Barriers to the accommodation request process of the Americans With Disabilities Act

Journal of Rehabilitation, April-June, 2005 by John Jay Frank, James Bellini

George Hunter expressed the long-term effects of battling through the multiple complications associated with requests: "I don't have the energy to be going through all of this. Life is too short." Stacey Trace noted: "There's only so much energy you have. After you lose it, there's only so much you can do." Nick Olsten and Fred Garland both said "you need to pick your battles." "Battles" are multiple, concurrent, and consecutive.

According to Schneider (1982), the implementation stage of a new policy is the process that begins after it is adopted and before the routinization of activities. The end of the implementation stage is when the activities, operations, and tasks of a new policy become routine. The processes for creating alternate formats for print (e.g., Braille, large print, audio recording) are well established and routine, as are the processes for gathering information on how to accommodate (e.g., calling DBTACs, or State VR services). If an ADA request suggests that entities can or must open a Pandora's box of choices as part of a case-by-case decision, then delays and apologies become the routine. As long as the operations, tasks, and activities associated with requests for common accommodations never become routine, the ADA is not, and never will be fully implemented. Instead of equal access becoming normal, a case-by-case focus on a problem becomes the routine. Instead of the needs of people with disabilities being the focus or measure of the ADA's implementation, the focus is on technique.

Fear of Retaliation

This theme describes the power of disability discrimination. Violent attacks took place in earlier civil rights struggles and stories of physical and mental abuse are part of the history of disability discrimination and the mistreatment of persons with disabilities. The informants' stories of retaliation in the context of the ADA process designed to eliminate discrimination toward persons with disabilities is thus, both ironic and deja-vu.

The retaliation described by informants ranged from economic reprisal to physical assault. Gunshots fired into Quincy Right's home was the most striking case.

   It is dangerous to make waves in a small town. We had our
   house shot into the day after we went with witnesses into
   the town Municipal Building to request print access. We
   heard POP, POP, now we have bullet holes in the house.
   Nobody was hurt, but it shook us up. We aren't requesting
   accommodation or filing a complaint because of fear and
   intimidation.

Quincy Right was advised by a consumer advocacy group to file an ADA complaint to address this concern. He stated, "Filing a complaint would simply make us martyrs."

Informants learned that the ADA complaint process would not be effective and that relationships with others would be strained if they did complain. Bob Cole noted:

   If my own human rights department won't help me, what
   chance do I have? And even if I win it, what do I win. I
   might get what I requested, OK, but I also win the
   animosity of my boss and then be open to retaliation.