ease as, our sighted counterparts.

We can take advantage of this opportunity only if the information available is presented in understandable and navigable language. I would like you to imagine yourself accessing Web sites written in a foreign language that you cannot read or understand and that have no helpful pictures to guide you through the maze of incomprehensible language. I would like you to further imagine that you encounter this barrier to obtaining information you seek not just rarely but the majority of the time. We, the blind, do not have to imagine such a situation as it is the situation we find ourselves in more often than not.

I suggest that instead of spreading fear of non-compliance throughout the Internet, that you investigate and disseminate what web masters must do to ensure their web sites are accessible to everyone.

Doris Fisher
Bellflower, Calif.

Your discriminatory melodramatic writing notwithstanding, the sad fact is that your facts are not correct. The very basis of your reasoning is based on fear-mongering, hysteria, and obviously a real desire to keep people with disabilities out of the mainstream of society and on the public dole. More importantly, the basis of your article is technically incorrect.

The part of the ADA that covers private Web sites does not even allow suit for monetary damages or penalties. The best we can get, to avoid or discourage discrimination of the type you so readily embrace, is injunctive relief - that means a judge tells people like you to stop discriminating, but doesn't force you to pay.

People who don't buy the hate-mongering you push know that making the web accessible is not that difficult, isn't expensive, and is necessary for our country to be as great as we all know it can be.

We in the disability nation will not allow you or any other ignorant bigots to keep us from achieving the same American dream that you seem to believe is your birthright alone.

Jim Beck
Program Coordinator
State of Alaska
Division of Vocational Rehabilitation
Assistive Technology and Business Development
Anchorage, Alaska

I am aware that law suits over discrimination because of lack of compliance to the ADA are occurring more frequently than necessary. People are always going to sue for unreasonable amounts and for any conceivable reason they can come up with. Desegregation of public buildings and schools and even affirmative action was mandated to reduce racial discrimination and maybe at times that went a bit too far.

But if those anti-discrimination laws were not put into effect, what kind of progress would have been made in the last 50 years? Would there have been as much achieved? I am a blind person and do not think that having access to the internet or schools or industry should be considered a special privilege which I should have to beg someone to give me. I should have the right as a customer to have my bills in an accessible form or be able to use my computer just as someone with sight does. I will concede that I may have to pay more money to receive some of the things I need to do the same things as a non-disabled person does. But the ADA is necessary to make progress toward the goal of equal opportunities and access for the disabled. I am a tax payer, too, and feel that I'd rather see some of my money go toward paying for equality for all people than a lot of other projects the government pays for. Litigation is not the best method but it is better than nothing.

Marcie Brink

For your information many disabled are productive members of society whose tax dollars are just as good as yours. Furthermore, the ADA has made it possible for a lot more disabled to become productive, contributing members instead of living on the "charity."

Marti McCuller
CEO
Agassa Technologies
Chelmsford, Mass.

Frezza Responds

I apologize for this group response but the volume of pure hate mail I got over this column makes it impossible to respond to each of you individually, as I normally do. (I haven't seen anything this vitriolic since I suggested that Ham radio operators surrender some of their underutilized frequencies for auction.)

Let me start from the top. I write op-ed pieces that discuss the impact of the Internet on industry, the economy and society. All of these are composed from what would be called a strong libertarian viewpoint. These columns express my views and are not necessarily those of the editors of InternetWeek or my partners at Adams Capital. Notwithstanding the desire of some of you to get an injunction against me writing columns, we still live in a country where it remains legal to express one's opinion, however politically incorrect. I do hope that this doesn't change any time soon or I will have to find another country to relieve me of my tax dollars. :)

I understand and appreciate the point of view of the many blind and handicapped readers who wrote to me telling me how important the Internet has become to their quality of life and their productivity at work. The fact that we are communicating with each other at all is a testament to the tremendous progress we have made, progress that I am absolutely sure will continue. I don't have to be blind to understand this, so all of you who expressed a desire to poke my eyes out as punishment for the audacity of speaking my mind need to consider what this says about your moral fiber.

For those of you who don't know me at all, let me share this tidbit. I served as a director of a company for three years whose main product is providing wireless Email for the deaf as a practical alternative to cellphones. This was an extremely gratifying experience and an example of what the private market can do all by itself, without government mandates or coercion. My only payment was the gratitude of the people we helped. I also have a handicapped son, but that's another story. Do I consider him unfortunate? I sure do, but thanks to a number of greedy pharmaceutical companies, he can live a nearly normal life - if you consider poking yourself with a needle five times a day normal. I sure hope these pharmaceutical companies are allowed to keep making enormous profits because maybe someday they will find a cure.

So don't call me a handicapped hater, that's way out of line. What we clearly disagree on are the philosophical premises under which it is proper to use the police power of the state to advance the ends of any particular special interest at the expense of the general interest. If you read my column carefully you will see that it is not anti-handicapped, it is anti-government. All of my columns are anti-government, so please don't think I've singled out the handicapped or their advocates for special treatment. It was merely your turn.

The analogy that many of you have made comparing the ADA to civil rights legislation is a very good one. Civil rights legislation did two things, one good and one bad (in my humble opinion). The good thing the civil rights movement did was guarantee equal treatment before the law regardless of race, creed, or nowadays sexual orientation. The bad thing it did was create a whole new class of positive rights or entitlements, quite different in form and substance from the negative rights embodied in the first ten amendments to the constitution. ("Congress shall make no law that ..." is a negative right. It imposes no costs on others. "The right to healthcare..." is a positive right. Positive rights, which can only be had at someone else's expense, tend to evolve into forced charity.)

For example, it was entirely just, good and proper to eliminate de jure segregation of public schools. This is consistent with the constitution. Imposing affirmative action quotas on private employers, however, merely compounds injustice. I believe it is wrong. A majority of the electorate is finally coming around to that view, though it took quite a long time to figure out that affirmative action was a failure.

Since blind people have money extracted from them at the point of a gun by the government (we'll call these taxes), it is entirely appropriate that they should be accommodated when they receive government services. I have no argument with this, and neither does my column. If the government wants to go about achieving this objective in a ham-handed manner by suddenly halting all computer purchases until some new standard of "equal" accessibility is achieved, that's fine with me. I'm in favor of anything that creates gridlock in Washington. Have at it.

I disagree most vehemently when the ADA is used to dictate accessibility standards to non-government organizations as this should be a matter of private choice. If Joe's Deli wants to put in a wheelchair ramp, that should be up to Joe. Feel free to educate Joe on the virtues of accommodating the handicapped. Go ahead and organize a boycott of his deli if he doesn't see the light. But when you show up with guns and clubs and try to shut down his business, I am going to consistently take Joe's side.

Got that?

For a more thorough treatment of this point of view as it relates to the ADA, see Handicapping Freedom: The Americans with Disabilities Act -- www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/reg18n2e.html. If you can't understand and respect this point of view, even while disagreeing with it, then you have no right to expect me to respect your point of view. In that case, we have no recourse but to duke it out in the political marketplace, seeing who can buy more votes to control the guns and clubs wielded by the state. I write provocative columns because it's cheaper than buying congressmen, who never stay bought anyway. If you don't like my column, don't read it. If you want to speak out yourself, get your own column. It's a free country.

The big difference between us is I don't want to force anyone to do anything against their will, and you do. Give it your best shot, but don't expect my moral sanction.

Regards,

Bill Frezza