Constable: Suburban blind activists seek accessible Internet
The Americans with Disabilities Act has been the law of the land since President George H.W. Bush signed it on July 26, 1990. More than a quarter century later, local activists with the National Federation of the Blind will travel to Washington, D.C., this week (weather permitting) with a quest to make the ADA the law of cyberspace.
"The practical reality is that's not working," says Glenn Moore, a 33-year-old Elgin resident who serves as secretary of the Illinois chapter of the National Federation of the Blind. While brick-and-mortar stores are built with adaptations to make them accessible to people with disabilities, "things online aren't as well-established," Moore says.
Using voice software that reads the words on a webpage, a blind person might be getting the information he needs, only to be stopped by something as simple as one of those Captcha boxes requiring that a human type a message shown on the screen, or a PDF file that doesn't include an audio file.
"It depends on the website," says Leslie Hamric, 40, a Schaumburg woman who volunteers as president of a local at-large chapter of the NFB. Sometimes, even companies with accessible websites don't extend that technology to their apps, she adds.
"There's still a lot of work that needs to be done," says Annette Grove, 76, a federal legislative director for the Illinois chapter, who has been on many lobbying trips to Congress. "The reality is some people simply cannot use some of the online tools."
In a 2010 ceremony marking the 20th anniversary of the ADA, President Obama announced that new website accessibility rules issued by the Department of Justice would be "the most important updates to the ADA since its original enactment," and scheduled the changes to be enacted by January 2012. That date later was extended until sometime in 2018.
"We don't expect things to change overnight. We want it to be the beginning of a larger conversation," says Moore, who has gone to Washington on a couple of lobbying junkets. A graduate of Elgin Community College, Moore worked for seven years with the Salvation Army, operating social services for the charity's Carpentersville Service Center. Now he's taking online classes through the University of Missouri, working toward a business administration degree and an MBA.
"For many blind people, getting a college degree is very important," Moore says, noting lobbyists will continue to pressure academic institutions to make every class accessible to people with disabilities.
The group already has sponsors for bills pushing two other changes for people with disabilities. The Transitioning to Integrated and Meaningful Employment Act, known as TIME and presented in HR-188, would ensure that blind workers are covered under minimum-wage laws. Current laws allow some employers to pay lower wages to people with disabilities. The Access to Air Travel for Service-Disabled Veterans bill, HR-2264, would add veterans with disabilities to a program allowing military veterans to travel free on military aircrafts.
The NFB lobbyists also are hoping for a change in international law through the adoption of the Marrakesh Treaty, which would eliminate some copyright infringements and allow for the sharing of millions of printed works to be distributed across borders in Braille, audio or digital formats.
People with vision issues "continue to face a lot of discrimination in hiring and access," says Grove, who lives in downstate Belleville and travels often in her job conducting compliance audits for Goodwill International.
"The ADA has been around since 1990, and 26 years later, 70 percent of blind people are still unemployed," notes Hamric, who has worked for Easter Seals and the Lighthouse social service agency that offers many programs for people with vision impairments. A graduate of the Eastman School of Music, Hamric, who, with her husband, Andy, has a 6-year-old son, Michael, teaches cello and also performs and sings with her church's musical groups.
"Our motto is 'Live the life you want,'" Moore says. "We're working to make sure blind people can have full participation, inclusion and equality in society."