Airlines Continue Mishandling Wheelchairs at Alarming Rate

"We would never accept airlines breaking the legs of 1 in 65 passengers, and yet, that is essentially what is happening when 1 out of 65 wheelchairs are being broken by airlines."
—Senator Tammy Duckworth to Business Insider.

Traveling as a wheelchair user is an exhausting and stress-inducing experience. Just within this past week this all-too-common occurrence of airlines mishandling wheelchairs has led to a flurry of headlines.

John Morris, founder of WheelchairTravel.org had his wheelchair, valued at $65,000, damaged twice by American Airlines.

Tim Kelly, another wheelchair user, was given airline miles as a "goodwill gesture" after Delta Air Lines forgot to put his chair on his flight from New York to Dublin, and worse, mishandled the chair on the return flight after it arrived causing significant damage.

Patty Bough, 85, was stranded at Orlando International Airport - MCO for 14 hours after Frontier Airlines left her unattended following a missed flight.

Wheelchair users are being forgotten, and the consequences are dire. Airlines often treat us, and our very expensive medical equipment, like trash.

This is not a new problem. Outside of the disability community there seems to be little outrage.

With newly released data from U.S. Department of Transportation showing an average of 35.8 wheelchairs are mishandled by airlines daily, and the uptick in news stories highlighting the anxiety of traveling as a wheelchair user, I wanted to take this opportunity to share an article I wrote last summer for Rooted in Rights detailing why this is such a huge problem for the disability community and why holding airlines accountable is essential.

Change is glacially slow, and occasionally backward. I am grateful to Senator Duckworth for being a leading voice on this issue. She is the very reason airlines are required to provide statistics on mishandled equipment at all.

Another perfect example of why representation matters.

When Your Wheelchair is Your Legs: Holding Airlines Accountable For Broken Mobility Equipment

Disability Pride PSA

In our final few days of Disability Pride, a quick PSA to my non-disabled followers and disability allies.

Notice what July is not.

🚫Handi-capable month
🚫 Differently-abled month
🚫 Special Needs month
🚫 dis-ABLE month
🚫 Physically Challenged month

✅ It’s DISABILITY Pride.

If that feels wrong to say, spend some time this weekend interrogating why.

This month is focused on embracing an identity that is integral to who we are. Honor that.

#saytheword
#disabilitypridemonth

Celebrating The ADA at 32

Yesterday, with the help of StoryCorps, I had the privilege of a lifetime sitting down with my friend, Business RadioX® “Fearless Formula” podcast host, and Professional Voice-over Artist Sharon Cline. We discussed the challenges and triumphs of disability advocacy, the role of allyship, and the importance of the ADA on its 32nd birthday.

Disability Advocate Ryan Honick and “Fearless Formula” podcast host, and Professional Voiceover Artist Sharon Cline discuss disability advocacy and the importance of the ADA on its 32nd birthday, July 26, 2022.

The Power of Representation

Disability-related workplace complaints were the second most-common discrimination complaint filed to the EEOC in 2020, and according to data published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, job candidates who disclose their disability are less likely to receive interest from employers.

Kristen Parisi, Morning Brew

Disability advocates talk a lot about representation. We talk about it so much we get tired of banging that particular drum. However, the underwhelming truth is, we remain underrepresented at work, in media, in advertising, and in society. As we enter the last week of Disability Pride, where the megaphone for us is a tad louder than normal, I want to talk about why that matters.

Representation is the foundation of inclusiveness. If we can’t be seen or acknowledged, if our perspectives are devalued or ignored, we are powerless to affect change. For this reason, representation in the C-Suite is particularly pivotal.

Yet, despite accounting for 20 percent of the global population, only four percent are openly out as disabled in the workplace according to the latest Disability Equity Index from Disability:IN. Not surprising given the added fears and anxieties that accompany workplace disclosure; concerns around equitable treatment, reasonable accommodations, changes in perceived abilities, and lower wages.

When it comes to media, a 2021 GLAAD report found only three and a half percent of characters in broadcast television shows during the 2020-2021 season had a disability. Of those, only 12 percent were portrayed by disabled actors according to a 2018 White Paper by the Ruderman Family Foundation.

The last example of underrepresentation, (which is being generous), is Pottery Barn, who last week unveiled their new Accessible Home furniture line—150 of their best-selling pieces redesigned with inclusivity in mind. Putting aside the company’s own admission that its high prices are likely to create a barrier to entry for their target market—one look at the models used in their campaign highlights one seemingly glaring omission—actual disabled people. It appears nobody within their marketing team could locate any of the roughly 1.5 billion disabled people worldwide to showcase their new furniture and opted instead for non-disabled models in hospital style wheelchairs. They want our money, just not our representation. Thankfully, Keely Cat-Wells, Tiffany A. Yu, MSc and the team at C Talent have put them on notice for future campaigns.

With these few examples, we remind you that the mere act of representation is not enough. Optics are not enough. Awareness is not enough. Being made aware is quite literally the first step, not the end goal. Awareness must be followed by inclusive action, without it, you’ve slipped into indifference.

Representation matters. Representation gives us a seat at the table. To all of the executives and C-Suite leaders, I ask you: What are you doing with it?

