10 ms·

> Now, what happens if someone with an infant or developmentally challenged teenager signs up? Their needs present an entirely new set of problems, problems tha

by GuiA 10y ago

> Now, what happens if someone with an infant or developmentally challenged teenager signs up? Their needs present an entirely new set of problems, problems that could be solved by a startup but not necessarily by ours. Remember you don’t have to pivot your business because a customer needs something that you don’t offer. If you open a restaurant, you bet that there are certain building codes you'll have to follow in order to accommodate e.g. people with disabilities. Right now, as the article points out, it's not something that most tech companies have to worry about unless they choose to, but perhaps it should be. As startups disrupt entire industries with little regard for the existing legislation, entire niche of users could find themselves marginalized. For instance, hotels have to build a number of accommodations for people with mobility problems. Airbnbs don't. What happens to that segment of the population when/if Airbnb completely kills off hotels in a particular geographic location? The web is already hell when it comes to accessibility concerns; and it seems like tech companies with a foot in the real world are just carrying this trend over. This is what people mean when they talk about the need for inclusiveness when designing tech products and companies; otherwise, you're just building a world where parents of developmentally challenged teenagers are even more excluded than they already were. I agree with the core point of the article, but the example chosen to illustrate it couldn't be worse. Yes, it isn't your responsibility to solve everything for everyone, but that doesn't mean you can just choose to ignore the social contract altogether.

