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No, and neither do the complaintants in that link you posted. The point is to negotiate something reasonable between the owner and the person who can't access t

No, and neither do the complaintants in that link you posted. The point is to negotiate something reasonable between the owner and the person who can't access the material/service/whatever. The fact that UC Berkley -- a federally funded public university -- failed to come to a compromise is quite sad, especially given that the complaintants in that link would like to use the material in their classes and work. Look, read the law. Its written very clearly. It specifically mentions "reasonable accomodations" both in terms to the disabled and the owner in terms of cost, discrimination, etc.

chroma 7y ago
If the law is so onerous that UC Berkeley can’t afford to follow it, what chance do small businesses have? Just because you say the law is written clearly doesn’t mean the law is clear. In practice, it seems to be so vague and so selectively enforced as to be utterly unpredictable.
- mondoshawan 7y ago
  The point is that UC Berkley should have been following it in the first place (publicly funded institution!), and half the complaint is about what little they did to actually accommodate in the cases they claimed they did. Every time I've had a frank, honest discussion with a business owner about accommodations, its been a fight. A very hard one. And I'm lucky to even be able to talk to them -- most folks that are wheelchair bound can't even reasonably do that! I've not yet sued because I don't have the cash on hand, and by the point it would make it there, the outcome I want is already lost because the business owner is willfully ignorant and indignant toward me in the end. The last time I had words with someone about accommodations, I was working in Florida at a company that had just purchased a building. That building was under construction, and most of the entrances were closed off save for one. The land owner decided to repaint the lot and "forgot" to put in handicap spaces anywhere in the lot. Naturally, this became a real problem for me, and I brought it up to one of the VPs -- instead of setting up a valet, or marking the spots with temporary signs, or hell, even talking to the land owner about the issue, I was given platitudes and apologies. This was my place of work. What was I supposed to do, exactly? The only option I had left was to sue, but doing so would have marked me as litigious! In the end I had to leave the company. The fact that the complaintants in the case you brought up sued most likely means that they had already gone through the negotiations up front. Berkley probably gave them the same kind of reaction of platitudes and apologies that I got from my place of employment because when it comes to making reasonable accommodations, it turns out 99% of humans just don't care because they're not disabled! Consider the web: there are easy, reasonable changes to markup that can be made to allow blind and colorblind folks to use sites. It usually takes less effort than adding an alt tag. Most devs don't even bother! Why? Because they don't have that problem. This, in a space with no physical form, with no laws enforcing accomodations! There has to be some kind of forcing function in there. Some kind of way to get people to just fucking listen. Right now, enforcement is up to private citizens that can afford it, but imagine what the costs to both the disabled and the owners would be if it was part of the building codes: - The disabled would have a much harder route because now the entire city beuracracy is involved, from inspectors to city enforcement, which can lead to institutionalized ignorance and lack of enforcement. - The owners now have much higher upfront costs to build a place of business because of the extra beuracracy involved (inspections, building code, etc). Yes, what we have right now is not 100% ideal. Yes, we should probably figure out how to make it work better. But should we repeal it or limit it? Fuck no. Its the only legal tool we have right now, and shitty as some of the outcomes are, half the problem isn't the law or the disabled person using it: its the business owner willfully ignoring the law of the land.
LorenPechtel 7y ago
The law is written with the clarity of a block of stone. "Reasonable accommodations" means different things to different people. The only solution is for the law to define what is reasonable but that wouldn't have worked politically--set the bar high and people would see it's crazy, set the bar low and the disability advocates would have demanded more. Thus we got a compromise that's basically the worst of both worlds.
- mondoshawan 7y ago
  No. Resonableness is a concept in law and in this specific law that prescribes sane limits. There is also the "reasonable person" test which has been the basis for a huge amount of the body of law that we have already. Please, read the law or the excerpts that have been posted in this comment thread -- it is not an onerous law. The crap the cities and states pile up on top to make things harder (ie: requiring a building to be up to code before allowing an ADA accommodation building permit to be issued) are half the problem. The business owners are the other half for sticking their fingers in their ears. See also this link and the links embedded regarding "readily achievable": https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/12182 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/12182
  - LorenPechtel 7y ago
    I have no problem with requiring new stuff to be built to current standards. I have a big problem with a situation like this that basically says the building must be scrapped. That is not reasonable in my book.
    - mondoshawan 7y ago
      Good thing you don't sit on the bench, then, because you'd be consigning a whole class of people to a life of extra burdens and hardship, just because you like old buildings.

