Demand Our Access

Jonathan Simeone

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As a blind lawyer, I'm passionate about those of us with disabilities understanding our legal rights and how to enforce them. Please subscribe to the Demand Our Access podcast to learn about our rights as people with disabilities. By enforcing your individual rights, you can make things better for our whole community.

MAR 16

How You can Advocate for Section 504

Disclaimer The information presented in any of the Demand Our Access podcast episodes, on the Demand Our Access website, or otherwise shared in conjunction with or through association with the Demand Our Access project is expressly not individual legal advice. Applying the law depends on the circumstances and events that comprise every situation. Since legal advice is fact-specific, nothing about the Demand Our Access project can provide an individual, a group of individuals, or any organization legal advice. Introduction In the last episode of the Demand Our Access podcast, I discussed Texas v. Becerra, a lawsuit seeking to have Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (Section 504) declared unconstitutional. If you want to learn more about the lawsuit, please listen to that episode or read the transcript of what I said about the lawsuit. During the questions and comments portion of that episode, there was a lot of interest in advocating for the protection of Section 504. So, this episode will present strategies those of you living in the 17 states can take to try to protect Section 504 and things those of us who don't live in one of those 17 states can do to be heard. Before discussing how we can advocate to protect Section 504, I will discuss the next episode and let you know how you can contact me. The Next Live Episode The next live episode will take place on Saturday, April sixth at 2:00 PM EDT. In that episode, I am planning to continue my revisited look at Title II of the Americans With Disabilities Act, primarily covering state and local governments. Comments and Questions If you have any comments and/or questions about the Demand Our Access project, you can fill out the contact form on the Demand Our Access website or you can email me at Jonathan@DemandOurAccess.com. How You Can Advocate for Section 504 If You Live in One of the 17 States As a reminder, the 17 states suing to have Section 504 declared unconstitutional are as follows: Alabama Alaska Arkansas Florida Georgia Indiana Iowa Kansas Louisiana Missouri Montana Nebraska South Carolina South Dakota Texas Utah West Virginia Contacting Your Attorney General If you live in one of the 17 states, the best thing you can do is contact your attorney general and let them know why you support Section 504 and that you want them to withdraw from the lawsuit. In order to make contacting your attorney general easier, I have worked with ChatGPT to create a table of contact information for the 17 attorneys general involved in the lawsuit. The table provides the name, mailing address, phone number, and website for each attorney general. I didn't include an email address and/or contact form, because those methods of contact weren't consistent enough among the attorneys general for them to be easily included in a table. if you would rather send an email or complete a contact form, visit your attorney general's website to see how you can do that. I'm not going to read the names of the attorneys general and their individual contact information. The table of contact information will be provided at the end of the transcript when this episode is posted to the Demand Our Access website. What to Say Obviously, you should voice your support in a way that is comfortable for you and that reflects your voice. So, I can't tell you exactly what to say when contacting your attorney general. Also, I can't provide a different script for every possible method of communication you may use to contact your attorney general. So, I have developed a short sample script that works whether you contact your attorney general over the phone, through email, by using a contact form, by writing a letter, or even if you meet them. Before providing the script, I want to make one important point: the more personal your appeal the more likely it is to be heard. That doesn't mean you should provide health information or anything else that you typically don't provide strangers.

