Follow-up on report about anti-disability clauses in job listings doesn?t yield many answers.
Go to your favorite job site and search for ?25 pounds.? In almost every industry, you?ll find anti-disability clauses ? with companies stipulating, for example, that employees be able to lift that weight ? littering listings for jobs that require operating a computer, teaching a class, managing a division or running a major organization. As I reported for Al Jazeera America last week, human resources departments routinely stick these clauses into their job postings in ways that are shocking and generally violate the Americans With Disabilities Act. Given that unemployment is one of the most important issues for the disability community, this is a problem.
Why does it happen? And what can we do about it? Since publishing my original report, I?ve spoken to legal experts, federal officials, disability rights officials and, most important, disabled job seekers. They have clarified both the depths of the discrimination and the path forward.
I also talked to some colleges and universities that I allege are discriminatory in their practices, asking the following questions: Why does the Tarrant County College district director of diversity need to taste or smell? Does a Lehigh Community College sociology professor really need to use hands to handle or feel? Why couldn?t a French professor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock be blind? (I know of a blind French professor currently in the field.) Does the dean of fine arts at Eastern New Mexico University really need to lift 25 pounds? Should an accounting professor at Fisk University need to stand, walk or sit? Why does the director of first-year writing at the University of Texas at Arlington need to climb stairs and ladders?? Read full article on Aljazerra America.