gautamdivgi 10y ago
This is a good point. Same with Uber. Most Cab companies are required to provide access to wheelchair bound and disabled members of society at no extra charge. Not sure if Uber has the same requirement - and if and when it starts moving cab's out of business it will definitely prove to be a problem.
- DanBC 10y ago
  There's a few people with assistance dogs who get denied service by Uber. Sometimes that's because the driver has an allergy, but often it's just because. EDIT: here's one lawsuit from Arlington: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/blind-woman-sues-uber-says-she-and-her-guide-dog-were-refused-service/2016/06/02/7391156e-28f8-11e6-ae4a-3cdd5fe74204_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/bli... Here's another from London: http://www.itv.com/news/london/2016-04-21/blind-woman-who-was-refused-uber-taxis-takes-drivers-to-court-for-discrimination/ http://www.itv.com/news/london/2016-04-21/blind-woman-who-wa... Note that London one has won repeated court cases for the exact same thing. Uber drivers keep refusing to take her and her dog; she takes them to court; she wins; she tries to get an Uber and the driver refuses to take the dog. Here's a case that Uber settled for a couple of hundred thousand dollars: http://motherboard.vice.com/read/what-uber-really-thinks-about-your-dog http://motherboard.vice.com/read/what-uber-really-thinks-abo...
- afarrell 10y ago
  > Not sure if Uber has the same requirement It doesn't. I've a friend (who might be popping on this thread here soon) who's been working with adapt.org on pressuring Uber on this issue. In theory, ridesharing should be much better for PWD than trying to hail a cab and cheaper than government services like the MBTA's The Ride. However it very much does not look like it is the case right now.
  - aianus 10y ago
    Uber has wheelchair vehicles at the same price as UberX: https://newsroom.uber.com/canada/uberwav/ https://newsroom.uber.com/canada/uberwav/
    - afarrell 10y ago
      Oh wait they are rolling that out? I had thought they were just doing a perfunctory trial run in philly that they then cancelled. Huzzah!
      - bonniemuffin 10y ago
        A new "Access" option containing UberWAV appeared in my Uber app today in san francisco, with a popup telling me about it. So I guess it just rolled out to SF.
    - geofft 10y ago
      It looks like UberWAV in NYC provides app-based access to the existing fleet of wheelchair-accessible taxis: Uber will find a taxi and dispatch it to where you are, and you pay taxi fare. That technically works (assuming the dispatched taxi shows up), but I'm not really sure it should count, especially because Uber's obvious goal is competing with taxis and driving them out of business.
      - afarrell 10y ago
        > not really sure it should count If the discussion is around "is a wheelchair user able to hail a car and get moved A->B?" Why shouldn't it count? I suppose they it means that they aren't uprooting the medallion system in that corner of the economy, but that political goal shouldn't block providing access to wheelchair users. Plus, if we want WAVs to be able to operate medallionless, that can be more easily achieved through lobbying by activists who are upset about the higher costs. Uber can just funnel money to them. > assuming the dispatched taxi shows up I know there an issue with reliability of wheelchair repair appointments, but I'll admit myself ignorant of the current state of WAV hailing.
- toomanybeersies 10y ago
  Uber in New Zealand offers uberASSIST: https://newsroom.uber.com/new-zealand/uberassistnz/ https://newsroom.uber.com/new-zealand/uberassistnz/ Not sure if that's out of the kindness of their hearts, or because they've been made to do it by the govt.
shocks 10y ago
> What happens to that segment of the population when/if Airbnb completely kills off hotels in a particular geographic location? Someone makes Airbnb for folk with mobility problems and makes a killing.
- GuiA 10y ago
  What if it's not profitable to do that on its own? The "free market takes care of everything" argument is an idealistic position, not something based in reality.
  - tobyg123 10y ago
    The core of the article is saying that you can't satisfy everyone, and the point of the replier was to point out that, if the need is that great, and there are such large amounts of people with the same issue, the free market will produce an alternative.
    - jcoffland 10y ago
      You are still assuming that great need and profitability go hand in hand. The issue being discussed is specifically the cases where they do not.
    - falcolas 10y ago
      What if the need is great, but there isn't a lot of extra money to be made? Should the minority with disabilities be forced to pay extra to convince someone to provide them with otherwise identical functionality? Many accommodations, if not federally mandated, simply wouldn't happen. For example, handicapped parking spots. People who use those spots are technically capable of using other parking locations as well, and the current handicapped parking spots are usually located in prime areas.
      - riboflava 10y ago
        Yes to your second question. Maybe the government can offer a tax return bonus to cover it. And pump more money into fully general cures for all disabilities. I'm not against making disabled peoples' lives better, but focusing entirely on the supplier side is a mistake.
dbsmith83 10y ago
I agree with your concerns as a whole, but maybe not your analysis of the accommodation. If the startup is merely a platform for connecting babysitters and parents, babysitters could choose whom they want to babysit. A babysitter who was not qualified to deal with a developmentally challenged kid or infant should not have to, and probably shouldn't.
- geofft 10y ago
  Hmmm. That idea is definitely appealing, but the "platform" argument has some serious negative side effects that I think the government should legitimately be able to regulate. What if babysitters of one race didn't want to sit babies of another race? Should they be forced to? This isn't a hypothetical example—Airbnb has this exact problem.
  - thaumasiotes 10y ago
    > What if babysitters of one race didn't want to sit babies of another race? Should they be forced to? I have a hard time seeing where you think this is a tricky question. Let's imagine a terrible person, so terrible that there are no moral issues with just making them do whatever we want. We've got a racist white babysitter who hates black children. Fortunately, we know better than they do, so we're going to... shut black children up alone with them for long periods? What parents do you think want to hire babysitters who personally hate their children? Why would it be a good idea to facilitate that?
    - Dylan16807 10y ago
      You're missing the option of "kick them off the platform entirely".
      - philh 10y ago
        Now suppose the supermajority of babysitters are racist. If they all leave the platform, it shuts down. Nobody gets a babysitter. If they all pretend not to be racist, you get black kids being looked after by closet racists. It's not obvious to me that this is better than the situation where babysitters are allowed to be racist, and black people have more trouble finding a babysitter than white people. There are certainly arguments that it's better, but I don't think it's a slam-dunk either way. Fortunately, we don't live in a world where the supermajority of babysitters are racist. But we do live in a world where the supermajority of babysitters are unable to accomodate developmentally-disabled teenagers. We can shut down the babysitting service, or we can make the service pretend to acccomodate DD teenagers while failing to actually take care of them. I'm not convinced that "force babysitting services to actually successfully accomodate DD teenagers" is even an option.
