I'd say the Department of Education did the right thing.  They treated this
applicant like any other.  Are we really to believe that someone who's a
professor at a major university doesn't have the ability to ensure that
paperwork for which he's responsible is formatted properly.

I urge readers of this list to take a browse to the St. Johns list archives
and see what others think of this issue where this topic has been
discussed.  The blind-x list at

http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/blind-x.html

is one good starting point.

My apologies to those who've read this on the blind-x list but I feel this
is worth posting here.  This began as a response to how Dr. Gardner's
effort to get the Department of Education to reverse their decision
differed from other advocacy.

For those who are interested, you can find various information on Dr.
Gardner's work at

http://dots.physics.orst.edu


I see a difference between advocacy and this specific case.  Dr. Gardner
has been submitting grants for quite some time based on the news stories
and information on his own web site.  Nothing about his blindness precluded
him from submitting properly formatted grants in the past.  Nor was it a
case of his not being aware of the rules he was to follow.  His systems
simply messed up and I personally think he's using an appeal to sympathy
for the blind guy who can't see approach here.  Would it be acceptable for
him to show up for a professional presentation with his clothing all messed
up and say I'm blind so it shouldn't matter?

Were Dr. Gardner and other blind people submitting grants able to show a
track record of something about the grant application requirements being
inherently impossible for people that are blind, I say they had an issue
worth advocating.  I don't believe that's the case here.

Perhaps the Department of Education needs some sort of process to handle
cases of improperly formatted applications.  But Dr. Gardner isn't seeking
a systems wide change.  Rather he's claiming that his blindness demands an
exception to the rules in this case yet he was able to follow the rules
just fine in the past.  To me that's using your disability as an excuse.

I also think the Dr. should have given a bit more thought to what impact
his actions might have.  Many newspapers appear to have run this story and
what message does that send out about blindness.  I'll submit that the
media does the usual job of not really telling the whole story in that they
don't explain that it is indeed possible for people who are blind to
accurately prepare printed documents.  But would the Dr. really have us
believe that he has no way of checking documents for which he's responsible?

I know next to nothing about this Dr. beyond reading his web site and
seeing his occasional postings.  But I must really question something about
him he he'd like me and others to believe he's capable of doing PhD work
and at the same time can't manage the simple submission of a grant
application.  Using your disability as an excuse is wrong in my opinion.
His work appears to be important but the ends don't justify the means in
this case.

Mr. Gardner does seem to be all to capable of the all-too-common practice
of developing his technology with public money and then starting a private
company to get the benefits.  Take a browse to

http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/CGI/wa.exe?A2=ind9708C&L=easi&P=R2870

where he explains how the technology developed in his research group is
being taken to market by a company in which he's a partner.  Perhaps
there's a bit more to this story than just some poor blind guy not being
able to see the print as Dr. Gardner would have us believe.

Kelly

P.S. Below is a paragraph from a posting made on behalf of Dr. Gardner
which I made reference to.  You can find the full posting in the St. Johns
list archives at the URL I also provided.

Date:         Thu, 21 Aug 1997 10:10:13 -0700
Reply-To:     "Equal Access to Software & Information:---- web:
              http://www.rit.edu/~easi" <[log in to unmask]>
Sender:       "Equal Access to Software & Information:---- web:
              http://www.rit.edu/~easi" <[log in to unmask]>
From:         Carolyn Gardner <[log in to unmask]>
Subject:      Message from John Gardner

In case any readers of this list interpreted Robert's comments to mean
that the Tektronix Phaser is the only game in town, I would like to
mention the TIGER embosser that was invented in my research group and
is being commercialized by ViewPlus Technologies, a new company in
which I am a partner.  We expect the TIGER to be commercially
available by May of 1998 at a cost of $6,000.