chroma 7y ago

If the law is so onerous that UC Berkeley can’t afford to follow it, what chance do small businesses have? Just because you say the law is written clearly doesn’t mean the law is clear. In practice, it seems to be so vague and so selectively enforced as to be utterly unpredictable.

mondoshawan 7y ago
The point is that UC Berkley should have been following it in the first place (publicly funded institution!), and half the complaint is about what little they did to actually accommodate in the cases they claimed they did. Every time I've had a frank, honest discussion with a business owner about accommodations, its been a fight. A very hard one. And I'm lucky to even be able to talk to them -- most folks that are wheelchair bound can't even reasonably do that! I've not yet sued because I don't have the cash on hand, and by the point it would make it there, the outcome I want is already lost because the business owner is willfully ignorant and indignant toward me in the end. The last time I had words with someone about accommodations, I was working in Florida at a company that had just purchased a building. That building was under construction, and most of the entrances were closed off save for one. The land owner decided to repaint the lot and "forgot" to put in handicap spaces anywhere in the lot. Naturally, this became a real problem for me, and I brought it up to one of the VPs -- instead of setting up a valet, or marking the spots with temporary signs, or hell, even talking to the land owner about the issue, I was given platitudes and apologies. This was my place of work. What was I supposed to do, exactly? The only option I had left was to sue, but doing so would have marked me as litigious! In the end I had to leave the company. The fact that the complaintants in the case you brought up sued most likely means that they had already gone through the negotiations up front. Berkley probably gave them the same kind of reaction of platitudes and apologies that I got from my place of employment because when it comes to making reasonable accommodations, it turns out 99% of humans just don't care because they're not disabled! Consider the web: there are easy, reasonable changes to markup that can be made to allow blind and colorblind folks to use sites. It usually takes less effort than adding an alt tag. Most devs don't even bother! Why? Because they don't have that problem. This, in a space with no physical form, with no laws enforcing accomodations! There has to be some kind of forcing function in there. Some kind of way to get people to just fucking listen. Right now, enforcement is up to private citizens that can afford it, but imagine what the costs to both the disabled and the owners would be if it was part of the building codes: - The disabled would have a much harder route because now the entire city beuracracy is involved, from inspectors to city enforcement, which can lead to institutionalized ignorance and lack of enforcement. - The owners now have much higher upfront costs to build a place of business because of the extra beuracracy involved (inspections, building code, etc). Yes, what we have right now is not 100% ideal. Yes, we should probably figure out how to make it work better. But should we repeal it or limit it? Fuck no. Its the only legal tool we have right now, and shitty as some of the outcomes are, half the problem isn't the law or the disabled person using it: its the business owner willfully ignoring the law of the land.

LorenPechtel 7y ago

The law is written with the clarity of a block of stone. "Reasonable accommodations" means different things to different people. The only solution is for the law to define what is reasonable but that wouldn't have worked politically--set the bar high and people would see it's crazy, set the bar low and the disability advocates would have demanded more. Thus we got a compromise that's basically the worst of both worlds.

mondoshawan 7y ago
No. Resonableness is a concept in law and in this specific law that prescribes sane limits. There is also the "reasonable person" test which has been the basis for a huge amount of the body of law that we have already. Please, read the law or the excerpts that have been posted in this comment thread -- it is not an onerous law. The crap the cities and states pile up on top to make things harder (ie: requiring a building to be up to code before allowing an ADA accommodation building permit to be issued) are half the problem. The business owners are the other half for sticking their fingers in their ears. See also this link and the links embedded regarding "readily achievable": https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/12182 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/12182
- LorenPechtel 7y ago
  I have no problem with requiring new stuff to be built to current standards. I have a big problem with a situation like this that basically says the building must be scrapped. That is not reasonable in my book.
  - mondoshawan 7y ago
    Good thing you don't sit on the bench, then, because you'd be consigning a whole class of people to a life of extra burdens and hardship, just because you like old buildings.