jcoffland 10y ago
The quoted statement above is blatant discrimination and incriminates the company who wrote it. I'm surprised the company's lawyers allowed it. Much of the legal system in the US says that you cannot ignore the needs of minority groups just because it's not profitable.
- dsacco 10y ago
  How is the statement discriminatory? If a company decided to start a sharing economy-based babysitting service, but doesn't have the requisite resources (or training/certification among workers) to look after special needs children, it's okay for them to not cater to those individuals. It's not as though they have the ability and are denying service - they are choosing not to develop a product or service with accessibility features. I can entertain a normative argument that it's ethically wrong to allow companies to operate in this way, but this is not legally considered discrimination. I do think that a certain critical mass requires this to be reconsidered, because private companies without as much regulation could displace people who enjoyed accessibility features under older, more established and regulated companies. That said, there are many products and services on the market today which simply cannot be used by handicapped individuals, and for many companies making these products it would be strictly impossible for them to profitably offer a more accessible version. EDIT: Initially I said taxi cabs are not required to be wheelchair accessible and made an Uber/Lyft comparison. After looking into it, it seems I'm wrong - NYC taxi cabs, at least, offer wheelchair accessibility, you just need to call for it through dispatch as not every vehicle is properly equipped.
  - umanwizard 10y ago
    > Taxi companies are not required to cater to handicapped individuals who are restricted to wheelchairs. Actually, yes they are. http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/html/faq/faq_access_veh.shtml http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/html/faq/faq_access_veh.shtml
    - dsacco 10y ago
      Yes, I saw that right after I made the comment and made an edit :).
jt2190 10y ago
Why is agreeing to help someone that you don't have the time, money or expertise to help a good thing? Isn't it extremely misleading to tell someone you'll help them when you can't deliver? Isn't it more responsible to direct that person to someone who does have the expertise to help? (edit: There's an assumption here that because one company can't help, that none can. Should we make this assumption?)
amelius 10y ago
It is not just accessibility. It also happens with sizes of clothes. Companies aim for the easy 1-sigma chunk of the bell curve, and ignore a large chunk of statistical "outliers". Or take airline seat space for example, where companies simply assume that people are no taller than 5.5 feet.
- lanius 10y ago
  Well, at least in the case of high-end fashion brands, companies intentionally only produce slim-fitting/smaller-sized clothing in order to maintain an image of exclusivity.
- AnimalMuppet 10y ago
  Yeah, except with airline seat space, the 1-sigma chunk of the bell curve is outside what (comfortably) fits.
  - madgar 10y ago
    I'm not sure if you're arguing about data or personal comfort. Over half the adult human population is 5.5 feet or under if you recall that women exist and are half the people
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - AnimalMuppet 10y ago
      I don't forget that women exist. My impression was that they averaged taller than that. But even if they don't, you seem to forget that, if women average 5'4", that still leaves many women at taller than 5'6". I couldn't find a data source for average (better, median) population height and distribution for the US that combined both genders. Do you have a candidate handy?
      - madgar 10y ago
        Maybe if you're from Scandinavia are women typically over 5'6". Only a handful of countries register an "average female height" that large on this wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_average_human_height_worldwide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_average_human_height_w... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_height https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_height has graphs with percentile breakdowns, purportedly based on US CDC data, with median female height at around 5'3" to 5'4". Wolframalpha spits back 5'5" as the median human height though it says "weighted for USA demographics". > that still leaves many women at taller than 5'6". I didn't forget that at all, I just don't see how relevant it is, unless you think airlines moving hundreds of millions of passengers per year should be optimizing seat sizes for the long tail of the human form.
nulagrithom 10y ago
I thought it was a great example. Reading it made me feel guilty, and it made me want to make accommodations for these people in our theoretical babysitting-as-a-service app. But that doesn't make it any more feasible, possible, or even safe. We're talking about special needs that will be difficult or impossible for a non-targeted service to adequately meet. It would be better for a different service to specialize in this, as our theoretical service is likely woefully ill-equipped to handle the vetting of caregivers for the developmentally disabled (among other problems outside the original problem domain). I'd even be tempted to argue that attempting to address these problems simply for the sake of soothing guilt and/or avoiding lawsuits would be immoral itself. Whether or not there should be legislation to cover issues like this is another discussion. (Maybe there should be! If AirBnB manages to kill off hotels in a few spots it would make for some very interesting discussion.) But I don't think this theoretical babysitting app is a good candidate to be targeted by such legislation, and I think it's a little silly to damn this example... There's other help and services out there specifically for the developmentally disabled, and nobody expects every babysitter or daycare to be able to handle the developmentally disabled either. Calm down.
wwalser 10y ago
Installing a ramp at the entrance to a building or on the side of a cab is a one time fixed cost. I'm not saying I disagree but I am curious, are these examples of regulations requiring businesses take on significant ongoing costs in order to provide for groups that may otherwise be marginalized? Examples that spring to mind: * Businesses required to have someone on staff at all times who can communicate via sign language. * Daycare companies required to have staff capable of caring for children with physical, sensory or mental disability.
brazzledazzle 10y ago
I don't disagree with your overall point but it's important to point out that the example translates to the real world just fine. There's no requirement that a childcare facility be able to accommodate children with special needs. They must be accessible for the disabled (parking, ramps, etc.) but caring for someone with developmental disabilities requires different training, staffing and accommodations.