Disability Pride And The Meaning of Independence

As part of Disability Pride Month, Momentum Wheels for Humanity highlighted what independence meant to some of their friends and supporters in the disability community.

Here is an expanded edition of what I shared with them.

As we mark 32 years this July since the passage of the ADA, I’m encouraged by the progress we’ve made toward diversity, equity, inclusion and access. While the landmark legislation has certainly opened doors and transformed lives, the fight for full independence, freedom, and movement remains.

Since being matched with Canine Companions® Pico and becoming a service dog handler in 2014, I’ve seen my own independence increase tenfold, and I’ve watched my life transform in unimaginable ways.

For the last eight years, Pico and I have worked together to affect change on both the local and national stage. We’ve spearheaded policy shifts with Petco, Uber, Lyft, and Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) (to name a few) ensuring greater access and a safer experience for service dog teams. In addition, every public outing is an opportunity to educate the public on the important work done by Canine Companions and the vital role service dogs play in the lives of their handlers. I am so proud of the work we’ve done together for the disability community.

In the workplace we fight for the freedom to be seen as fully capable. We fight for accommodations, upward mobility and recognition beyond tokenism. Our independence is threatened by an increasing wage gap, and the practice of sub minimum wage remaining legal in 36 states. Our movements are limited when we can’t save for our future, or marry who we love without fear of losing the social safety net provided by Social Security Administration and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

We advocate for our right to move through the world unencumbered by obstacles; physical or idealogical. Some shifts are easier, others less so. We push forward knowing progress is not always linear.

As with every fight for equality, we celebrate our progress; we recognize our wins both large and small that have brought us to this moment and remain committed toward the day when full independence, freedom, and movement is possible for the entire disability community.

What does independence mean to you?

LinkedIn Top Voices in Disability Advocacy: The 12 creators to follow

I am honored to be named a Top Voice in Disability Advocacy by LinkedIn for 2022. This rewarding work reinforces the power of change when we come together raising awareness around diversity, equity, inclusion, and access. As 20% of the global population, the disabled community exists in every fight for justice.

Congratulations to all who were chosen this year and for making a difference and continuing the fight.

Jeremy Andrew Davis
Keely Cat-Wells
Meryl Evans, CPACC (deaf)
Brandon Farbstein
Haben Girma
Julie Harris 💭
Emily Ladau
Becca Lory Hector
Catarina Rivera, MSEd, MPH, CPACC
Natalie Trevonne
Tiffany A. Yu, MSc

Disability Pride Month

It’s Disability Pride month, and a cursory glance at the headlines reveals several newsworthy events.

• The Washington Post reports the Biden Administration released new guidance aimed at avoiding discrimination against disabled students who are suspended or expelled at greater rates than their non-disabled counterparts.
• A recent study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reveals 1 in 5 adults under 65 is experiencing symptoms consistent with long COVID. Newer variants may not be more severe; however, the CDC notes they are more transmissible; leaving disabled, and immunocompromised populations to fend for ourselves with no cohesive national response to meet the moment.
• The Los Angeles Times reported Uber has settled with the U.S. Department of Justice agreeing to pay $2 million for violating the ADA over wait times charged to disabled passengers. Sadly, the lawsuit does not address ongoing challenges with service dog discrimination, or the lack of disability access as noted in a recent piece in The Verge.
• The Metropolitan Transportation Authority recently pledged to make 95% of its stations accessible by 2055, a whopping 65 years after the ADA.

I could talk about all these things at length. But I won’t. Not today, at least.

Today, I want to talk about something much simpler. Rest. Taking a break. Paraphrasing a popular book title, I want to explore the subtle art of not giving as many spoons.

Rest is not flashy, it’s not sexy, and it absolutely flies in the face of everything that tells us we should always be hustling, doing, producing, creating, and being “on” as a measure of our worth.

For the disability community there is an even deeper desire and inherent necessity to continually push forward even when we have reached our limit. Everyday, both publicly and privately, we confront ableism, indifference, bureaucracy, prejudice, and a society that questions our right to exist equally on the same playing field as non-disabled people.

We are seen as either inspirational for having “overcome” our disability or pitied for having struggled. There is no in between. What we overcome is not our disability but the barriers of societal ableism we confront daily.

In March of 2020 I wrote:

Sometimes we are out of spoons regardless of what the calendar says; and that’s okay.

And so, on this particular day, I want to celebrate disability pride by taking a break from the advocacy, taking time to recharge, and hopefully gather more spoons.

The headlines will keep coming, the advocacy will continue, just not today. Today, I rest in celebration of Disability Pride Month, and I invite my disabled family to do the same.

#disabilitypridemonth #disabilitypride #rest #hustle

Where Are All The Disabled Students?

Following the mass shooting in Uvalde, I have struggled to comprehend the inhumanity. I have thought about friends and family who are teachers or parents of school-age children. Every time this happens, I am left shaking for days, unnerved, and concerned for their safety. I thought about the children whose lives were lost, and I thought back to my time in school. A time before school shootings were pervasive and active shooter drills were normalized.

