Month: June 2021

Categories
Accessibility

CONTESTS: Breaking the Six-Inch Reach Barrier

Gas Pump

Over a trillion photographs are taken every year. And on an average day, 95 million photos are uploaded on Instagram and more than 300 million photos are uploaded on Facebook. Mobile phones’ were estimated to account for 89% of these photos in 2020, only 20 years after the first mobile phone with a built-in camera was introduced.

So let’s be counted in the trillion and celebrate National Camera Day on June 29th and Social Media Day on June 30th. Have some summer fun and enter the photo and/or social media contests running in July and August.

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But instead of taking typical photos, focus on the independence people with dwarfism—and half a million others with reach disabilities—gained when the six-inch reach barrier was broken on October 8, 1997. Submit photos of yourself, or someone you know in this population, independently using an ATM, self-serve gas pump, elevator, bathroom faucet, doorbell, cashier point of sale, or anything that is touch activated. And follow the contest specs outlined below.

PHOTO CONTEST

  1. GRAND PRIZE: US$100 digital Amazon gift card and a free e-book of “Always An Advocate: Champions of Change for People with Dwarfism and Disabilities.”
  2. Contestants must own the rights to the photo and can be either the model, photographer, or both.
  3. Contestants must obtain a written photo release (email or text) from photo models agreeing to their image being entered in the contest and, if selected, used in social and print media marketing campaigns for “Always an Advocate.”
  4. Photographers will receive a photo credit if their entry is used in a marketing campaign.
  5. Photo entries can date anywhere between 2000 and 2021.
  6. Specifications: 1200 x 1500 dpi.
  7. Increase your chance of winning, by entering photos with different models, or the same model using different devices.
  8. Write a caption naming the device depicted, the town or city and State of the photo location, and the photo model’s first name. 
  9. Enter your photo with a post on social media with the hashtag #AlwaysAnAdvocate and email to angela@angelamuirvanetten.com.
  10. The Van Ettens reserve the right to cancel the contest if there are fewer than ten entries.

SOCIAL MEDIA CONTEST

  1. PRIZE: US$25 digital Amazon gift card and e-book of “Always an Advocate.”
  2. Request a copy of the “Always an Advocate” book cover from angela@angelamuirvanetten.com.
  3. Post, share, tweet, and/or comment on the book cover with the goal of making it go viral on your social media platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.
  4. Mark your posts with the hashtag #AlwaysAnAdvocate.
  5. All entrants will be entered into a drawing with a chance to win.

RULES APPLICABLE TO BOTH CONTESTS

  1. Eligibility: contestants and photo models must be age 18 or older.
  2. DATES: begins June 28 and ends August 30, 2021.
  3. Winners will be selected by the author, Angela Muir Van Etten and her husband, Robert Van Etten.
  4. Winners will be posted on
    a. Angela’s website at https://angelamuirvanetten.com on September 6, 2021, the date pre-orders begin for the “Always An Advocate” e-book edition; and b. Angela’s social media platforms: Amazon Author page, Facebook, Instagram, Goodreads, and Pinterest.
  5. All contest decisions are final and cannot be appealed.

This post enhances Chapter 15, Breaking the Six-Inch Reach Barrier, in “ALWAYS AN ADVOCATE: Champions of Change for People with Dwarfism and Disabilities” releasing in October 2021.

Categories
Disability Rights Guest

Will Congress Disenfranchise Voters with Disabilities?

Congress

Twenty-six national disability rights organizations, including Little People of America, are deeply concerned over the paper ballot mandate included in the For the People Act of 2021 (H.R. 1/S. 1). The bill addresses many barriers to voting in America, but mandates the use of paper ballots in both in-person and remote voting, which undermines the goals of the bill by restricting access for many voters with disabilities.

Any mandate of a paper-based voting system will inevitably harm voters with print disabilities as it would:

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(1) end all voting system innovation and advancement to produce a fully accessible voting system that provides enhanced security;

(2) limit voters with disabilities’ federal right to privately and independently verify and cast their ballots, and;

(3) prohibit digital voting which allows voters to read, mark, verify, and return their ballot completely electronically.