24 min
MAR 2

The Lawsuit Threatening Section 504

Disclaimer The information presented in any of the Demand Our Access podcast episodes, on the Demand Our Access website, or otherwise shared in conjunction with or through association with the Demand Our Access project is expressly not individual legal advice. Applying the law depends on the circumstances and events that comprise every situation. Since legal advice is fact-specific, nothing about the Demand Our Access project can provide an individual, a group of individuals, or any organization legal advice. Introduction In this episode I will be covering the lawsuit threatening Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (Section 504). Sharing my Feelings Usually, I try to avoid my personal feelings when I discuss the law as a part of Demand Our Access. In preparing this episode, I had an impossible time fully separating my feelings of anger and hurt from the material I’m presenting. Given the reality that if the states are successful all of us with disabilities will have significantly fewer civil rights, I’m hoping you can understand why some of my feelings and opinions have made their way into this material. Before discussing Section 504 I will briefly describe the next episode and provide my contact information. The Next Episode The next live episode of the Demand Our Access podcast will take place on Saturday, March 15. In that episode, I will continue my revisited look at Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Questions and Comments As always, I’m interested in hearing from you. Please provide any feedback by completing the contact form on the Demand Our Access website or by emailing me at Jonathan@DemandOurAccess.com. The Threat to Section 504 Briefly Describing Section 504 So we all understand the potential magnitude of this lawsuit, I want to briefly describe Section 504’s history and what it covers. As mentioned earlier, Section 504 is a section of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which was signed into law by President Richard Nixon. The regulations implementing Section 504 were not published by the Department of Health and Human Services until 1977, after the protests addressed in the documentary Crip Camp. Simply put, Section 504 applies to programs of the federal government and programs receiving money from the federal government. This means that Section 504 currently provides legal protections to those of us with disabilities in all public programs offered by the federal government and all programs receiving any funding from the federal government. For more information about Section 504, check out the episode titled Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. Texas v. Becerra On September 26, 2024, a group of 17 states led by Texas filed suit against the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in the Northern District of Texas. The currently named defendant in the suit is Xavior Becerra (the secretary of HHS during the Biden administration). This is why the lawsuit is currently referred to as Texas v. Becerra. Note, the link to the complaint filed by the 17 states posted to the Demand Our Access website when this episode of the podcast is posted goes to a reasonably accessible PDF on the Texas attorney general’s website. Participating States The 17 states participating in the lawsuit are as follows: Alabama Alaska Arkansas Florida Georgia Indiana Iowa Kansas Louisiana Missouri Montana Nebraska South Carolina South Dakota Texas Utah West Virginia Things to Know About the Lawsuit To, hopefully, not get too technical, I want to briefly cover the seven major aspects of the complaint filed by the 17 states. After briefly highlighting the important aspects of the complaint, I will delve into more specifics about some of them. I have organized the list of seven things you currently need to know about the lawsuit in a way that, I hope, addresses questions in an order most of you may be thinking about them: In a status report filed with the court on February 19,

22 min
FEB 17

Title II Revisited

Disclaimer The information presented in any of the Demand Our Access podcast episodes, on the Demand Our Access website, or otherwise shared in conjunction with or through association with the Demand Our Access project is expressly not individual legal advice. Applying the law depends on the circumstances and events that comprise every situation. Since legal advice is fact-specific, nothing about the Demand Our Access project can provide an individual, a group of individuals, or any organization legal advice. The Next Episode The next episode of the Demand Our Access podcast will take place on Saturday, March first. In that episode, I will continue our second look at Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (Title II). If you have any questions or comments about this episode or Demand Our Access in General, I would love to hear from you. You can email me at Jonathan@DemandOurAccess.com. You can also complete the contact form on the Demand Our Access website. Introduction Title II primarily sets forth the requirements state and local governments are supposed to follow to ensure their activities, programs, and services are accessible to those of us with disabilities. Unfortunately, their isn't a single state or local government complying with Title II. Even worse, most state and local governments are demonstrably out of compliance with Title II. This deliberate noncompliance with Title II on the part of every state and local government adds to the discrimination faced by those of us with disabilities on a daily basis. Since we all need to interact with our state and local government, their lack of compliance with Title II causes us lots of stress and difficulty. For those reasons, I chose Title II to be the first topic I discussed through the Demand Our Access podcast. Over the last roughly 2.5 years, I hope my ability to teach important legal concepts has improved. So, I thought it would be good if I revisited Title II now. Much of the substance covered here will be very similar to what was covered more than two years ago. But I am, hopefully, presenting the information in a way that makes it easier to understand. Episode Roadmap I am covering these topics in this episode because they are the foundation of compliance under Title II. In the next episode, I will cover more of the information you will need to effectively request an accommodation or modification from your state or local government. If terms like accommodation and modification don't mean anything to you now, they should when I finish our revisited two-part look at Title II. Below are the eight topics I will cover in this episode: Code of Federal Regulations Defining a Public Entity Project Civic Access ADA coordinator Notice of rights Grievance procedure Self-evaluation Transition plan Title II Revisited Code of Federal Regulations Laws don’t often contain all their legal requirements. Congress regularly directs federal agencies to develop or promulgate what the law will require. Under the ADA, several federal agencies have responsibility for developing guidance as to what it means to comply with the ADA. When an agency has responsibility for clarifying what compliance with section(s) of the ADA means, they have enforcement power over those section(s). The Department of Justice (DOJ) has primary responsibility for establishing what guidelines for compliance under title II. DOJ also has primary enforcement power over Title II. When a federal agency establishes what constitutes compliance, those requirements are published in the Code of Federal regulations. When I cite to a section of law (either during the episodes or on the website) I will almost always be citing to the Code of Federal Regulations. Often, the Code of Federal Regulations is referred to as C.F.R. When I refer to a section of C.F.R, I’m referring to a section in the Code of Federal Regulations. For the rest of this episode, I'm not going to mention any section in the Code...

