A girl sits on a couch, laughing and smiling frequently. Her colorful, bright dress matches her vibrant personality. A black Labrador, Olivia, is sprawled on the carpet contentedly. She’s never too far away from her owner, criminal justice sophomore Katherine Chavez.
In conversation, Katherine has a peculiar tendency to look above the head of whomever she’s speaking with, like she expects the person to be taller than he or she really is. It’s a rough subject to bring up, as if calling attention to the elephant in the room. But why does she do that?
Emmanuel Joseph and George Amoah, two disabled Ghanaians, occupy different ends of the spectrum. The former lies on a piece of cardboard in Accra Central, his half-naked body twisted and mostly paralysed, the sun beating down on him while he waits to collect three dollars, the average proceeds of a day’s begging.
The four brothers leaned on one another, and sometimes it seemed like they leaned on Mikey most – the serious one who started his own company in high school, the brave one who wrote letters to ask for things they needed, such as wheelchairs and scholarships and maybe baseball tickets – and the only one to graduate from college so far.
Hundreds of mentally ill people who have been confined to nursing homes, sometimes in prisonlike conditions, would move to apartments or other housing within three years under a legal settlement with New York State.
Emergency evacuation decisions are tougher for people with disabilities because they need to be sure they are fleeing to shelters that they can get in and out of and use. In the wake of Hurricane Irene, there are allegations today that the City Office of Emergency Management (OEM) fell short on promises that people being ordered out of “Zone A” would be evacuated to “accessible shelters.”
The message, with all its implications for success, can be distilled into three words. Spend any amount of time around this coach, around his football program, and you’ll come away parroting the mantra:
“Figure it out.”
Catchy, sure. But it’s more than a nice phrase. It’s Mark Speckman’s coaching philosophy. And his life.
Starbucks Coffee Company has agreed to pay $75,000 and provide other significant relief to settle a disability discrimination lawsuit brought by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the agency announced today. The EEOC had charged Starbucks Coffee Company with unlawfully denying a reasonable accommodation to a barista with dwarfism at one of its El Paso stores and firing her because of her disability.
Tye Horn sets goals and achieves them. Horn, who has mild developmental disability, was hired as a parking lot attendant at Home Depot in Newbury Park when he was 19. After pushing carts for nearly a decade, he set his sights on moving inside and becoming a cashier.
Jason Price was picked by a federal administration to help write a book. His part is about Oklahomans with disabilities becoming employed and self-sufficient, allowing them to leave the Social Security disability rolls.