by GuiA 10y ago

gautamdivgi 10y ago

This is a good point. Same with Uber. Most Cab companies are required to provide access to wheelchair bound and disabled members of society at no extra charge. Not sure if Uber has the same requirement - and if and when it starts moving cab's out of business it will definitely prove to be a problem.

DanBC 10y ago
There's a few people with assistance dogs who get denied service by Uber. Sometimes that's because the driver has an allergy, but often it's just because. EDIT: here's one lawsuit from Arlington: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/blind-woman-sues-uber-says-she-and-her-guide-dog-were-refused-service/2016/06/02/7391156e-28f8-11e6-ae4a-3cdd5fe74204_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/bli... Here's another from London: http://www.itv.com/news/london/2016-04-21/blind-woman-who-was-refused-uber-taxis-takes-drivers-to-court-for-discrimination/ http://www.itv.com/news/london/2016-04-21/blind-woman-who-wa... Note that London one has won repeated court cases for the exact same thing. Uber drivers keep refusing to take her and her dog; she takes them to court; she wins; she tries to get an Uber and the driver refuses to take the dog. Here's a case that Uber settled for a couple of hundred thousand dollars: http://motherboard.vice.com/read/what-uber-really-thinks-about-your-dog http://motherboard.vice.com/read/what-uber-really-thinks-abo...
afarrell 10y ago
> Not sure if Uber has the same requirement It doesn't. I've a friend (who might be popping on this thread here soon) who's been working with adapt.org on pressuring Uber on this issue. In theory, ridesharing should be much better for PWD than trying to hail a cab and cheaper than government services like the MBTA's The Ride. However it very much does not look like it is the case right now.
- aianus 10y ago
  Uber has wheelchair vehicles at the same price as UberX: https://newsroom.uber.com/canada/uberwav/ https://newsroom.uber.com/canada/uberwav/
  - afarrell 10y ago
    Oh wait they are rolling that out? I had thought they were just doing a perfunctory trial run in philly that they then cancelled. Huzzah!
    - bonniemuffin 10y ago
      A new "Access" option containing UberWAV appeared in my Uber app today in san francisco, with a popup telling me about it. So I guess it just rolled out to SF.
  - geofft 10y ago
    It looks like UberWAV in NYC provides app-based access to the existing fleet of wheelchair-accessible taxis: Uber will find a taxi and dispatch it to where you are, and you pay taxi fare. That technically works (assuming the dispatched taxi shows up), but I'm not really sure it should count, especially because Uber's obvious goal is competing with taxis and driving them out of business.
    - afarrell 10y ago
      > not really sure it should count If the discussion is around "is a wheelchair user able to hail a car and get moved A->B?" Why shouldn't it count? I suppose they it means that they aren't uprooting the medallion system in that corner of the economy, but that political goal shouldn't block providing access to wheelchair users. Plus, if we want WAVs to be able to operate medallionless, that can be more easily achieved through lobbying by activists who are upset about the higher costs. Uber can just funnel money to them. > assuming the dispatched taxi shows up I know there an issue with reliability of wheelchair repair appointments, but I'll admit myself ignorant of the current state of WAV hailing.
toomanybeersies 10y ago
Uber in New Zealand offers uberASSIST: https://newsroom.uber.com/new-zealand/uberassistnz/ https://newsroom.uber.com/new-zealand/uberassistnz/ Not sure if that's out of the kindness of their hearts, or because they've been made to do it by the govt.

shocks 10y ago

> What happens to that segment of the population when/if Airbnb completely kills off hotels in a particular geographic location? Someone makes Airbnb for folk with mobility problems and makes a killing.