24 min
FEB 11

Advocacy Updates and Playing the Blind Card

Disclaimer The information presented in any of the Demand Our Access podcast episodes, on the Demand Our Access website, or otherwise shared in conjunction with or through association with the Demand Our Access project is expressly not individual legal advice. Applying the law depends on the circumstances and events that comprise every situation. Since legal advice is fact-specific, nothing about the Demand Our Access project can provide an individual, a group of individuals, or any organization legal advice. Introduction This episode has two main topics: advocacy updates from Desiree and I; and playing the blind card while advocating. The next live episode will take place on February 15 at 2:00 EST. I don’t yet have a planned topic for that episode. If you have any comments and/or suggestions, please write me at Jonathan@DemandOurAccess.com or complete the contact form at Demand Our Access. Advocacy Updates From Desiree and I My Advocacy Updates While I can’t yet discuss everything I’m working on, I want to mention my complaint with the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission (EEOC), and issues I’m having with the Oregon Employment Department (OED). My EEOC Complaint The EEOC has accepted my charge of discrimination and notified my former employer. While awaiting their response, I have decided that, if they agree, I will attempt to resolve my discrimination through mediation run by the EEOC. I have made the choice to try mediation, even though I doubt it will be successful, because mediation could bring about a much faster result. Also, there is the reality that the current administration is seemingly considerably less likely to litigate cases of disability discrimination. But even if they don’t, I still have hope that the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industry, which has a partnership agreement with the EEOC, will investigate if mediation fails. My Issues with the Oregon Employment Department After trying for more than a month, I made the difficult decision to stop seeking additional unemployment benefits. The truth is that constantly fighting for the access I need to consistently get the unemployment benefits I’m entitled to receive from an agency with little to no knowledge of its legal responsibilities under Title I and no desire to meaningfully provide the accommodations I’m entitled to receive from them was causing me tremendous stress. So, I have begun the process of trying to force them to follow the law by filing with the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industry. At this point, I don’t believe the Department of Justice will assist me. So, I hope I can, at least, make it so the next blind person needing accommodations from OED to get the benefits they deserve doesn’t suffer the amount of discrimination I have suffered. Desiree’s Traveling with a Service Animal As you may know, Desiree has a new guide dog. While you are listening to this, she is in Florida at a conference. Prior to flying to Florida, she had to complete the forms necessary to fly with a service animal. What you are about to hear is the inaccessibility she encountered while completing the required forms. In her recording, Desiree mentioned the company Open Doors that enables you to register your service animal with five different airlines. Playing the Blind Card Introduction to Playing the Blind Card While I’m calling what I am talking about here the blind card, it’s important to note that the analysis I will share here applies to all situations where a disabled person uses stereotypes and assumptions about disabled people and those of us with disabilities to encourage nondisabled people to make something more accessible. Obviously, what I’m sharing here is strictly my opinion. I recognize and appreciate others will disagree. I’m sharing this anyway to hopefully stimulate thought and provoke what I believe is an important discussion. The last episode of the Demand Our Access podcast focused on how we can advocate during these difficult po...

