[nfb-talk] To Be or Not to Be, Irritated

[T. Joseph Carter]

Ryan,

That's a depressing thought.  You may be right, though I suspect the
biggest hassle is in seeing to it that the laws lack weasel-out-room
first.  The way it works right now is:

Look for job
if you find a promising job:
    Apply for job
    if you got the job:
	Go to "You are now employed!"
    else (didn't get the job):
	if it was a discrimination case:
	    if you really want to sue:
		File lawsuit
		if case is thrown out:
		    Sucks to be blind sometimes
		    Go to "Look for job"
		else (case wasn't thrown out):
		    Lose the case (too disabled or not disabled enough)
		    Go to "Look for job"
	    else:
	        Go to "Look for job"
You are now employed!
But only until they decide a blind person can't do your job

Cynical?  Sure.  But that's how it seems to work.  Okay, there's a CHANCE
you might win the case, but if you do the other side will likely appeal,
and sooner or later you'll lose.  In the meantime you have no job, because
it is hard to fight these kinds of things and successfully hold a job at
the same time, assuming you can get one.

And don't think that your involvement in legal proceedings won't affect
your ability to get a job elsewhere.  One of the places I worked routinely
did background checks on new applicants, just to make sure there were no
major criminal charges we needed to know about before hiring them.  The
company that did our checks did report on public records associated with
civil court cases when that information was readily available.  We found
one prospective hire had sued two of his former employers, one for
wrongful termination related to his disclosure of trade secrets.  Being in
the business of having and keeping our trade secrets, needless to say, we
didn't extend him an offer.

I don't know if that sort of thing is actionable or not, but there's no
way he could have proven that's why he didn't get the job--and he wasn't
disabled.  In fact, I'm not sure it was the reason he didn't get the job
either, but I suspect it played prominently in the decision!

Some people are just more equal than others, and you know, it sure does
seem a lot of the time like blind people are usually the others.

Joseph

On Tue, May 06, 2008 at 08:19:51PM -0600, RyanO wrote:
> It may be that we've got it all wrong. The ACB could have a point. Perhaps 
> we should be turning to the courts to remedy more of our situations. God 
> knows we're too much of a minority to do otherwise.
> 
> 
> RyanO