GuiA 10y ago
What if it's not profitable to do that on its own? The "free market takes care of everything" argument is an idealistic position, not something based in reality.
- tobyg123 10y ago
  The core of the article is saying that you can't satisfy everyone, and the point of the replier was to point out that, if the need is that great, and there are such large amounts of people with the same issue, the free market will produce an alternative.
  - jcoffland 10y ago
    You are still assuming that great need and profitability go hand in hand. The issue being discussed is specifically the cases where they do not.
  - falcolas 10y ago
    What if the need is great, but there isn't a lot of extra money to be made? Should the minority with disabilities be forced to pay extra to convince someone to provide them with otherwise identical functionality? Many accommodations, if not federally mandated, simply wouldn't happen. For example, handicapped parking spots. People who use those spots are technically capable of using other parking locations as well, and the current handicapped parking spots are usually located in prime areas.
    - riboflava 10y ago
      Yes to your second question. Maybe the government can offer a tax return bonus to cover it. And pump more money into fully general cures for all disabilities. I'm not against making disabled peoples' lives better, but focusing entirely on the supplier side is a mistake.

dbsmith83 10y ago

I agree with your concerns as a whole, but maybe not your analysis of the accommodation. If the startup is merely a platform for connecting babysitters and parents, babysitters could choose whom they want to babysit. A babysitter who was not qualified to deal with a developmentally challenged kid or infant should not have to, and probably shouldn't.

geofft 10y ago
Hmmm. That idea is definitely appealing, but the "platform" argument has some serious negative side effects that I think the government should legitimately be able to regulate. What if babysitters of one race didn't want to sit babies of another race? Should they be forced to? This isn't a hypothetical example—Airbnb has this exact problem.
- thaumasiotes 10y ago
  > What if babysitters of one race didn't want to sit babies of another race? Should they be forced to? I have a hard time seeing where you think this is a tricky question. Let's imagine a terrible person, so terrible that there are no moral issues with just making them do whatever we want. We've got a racist white babysitter who hates black children. Fortunately, we know better than they do, so we're going to... shut black children up alone with them for long periods? What parents do you think want to hire babysitters who personally hate their children? Why would it be a good idea to facilitate that?
  - Dylan16807 10y ago
    You're missing the option of "kick them off the platform entirely".
    - philh 10y ago
      Now suppose the supermajority of babysitters are racist. If they all leave the platform, it shuts down. Nobody gets a babysitter. If they all pretend not to be racist, you get black kids being looked after by closet racists. It's not obvious to me that this is better than the situation where babysitters are allowed to be racist, and black people have more trouble finding a babysitter than white people. There are certainly arguments that it's better, but I don't think it's a slam-dunk either way. Fortunately, we don't live in a world where the supermajority of babysitters are racist. But we do live in a world where the supermajority of babysitters are unable to accomodate developmentally-disabled teenagers. We can shut down the babysitting service, or we can make the service pretend to acccomodate DD teenagers while failing to actually take care of them. I'm not convinced that "force babysitting services to actually successfully accomodate DD teenagers" is even an option.

jcoffland 10y ago

The quoted statement above is blatant discrimination and incriminates the company who wrote it. I'm surprised the company's lawyers allowed it. Much of the legal system in the US says that you cannot ignore the needs of minority groups just because it's not profitable.

dsacco 10y ago
How is the statement discriminatory? If a company decided to start a sharing economy-based babysitting service, but doesn't have the requisite resources (or training/certification among workers) to look after special needs children, it's okay for them to not cater to those individuals. It's not as though they have the ability and are denying service - they are choosing not to develop a product or service with accessibility features. I can entertain a normative argument that it's ethically wrong to allow companies to operate in this way, but this is not legally considered discrimination. I do think that a certain critical mass requires this to be reconsidered, because private companies without as much regulation could displace people who enjoyed accessibility features under older, more established and regulated companies. That said, there are many products and services on the market today which simply cannot be used by handicapped individuals, and for many companies making these products it would be strictly impossible for them to profitably offer a more accessible version. EDIT: Initially I said taxi cabs are not required to be wheelchair accessible and made an Uber/Lyft comparison. After looking into it, it seems I'm wrong - NYC taxi cabs, at least, offer wheelchair accessibility, you just need to call for it through dispatch as not every vehicle is properly equipped.
- umanwizard 10y ago
  > Taxi companies are not required to cater to handicapped individuals who are restricted to wheelchairs. Actually, yes they are. http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/html/faq/faq_access_veh.shtml http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/html/faq/faq_access_veh.shtml
  - dsacco 10y ago
    Yes, I saw that right after I made the comment and made an edit :).