Although paper-based ballot voting options have become the preferred voting system to people who believe mandating the use of paper ballots is necessary to ensure the security of elections, it must be made abundantly clear that the ability to privately and independently hand mark, verify, and cast a paper ballot is impossible for many voters with print disabilities.

On March 11, 2021, the United States House of Representatives passed the For the People Act, and the legislation is now being considered in the U.S. Senate. In late March, the Senate held its first hearing on the bill and prior to the Senate’s May markup, national disability organizations once again outlined their concerns and offered necessary improvements and changes to the bill’s paper ballot mandate. Unfortunately, the fears of disability advocates on how the paper mandate will impact voters with print disabilities have not been addressed and only minimal changes have been made to the mandate to protect the rights of voters with disabilities.

The National Disability Rights Network urges Congress to make changes to the For the People Act to exclude voters with disabilities, covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act, from having to use a voter-verified paper ballot for both in-person and remote voting. Until fully accessible paper-ballot voting systems are available and ready for widespread use, accessible in-person and vote-by-mail voting options must be offered to ensure all voters in America can receive, mark, verify, and cast a private and independent ballot. The For the People Act cannot eliminate the only accessible voting options for many voters with disabilities, such as Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting machines and electronic absentee or vote-by-mail systems.

Although For the People Act includes some provisions to improve voter access for voters with disabilities, such as ensuring that drop boxes are fully accessible, these advances don’t mitigate the unintended consequence of the paper ballot mandate. Simply put, the current paper ballot mandate will exclude many voters from the ballot box, counteracting the purpose of this well-intended and important legislation.

Before paper-based voting systems become the law of the land, the concerns of voters with disabilities must be addressed.

Share this concern with your Senator today.

This post is a condensed version of “Disability Advocates Warn the For the People Act’s PaperBallot Mandate Will Disenfranchise Voters with Disabilities.” National Disability Rights Network. June 15, 2021. https://www.ndrn.org/resource/disability-advocates-warn-the-for-the-people-acts-paper-ballot-mandate-will-disenfranchise-voters-with-disabilities/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=1fbfcf73-7460-4276-a9cc-2e18b815bfe5.

Categories
Transportation

Funding Crisis Called For Action

A Call for Action
Image by Christian Dorn from Pixabay 

A crisis exploded after state and federal transit funding for FY2008 (fiscal year) took a 31% cut and forced a reduction from 27 to 18 transit routes in Martin County, Florida. When the county proposed an additional 20% in budget cuts in FY2009, those unable to drive due to brain injuries, cognitive limitations, epilepsy, vision loss, and a myriad of other impairments took action.

As an advocate for people with disabilities at a Center for Independent Living, I recruited, trained, and organized transit riders to plead with the Martin Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) not to cut any funds from public transit.

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As someone who had been driving since age 18, I wasn’t the most critical person to speak. More important spokespeople were those directly affected by the cuts. We joined forces to educate Commissioners on how lives would be negatively impacted if riders couldn’t take the bus to medical appointments, work, stores, and the like. Further reduction in public transit would result in medical emergencies, unemployment, and malnutrition.

Riders dependent on public transit were trained to confront commissioners with emails, letters, individual appointments, personal impact statements, and public comments at weekly BOCC televised meetings. One rider was applauded in the BOCC chamber after telling how she was forced to ride her bike seven miles to her doctor’s office in a heat index of 107℉. This was bad enough, but what about the majority of riders who were unable to compensate by riding a bike.

