These quick tips help employers and human resources and diversity and inclusion professionals better understand how disability fits in DEI. Read more here.
employment
Why Technology Accessibility is Key for Disability Inclusion at Work
Promoting inclusion through accessibility increases productivity and aids in employee retention and recruitment. Read more here.
As Offices Reopen, Ill and Disabled Workers are Returning to a Painful Old Habit: ‘Masking’ Their Symptoms
With the increase in workers returning to the office, chronically ill and disabled workers undertake to hide their symptoms and pain to pretend to be well in front of able-bodied people. Read more here.
Applications Open for New York Times Disability Fellowship
Through a partnership with the NCDJ and the Ford Foundation, The New York Times is accepting applications for a reporting fellow who will explore what it means to live with a disability in America.
The fellow will work for a year on the Times’ National desk, focusing on reporting that illuminates and explains issues facing people living with disabilities. The fellow also will take some general assignment breaking news shifts and will receive coaching from the NCDJ and mentoring by a Times journalist with expertise on the topic.
For more information and to apply, go here.
The New York Times, NCDJ Partner to Enhance Coverage of Disability Issues
By Kasey Brammell
The National Center on Disability and Journalism at Arizona State University is partnering with The New York Times to create a new fellowship program to enhance coverage of disability issues and people with disabilities.
The program, to launch later this year, will place an early-career journalist in The Times newsroom each year for the next two years to develop expertise and report on a range of disability issues. It is set to be funded by philanthropy.
The fellow will be part of a larger fellowship cohort at The Times and will receive mentoring from both a Times’ staff member with expertise in covering disabilities and the NCDJ, which provides support and advice to journalists around the world who cover such issues. The NCDJ also will provide training to the Times’ newsroom.
Nearly one in five people in the United States lives with a disability, but these issues are undercovered, said Ted Kim, director of Early Career Journalism Strategy and Recruiting for The New York Times. “Few avenues exist to develop journalistic expertise on disability issues because such beats do not exist at most news outlets,” he said. “The lack of coverage, in turn, results in a lack of awareness about issues that affect a large portion of the country.”
Kristin Gilger, interim dean of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at ASU and director of the NCDJ, echoed the need for more and better coverage of disability issues and people with disabilities. “This fellowship program is an important step in the right direction at one of the nation’s top media institutions,” she said.
The application is now open for the first fellow, who will join The Times in June. Preference will be given to promising early-career journalists who also have experience living with a disability or who have developed a deep understanding of disability through the experiences of a family member or loved one. The deadline to submit an application is 5 p.m., New York Time, on March 31, 2021. Applicants are advised to submit well before the deadline.
The fellows will be part of The New York Times Fellowship program , a talent pipeline initiative started in 2019 to seed and diversify the next generation of journalists in local newsrooms across America. It trains journalists in reporting, audio, visual and other disciplines.
The National Center on Disability and Journalism is a service of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at ASU. For the past 12 years at Cronkite, the center has provided support and training for journalists and other communications professionals with the goal of improving media coverage of disability issues and people with disabilities.
COVID-19 is creating communication barriers for the deaf community
For many people who are deaf or hard of hearing, lip reading, facial expressions and body language are vital to communication, but protective face masks and remote work and school meant to slow the spread of COVID-19 have made it more difficult.
More than 1.1 million people in Arizona are hard of hearing, and more than 20,000 are deaf, according to the Arizona Commission for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing.
Willie Levi, 73, Dies; He Escaped a Life of Servitude
By Dan Barry, The New York Times
Willie Levi died at the age of 73 on April 23 after contracting the novel coronavirus.
Levi, who lived with an intellectual disability, was part of a successful Equal Employment Opportunity Commission lawsuit that fought for proper pay and working conditions for people with disabilities.
Levi was sent from his hometown of Orange, Texas to Iowa, where he worked alongside other men at a turkey-processing plant for decades. According to The New York Times, the men worked “in virtual servitude” for Henry’s Turkey Service.
Although Levi never made it back to Orange while he was alive, after his passing he was set to be buried in the same historic African-American cemetery that holds the remains of his mother, according to The New York Times.
Read the full article here: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/30/us/willie-levi-73-dies-he-escaped-a-life-of-servitude.html?referringSource=articleShare
A Mom Laments Limited Employment Prospects For Daughter With Down Syndrome
By Amy Silverman, Here & Now
Amy Silverman‘s daughter Sophie wants to be a dance teacher. But Sophie has Down syndrome and the opportunities for meaningful employment for people with intellectual disabilities are minimal.
This segment aired on January 1, 2020.
Listen to the radio piece here: https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2020/01/01/employment-prospects-intellectual-disabilities
Who bears the cost of Flagstaff’s minimum wage increase? Caregivers, for one.
For now, the impact of the state’s reimbursement law on the city’s finances is uncertain. Image: a photo of a piggy bank surrounded by loose coins. [Photo: Pixabay]
Click here to read this Cronkite News article online.
NCDJ Director Kristin Gilger quoted in HuffPost article on disability discrimination in the workplace
Job listings that discourage people with disabilities from applying are prevalent across professional industries, from journalism and news media to finance and higher education. Not only do these job descriptions discourage candidates with disabilities from applying to jobs for which they are qualified, but they also exacerbate the larger problem of people with disabilities being underemployed in full-time work.
Kristin Gilger, a senior associate dean at the Cronkite School and our director here at the NCDJ, is quoted in a recent HuffPost article discussing why these job descriptions are problematic and how they can be changed to attract a more diverse pool of candidates. The article was written by Wendy Lu, a journalist and disability rights advocate.
Click here to read Lu’s article on disability discrimination in the workplace.