[pxc]

How is malicious compliance the fault of someone who asks for disability accomodations?

It is unfortunate that the ADA is designed so that the only mechanism of enforcement of disability rights is lawsuits. :-\

Maybe there should be some exceptions around things provided on a "best-effort" basis, if they can be very carefully crafted.

[raw_anon_1111]

For context: I have cerebral palsy. Play the smallest fiddle for me, it only affects my left hand and slightly my left foot. But I’ve been a part time fitness instructor, properly conditioned I have run decently (10 minute mile) up to a 15K before my slight favoring of my right leg takes it’s toll and I’ve been a gym rat since 1990 and I just left the gym.

But I would never expect someone giving out a free service to spend extra money to make accommodations for me.

[BeetleB]

> But I would never expect someone giving out a free service to spend extra money to make accommodations for me.

And you should not expect all disabled people in the country to waive their rights just because you do.

[raw_anon_1111]

So how did that work out for the hypothetical “disabled person”? Now they nor anyone else has access to the free content.

[BeetleB]

Edit: Just realized the library discussion was in another thread - but the discussion was still with you so I'm keeping it in this comment.

> So how did that work out for the hypothetical “disabled person”?

He didn't have access before, and he doesn't have access now. Nothing is worse for him.

It's not his responsibility to provide the service to others. It is the library's, and they clearly failed and are rightfully blamed for no one having access. If I were a normal person in the town, I would blame them, not the person filing the lawsuit.

If the library shut down because they had clear mold issues they refused to pay to fix, would you blame the immunocompromised, at risk person who filed the lawsuit? Or would you say the library should get its act together and provide a safe/healthy environment?

Imagine a school shutting down because they cannot afford all these new colored students that they could exclude before. Are you going to blame the colored students for insisting on their rights?

This is basic Civil Rights 101. You can't use the excuse of "we don't have money" to discriminate, which UCBerkeley was clearly doing.

> Now they nor anyone else has access to the free content.

Nothing is free. The library patron paid for it via taxes, as did everyone else. Just as everyone pays federal taxes, as did the person in another state who sued UC Berkeley. He's paying, and not getting what he is owed.

If you don't like it, just don't take federal funds. Many organizations' web sites are inaccessible, and that's totally OK and legal.

[raw_anon_1111]

Did the federal funds cover making it accessible? Was the person suing a student or prospective student of UC Berkeley who couldn’t get in because of accessibility?

If the student had been blind and deaf should they hace flown someone out to personally communicate with them like was done with Helen Keller?

[BeetleB]

> Did the federal funds cover making it accessible?

All federal funds that go to universities have strings attached. One of them is the requirement that all services to the public must be accessible. Not "try to be" or "make a good effort". It's up to the university to budget appropriately.

As a faculty member, a big percentage of any research grant I get goes straight to the department - I cannot use it for my research. It's up to the department to use the money appropriately, and if they're not budgeting for accessibility, it's on them.

> Was the person suing a student or prospective student of UC Berkeley who couldn’t get in because of accessibility?

For someone arguing so passionately, perhaps you should actually go learn something about the case?

> If the student had been blind and deaf should they hace flown someone out to personally communicate with them like was done with Helen Keller?

Great question. What does the law require for such a person?

[vintermann]

Many interest groups in the US are for hire. Meaning, if you don't like a piece of upcoming legislation, you can give them a donation and they'll find out a way the upcoming legislation hurts their demographic. These groups have overwhelmingly passive members, who don't run the organization in any meaningful way.

There are even more mercenary groups, whose business model is basically extorting organizations for donations, threatening with expensive lawsuits and bad publicity.

It seems pretty likely to me that NAD's lawsuits are more about this, and less about actually caring about deaf access. There are a lot of them, and they seem to go for big pockets. Probably the efforts Berkeley went to to offer accessibility would have been deemed good enough to not sue over (for now) if they had donated.

It doesn't mean the causes such orgs ostensibly fight for aren't good. It's just that when enforcement is by lawsuit, it's inevitably selective enforcement, and that just creates a huge business opportunity for unscrupulous lawyers (which there is no shortage of).

[BeetleB]

> It seems pretty likely to me that NAD's lawsuits are more about this, and less about actually caring about deaf access. There are a lot of them, and they seem to go for big pockets. Probably the efforts Berkeley went to to offer accessibility would have been deemed good enough to not sue over (for now) if they had donated.

It's a convenient narrative. Here's another one: Senior administrator at the university doesn't like the project. It costs money to provide as it is, and money is always tight at a public university. They should be more focused on income generating patents (which, BTW, UC Berkeley is/was good at). And now they want us to spend even more money? Let's kill the project.

I spent a long time at universities, and I also worked for 1.5 years in the university's disability division, so I somewhat know the needs of the disabled. Part of that division's role was "policing" professors' course pages (albeit only when a student complained), so I'm familiar with the territory. Our position was clear: It's the law.

I also know how university administrator's think - they rarely like initiatives meant for the public good for free.

Finally: How much money did they make suing UC Berkeley? Did anyone (other than the lawyers) make money out of it? Why are people so certain this was a money grabbing lawsuit?

[raw_anon_1111]

If I wrote something for my own use and decided to open source it and then someone hypothetically decided to sue me because it wasn’t accessible, I would say f%%%. them too and take it down.

[BeetleB]

> If I wrote something for my own use and decided to open source it and then someone hypothetically decided to sue me because it wasn’t accessible, I would say f%%%. them too and take it down.

The difference is that they won't win in court. There's no law requiring you to make your open source work accessible - unless that open source work was part of a project for which you got federal grants.

Sorry, but it's clear that many commenters to this thread no almost nothing about what happened, and are merely engaging in outrage mania.

[raw_anon_1111]

If the federal grant didn’t pay enough to cover making my project that I decided to open source accessible, I would still say f%%% it and take it down

[BeetleB]

And you should. I'm not seeing the problem.

In the real world, though, when people ask for grant money, they justify how the money will be used. If you didn't put a line item for accessibility, and didn't budget for it, it's on you.