55 min
JAN 19

How You Can Comment on the Proposed Fine of AccessiBe

Disclaimer The information presented in any of the Demand Our Access podcast episodes, on the Demand Our Access website, or otherwise shared in conjunction with or through association with the Demand Our Access project is expressly not individual legal advice. Applying the law depends on the circumstances and events that comprise every situation. Since legal advice is fact-specific, nothing about the Demand Our Access project can provide an individual, a group of individuals, or any organization legal advice. Briefly Explaining Accessibility Overlays So we are all on the same page, I want to briefly describe the kinds of overlays involved here. Several companies, including AccessiBe, have been marketing overlays to government agencies, businesses, and nonprofits. In marketing these overlays, these companies, including AccessiBe, are selling the myth that installing these overlays will make websites fully compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). The idea is that if these overlays are used, websites will fully comply with WCAG and the websites will be fully accessible. As anyone who uses assistive technologies knows, these overlays don't make websites fully usable to those of us who use assistive technologies. As the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) mentions in its document explaining the proposed consent agreement discussed soon, AccessiBe's Access Widget doesn't even create compliance with WCAG. How you can Comment on the Proposed Fine of AccessiBe Explaining AccessiBe AccessiBe is an Israeli company that develops and sells what it calls AccessWidget. AccessiBe has been promoting the idea that all companies, government agencies, and nonprofits need to do to is install AccessWidget and their websites will be accessible to everyone. Currently, AccessiBe's website boasts that more than 100K websites have been made accessible to everyone through the use of AccessWidget. The current price for using AccessWidget is $490 annually for sites with less than 1,000 pages. For websites with less than 10,000 pages and for premium add-ons, the current annual cost for AccessWidget is $1,400. For sites with less than 100,000 pages and for premium add-ons, the current annual cost is $3,490. The FTC's Fine On January sixth, the Federal Trade Commission announced a proposed consent agreement with AccessiBe and asked for public comment. Under the terms of the proposed consent agreement, AccessiBe would be fined $1 million for alleged violations of law prohibiting unfair or deceptive acts or practices. Speaking about AccessiBe's actions, the FTC's analysis of the proposed consent agreement says the following: This matter involves AccessiBe’s marketing and sale of a web accessibility software plug in called AccessWidget. AccessiBe represented that AccessWidget could make any website compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (“WCAG”), a comprehensive set of technical criteria used to assess website accessibility. AccessiBe advertised these claims on its website and social media, as well as in articles that were formatted as impartial and objective reviews on third-party websites. AccessiBe also failed to disclose its material connections with the publishers of those third-party articles. The proposed complaint alleges that AccessWidget did not make all websites WCAG compliant, and that the company's claims were false, misleading, or unsubstantiated. The proposed complaint also alleges that formatting the third-party articles and reviews as independent opinions by impartial authors and publishers was false and misleading, and that AccessiBe’s failure to disclose its material connections with the publishers of those articles was deceptive. The proposed order contains provisions designed to prevent AccessiBe from engaging in these and similar acts and practices in the future. Provision I prohibits AccessiBe from representing that its automated products,