jt2190 10y ago

Why is agreeing to help someone that you don't have the time, money or expertise to help a good thing? Isn't it extremely misleading to tell someone you'll help them when you can't deliver? Isn't it more responsible to direct that person to someone who does have the expertise to help? (edit: There's an assumption here that because one company can't help, that none can. Should we make this assumption?)

amelius 10y ago

It is not just accessibility. It also happens with sizes of clothes. Companies aim for the easy 1-sigma chunk of the bell curve, and ignore a large chunk of statistical "outliers". Or take airline seat space for example, where companies simply assume that people are no taller than 5.5 feet.

lanius 10y ago
Well, at least in the case of high-end fashion brands, companies intentionally only produce slim-fitting/smaller-sized clothing in order to maintain an image of exclusivity.
AnimalMuppet 10y ago
Yeah, except with airline seat space, the 1-sigma chunk of the bell curve is outside what (comfortably) fits.
- madgar 10y ago
  I'm not sure if you're arguing about data or personal comfort. Over half the adult human population is 5.5 feet or under if you recall that women exist and are half the people
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - AnimalMuppet 10y ago
    I don't forget that women exist. My impression was that they averaged taller than that. But even if they don't, you seem to forget that, if women average 5'4", that still leaves many women at taller than 5'6". I couldn't find a data source for average (better, median) population height and distribution for the US that combined both genders. Do you have a candidate handy?
    - madgar 10y ago
      Maybe if you're from Scandinavia are women typically over 5'6". Only a handful of countries register an "average female height" that large on this wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_average_human_height_worldwide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_average_human_height_w... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_height https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_height has graphs with percentile breakdowns, purportedly based on US CDC data, with median female height at around 5'3" to 5'4". Wolframalpha spits back 5'5" as the median human height though it says "weighted for USA demographics". > that still leaves many women at taller than 5'6". I didn't forget that at all, I just don't see how relevant it is, unless you think airlines moving hundreds of millions of passengers per year should be optimizing seat sizes for the long tail of the human form.

nulagrithom 10y ago

I thought it was a great example. Reading it made me feel guilty, and it made me want to make accommodations for these people in our theoretical babysitting-as-a-service app. But that doesn't make it any more feasible, possible, or even safe. We're talking about special needs that will be difficult or impossible for a non-targeted service to adequately meet. It would be better for a different service to specialize in this, as our theoretical service is likely woefully ill-equipped to handle the vetting of caregivers for the developmentally disabled (among other problems outside the original problem domain). I'd even be tempted to argue that attempting to address these problems simply for the sake of soothing guilt and/or avoiding lawsuits would be immoral itself. Whether or not there should be legislation to cover issues like this is another discussion. (Maybe there should be! If AirBnB manages to kill off hotels in a few spots it would make for some very interesting discussion.) But I don't think this theoretical babysitting app is a good candidate to be targeted by such legislation, and I think it's a little silly to damn this example... There's other help and services out there specifically for the developmentally disabled, and nobody expects every babysitter or daycare to be able to handle the developmentally disabled either. Calm down.

wwalser 10y ago

Installing a ramp at the entrance to a building or on the side of a cab is a one time fixed cost. I'm not saying I disagree but I am curious, are these examples of regulations requiring businesses take on significant ongoing costs in order to provide for groups that may otherwise be marginalized? Examples that spring to mind: * Businesses required to have someone on staff at all times who can communicate via sign language. * Daycare companies required to have staff capable of caring for children with physical, sensory or mental disability.

brazzledazzle 10y ago

I don't disagree with your overall point but it's important to point out that the example translates to the real world just fine. There's no requirement that a childcare facility be able to accommodate children with special needs. They must be accessible for the disabled (parking, ramps, etc.) but caring for someone with developmental disabilities requires different training, staffing and accommodations.