The action climaxed on June 17, 2008, when 17 Community Coach public transit riders and advocates followed through on their plan to picket at the Martin County Administrative Center.  The picketers were blind or visually impaired, brain injured, mentally ill, and wheelchair users carrying hand-made pickets that read:

■ MARTIN NEEDS COACH ■ SAVE THE COACH, SAVE JOBS ■ LET ME RIDE ■ COACH IS MY LIFELINE ■ COACH IS CRITICAL ■ FULLY FUND COACH ■ NO COACH NO ALTERNATIVE ■ NO COACH NO WAY OUT

Three of the five commissioners responded to my request that they talk to individual picketers during a break from the BOCC meeting. The commissioners responded favorably to the demonstration and went on the record assuring riders that funding for the bus service would remain. Two commissioners agreed that cutting bus funding would threaten the jobs of both riders and bus drivers.

Several media reports spotlighted how proposed budget cuts negatively affected people with disabilities:

  • Daphne Duret, “Elderly and disabled ask Martin commission not to cut buses.” Palm Beach Post (June 17, 2008).
  • George Andreassi, “Disabled fight for Stuart public transit.” Stuart News (June 17, 2008).
  • R.J. Harrington, “Community Coach riders protest to keep a slice of Martin budget.” Stuart News (June 18, 2008).

Despite the warm reception at the demonstration, riders continued advocacy at the July budget workshop to be sure the commissioners didn’t renege on their agreement to spare transit from budget cuts. And the commissioners were true to their word.

So what action have you taken in response to a funding crisis? This post is a condensed version of Chapter 18, Transit Funding and Public Participation, in “ALWAYS AN ADVOCATE: Champions of Change for People with Dwarfism and Disabilities” coming in October 2021. Go to my website for book updates, https://angelamuirvanetten.com/books.

Categories
Education

Not All Advocacy Is About Disability

When I graduated from the University of Auckland in New Zealand with a Bachelor of Laws, I never dreamed that seven years later I’d be sitting in a law school classroom in Baltimore, Maryland. But my decision to marry an American and emigrate from New Zealand to the United States made further study necessary. In order to practice law in the US, I needed the American juris doctorate degree and a license to practice law in each state where I worked as a lawyer.

The University of Maryland School of Law accepted my application for admission without Law School Admission Test (LSAT) results when the administration agreed that my NZ law degree and five years law practice demonstrated the skills the LSAT was measuring—those essential for success in law school.

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However, the school denied my request for two-thirds credit for my NZ law degree even though New Zealand, like the US, was based in common law. I appealed the decision.

The assistant dean informed me of my right to bring a petition for review to the admissions committee, but warned that I was wasting my time. As the committee chairperson, he didn’t foresee a different outcome to the one-third credit the committee had approved. I told the dean it was my time to waste.

When presenting my petition, I addressed the committee members with the same respect given to an appellate panel of judges. At the end of the review hearing, the law professor who appeared to have the greatest influence on the members commented, “Well, you do act like a lawyer.” What did he expect from someone with thousands of court hours under her belt?

Despite the dean’s prediction, I did persuade the committee to change its decision. Even though I didn’t get the two-thirds credit requested, the committee compromised and gave me credit for half my NZ law degree. This reduced my law school attendance from four semesters to three and saved a significant amount in tuition fees.

I never knew if my dwarfism factored into the school’s decision-making, but they had no hesitation in providing me with reasonable accommodations for parking, an elevator key, a locker and mailbox within my reach, and a stool in the library.

In an unexpected twist, Robert began a job in Cleveland, Ohio when I still had one semester of law school to complete. Thankfully, when I presented my dilemma to the dean and chair of the administrative committee, he said they were not so callous as to expect a husband and wife to live separately. I was allowed to study at the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law—an American Bar Association approved law school—and count the credits toward my Maryland law degree. (It helped that I had already completed all the required courses in Maryland.) As a reasonable accommodation, the Cleveland law library bought the best stool I’ve ever seen—one with wide steps, hand-rails, and a platform at the top.

So what battles have you fought that are unrelated to your disability?

This post is excerpted from Chapter 5, Baltimore Beginning and Chapter 7, Cleveland Changes in “Pass Me Your Shoes.” For a full account, go to https://angelamuirvanetten.com for several retail links to the book and the opportunity to subscribe to my weekly blog.