26 min
JAN 6

Advocating During These Politically Challenging Times

Disclaimer The information presented in any of the Demand Our Access podcast episodes, on the Demand Our Access website, or otherwise shared in conjunction with or through association with the Demand Our Access project is expressly not individual legal advice. Applying the law depends on the circumstances and events that comprise every situation. Since legal advice is fact-specific, nothing about the Demand Our Access project can provide an individual, a group of individuals, or any organization legal advice. Introduction Without getting too political, I think most people would agree that advocating for civil rights will not be the same under the incoming Trump administration as it has been under the Biden administration. That being said, I strongly believe that advocating for our rights, even if you don't believe our advocacy efforts will be as successful, is even more important than maybe it has ever been. I say that because if the Trump administration is serious about cutting programs that provide greater access and inclusion, one of the best ways we can defend the programs we need is to demonstrate how many things still aren't working. To put it another way: if very few people are requesting accommodations or modifications, or asking government to enforce violations, the easier it will be for officials to argue that our civil rights programs aren't needed. Before getting into how we can advocate for our rights during the second Trump administration, I think it's important to provide some reminders as to what actually happened during the first Trump administration and how little we are on his mind: The first Trump administration made no real effort to repeal or seriously weaken the ADA and related laws. Trump almost never talks about the ADA and those of us with disabilities. He has not promised to reduce the rights of those of us with disabilities. Trump wouldn't get many political points by launching an attack against the disability community and/or by threatening to destroy the access we currently have. I shared those reminders because I believe the first Trump administration, at least when it comes to the civil rights of those of us with disabilities, is a good indicator of what the second Trump administration will be like for our advocacy efforts. As you may remember, the first Trump administration did basically nothing to improve access for those of us with disabilities. But it didn't go out of its way to destroy the gains we have made prior to Trump taking office for the first time. Currently, that is what I expect to happen beginning on January 20. Since I don't expect our concerns to be taken seriously, we need to begin our look at advocating during the second Trump administration by considering how we can advocate for our rights outside of the Department of Justice, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the rest of the federal agencies with oversight over our civil rights laws. Advocating for Our Rights Under the Second Trump Administration A key to our advocacy efforts under the second Trump administration will be using the state and local laws that provide us similar protections to those we have under the ADA at the federal level. How effective advocacy efforts will be at the state and local level will depend, in part, on how seriously your state and/or local government takes the civil rights of those of us with disabilities. So, everyone's mileage will not be the same. But everyone, except those of you living in Alabama, has a state law promising civil rights protections to disabled people. Obviously, I cannot cover the 49 state laws that provide protections to those of us with disabilities on this podcast. In the recording, I discussed a table listing the state-specific laws. I was not able to publish that table to the site, because I am having issues with the way WordPress is interpreting the HTML for the post with the table. In case you consider your state's law,

19 min
11/16/2024

What do do When You Face Discrimination at Work

My Mastodon Handle In case anyone is interested, I joined Mastodon. My handle is @JonathanSimeone@caneandable.social. All of the posts I make to the Demand Our Access website will automatically be shared to my Mastodon account. I look forward to meeting you on Mastodon. Disclaimer The information presented in any of the Demand Our Access podcast episodes, on the Demand Our Access website, or otherwise shared in conjunction with or through association with the Demand Our Access project is expressly not individual legal advice. Applying the law depends on the circumstances and events that comprise every situation. Since legal advice is fact-specific, nothing about the Demand Our Access project can provide an individual, a group of individuals, or any organization legal advice. Introduction In this episode, I will briefly recap Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act (Title I) before discussing steps you should take in case you face discrimination at work. If you have any comments or questions about this episode, you can complete the contact form on the Demand Our Access website, or you can email me at Jonathan@DemandOurAccess.com. For more information about Title I, visit the page called ADA Title I Information. If you are concerned as to how recent political events will affect the ability of people with disabilities to have concerns of discrimination addressed by the federal government, I will be covering that in the next episode. That episode will be live on ACB Community on Saturday, December seventh at 2:00 PM EST. It will be posted to Demand Our access shortly after it is presented live. As I have said several times before, there is no way to cover this kind of material without using words like "impaired" that many of us in the disability community don't use. I'm using words like "impaired" here because those are the words used in the law. Whether we like it or not, when communicating about the law we are required to use terms that are outdated. Maybe someday the ADA will be revisited and the updated law will provide for meaningful enforcement and be written in modern language. For now, we have to discuss the law as it has been written. Briefly Recapping Title I Our brief recap of Title I is based on the rules defining compliance with Title I as set forth by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in 29 C.F.R. § 1630. To make this presentation easier to follow, I'm not going to mention the exact citations to different sections of the Code of Federal Regulations. If you are interested in the citations, you can find them in the episodes where I discussed Title I. I decided that the term "covered entity", while used in the Code of Federal Regulations, may be too confusing for people just learning about Title I. So, I have decided to replace the term "covered entity" with the term "employer". While I'm doing this to make the presentation easier to follow, it must be remembered that not all employers are covered by Title I; for example, if an employer employs fewer than 15 employees that employer is not covered by Title I. If you heard either of the episodes where I discussed Title I in greater detail, some of this will be review for you. I have included what I believe are some of the most important things to know about our rights under Title I here so if someone listens to this episode prior to listening to the episodes on Title I, some of the information they will need is here. Important Concepts For an employer to be covered byTitle I, it must have at least 15 employees. The United States government is not subject to the provisions of Title I; however, Section 501 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 provides similar protections for federal positions. To be clear, state and local governments are covered by Title I. If you work or you are interested in working for a state or local government, what I am covering here applies to you. Private membership clubs (excluding labor organizations...

39 min
11/03/2024

Using AI to Advocate and Learn About the Law

Introduction As the title indicates, this episode is about using artificial intelligence (AI) to advocate for our legal rights and to learn more about the law. Specifically, I demonstrate using AI to find who to contact when you need to make an ADA request of your local government, having AI draft the substance of an ADA request, and using AI to learn more about the law. All demonstrations were done using ChatGPT. Since some people don't want to pay for ChatGPT, I demonstrate these tasks in the free version too. Important Notes on ChatGPT ChatGPT is a tool that can make doing things faster and more efficient. ChatGPT makes mistakes. Don't use it to do important work for you unless you can check its results. For making an ADA request, ChatGPT doesn't need to be perfect. It only needs to communicate the basics of a request. The paid version of ChatGPT provides much better, faster responses than does the free version. The free version will make developing an accommodations request easier, especially if you don't know how to make an accommodations request. Why I Won't Share Exact Prompts In thinking about it, I decided I couldn't share exact prompts here as suggestions for you. I can't share exact prompts here because the responses ChatGPT provides depends on a number of factors including: how often you use it; how often you have asked it to perform tasks similar to what you would be asking it to do when making an accommodations request; and what information you need it to provide. As an example, finding the ADA coordinator for Boston, MA is significantly easier than is finding the ADA coordinator for Leander, TX, as the recording demonstrates. Since I don't think providing exact prompts will work, I want to strongly encourage you to try using ChatGPT, whether you have the paid or free version) to help you develop an accommodations request under the ADA. If you try using ChatGPT to make an accommodations request or to learn more about the law, please let me know. I would appreciate hearing about your experiences. Important Notes On ChatGPT's capabilities The paid version can create a sample request in different formats, including Word. The free version cannot provide sample text in different formats, but you can paste its sample text into the app of your choice. The paid version can provide actual names of people holding different positions. The free version does not give specific contact information. The paid version can be customized to learn how you want it to work. The free version cannot be customized. Conclusion I strongly believe AI can do much to help all of us make ADA requests and learn more about our legal rights. If you are interested, I urge you to give ChatGPT a try. You may find that by using it you are more comfortable making ADA requests and you may be more willing to demand your access.

42 min

See All (34)

Creator

Jonathan Simeone
Years Active

2022 - 2025
Episodes

34
Rating

Clean
Show Website

Demand Our Access

Demand Our Access

Episodes

How You can Advocate for Section 504

The Lawsuit Threatening Section 504

Title II Revisited

Advocacy Updates and Playing the Blind Card

How You Can Comment on the Proposed Fine of AccessiBe

Advocating During These Politically Challenging Times

What do do When You Face Discrimination at Work

Using AI to Advocate and Learn About the Law

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