And I thought about disabled students.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), disabled students account for 14% of students attending public schools.

In the event of an emergency, many disabled students are left without a plan and left to wonder, “Is this how I am going to die?”

That kid was me.

I remember a simple evacuation drill in the days following the 9/11 attacks. Students were told to file out calmly and proceed to a designated area. As a wheelchair user, I saw a room filled with desks and little space to move safely and quickly. When I raised the concern with my teacher, he declared, “Ryan, ‘he’ is your escape plan,” and pointed to a classmate who was a football player.

As my education continued, I would routinely raise the question of how I was to safely evacuate. When there stopped being student athletes to carry me, I was told to sit and wait for evacuation personnel to get me. Teachers? Faculty? Police? Firefighters? Nobody ever discussed it with me. There would be an emergency, and as I watched classmates file out to safety, there I would be, waiting. But it was just a drill, they said. So, nobody came. Nobody could be bothered to even pretend to care about disabled lives. I became convinced that in the event of a real emergency, I would certainly die.

With active shooter simulations and lockdown drills, the stakes are higher. Students learn to hide under desks and barricade doors. They learn to block windows to avoid being seen. What is a student supposed to do if a wheelchair or other mobility device prevents them from participating in this drill? What do we do for students with auditory triggers? Students with visual impairments? Present day drills are not accounting for disabled students.

Inaccessibility abounds more than 30 years after the ADA. Lack of universal design in schools could mean the difference between life and death. Making matters worse, Republicans are advocating for a “one door policy” according to MSNBC. This is a step backward for accessibility.

According to Reuters, the shooter had well over an hour alone inside the school prior to police engaging with him.

After I read that, the only thing I could think was, where are the disabled students? While everyone is terrified and looking for safety, disabled students were likely told, “Sit tight and wait here. Someone is coming to help you.” That should terrify us all.

Disabled workers are struggling to get jobs, even in a labor shortage

In April, 8.3% of disabled Americans were unemployed, compared with 3.1% of those without a disability. If disabled workers were employed at the same rate as those without a disability, nearly 14 million more would have been working in 2021, according to the analysis in the report from Center for American Progress

Emily Peck, Axios

The disabled community historically struggles to find employment and that gap has only widened. We often face discrimination both subtle and blatant throughout our job search. From job postings that list unnecessary "requirements" to purposefully screen out disabled candidates, to lack of accommodations, or invasive questions during the application process; many disabled job seekers often battle the choice whether to disclose their disability at all. While the choice surrounding disclosure is a deeply personal one, there are inherent risks regardless of the decision. Disclose too early and we risk being tossed from the applicant pool altogether. Disclose too late and we may end up working for a company unwilling to accommodate us, making that new job we took a nightmare from which extricating ourselves is yet another obstacle. It’s a Catch-22 all too common amongst disabled applicants.

During a hearing Tuesday for the House Subcommittee on Diversity and Inclusion, Vilissa K. Thompson, LMSW, co-director of the The Century Foundation's Disability Economic Justice Collaborative told the Committee many employers are failing to accommodate employees now living with long COVID, a sentiment echoed by Thomas E. Foley, executive director of the National Disability Institute.

Another obstacle for disabled job seekers is the unfair choice between receiving Supplemental Security Income (SSI) from Social Security Administration and Medicaid from Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services —programs designed and targeted toward disabled people—and gainful employment. Both programs, while providing a social safety net, have strict means-tested guidelines effectively capping the earning potential and/or total assets disabled workers can have.

All of these difficulties in finding work helps explain in part why laws in 36 states still legally allow for employers to pay disabled people sub minimum wage as part of the Fair Labor Standards Act. Yesterday, South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster signed S. 533, phasing out the practice, making it just the 14th state in the nation to do so.

The disabled community faces unique challenges in our ongoing search for employment. Whether it’s indirect discrimination, lack of accommodations, risking social safety nets or the fight for equal wages, there remains a lot of work to be done until equity is achieved.

Disabled workers are struggling to get jobs, even in a labor shortage

4 Things High Risk People Need Now To Fight Covid

"The disability community sees disaster looming — more mass death and disablement, and a choice between hospitalization and death, or almost total isolation while everyone else enjoys maskless flying, parties, and eating in restaurants. Meanwhile, individual disabled and chronically ill people increasingly feel like they are now seeing exactly how they will die."
-Andrew Pulrang, Forbes

When the pandemic first began in March 2020, disabled people sounded the alarm. We tried desperately to talk about how deadly and disabling this pandemic would be, and the general response was to dismiss us. We were "othered", told our lives didn’t matter, told not to disrupt your fun and stay over there. As we so often are.

As it became increasingly clear the pandemic would affect the masses, a national emergency was declared. The country, at least for a while effectively shut down. Precautions were taken, and for a brief time it seemed we were all in this together.

Over two years, and 1 million deaths, later it seems the pendulum has swung back toward indifference. The reason so many able-bodied people shout from the rooftops about “learning to live with COVID” is because they very well can. For them, a battle with COVID, particularly if vaccinated, may not prove lethal. For folks like myself with cerebral palsy, which affects the most basic forms of mobility, a potential battle with COVID can go from miserable to life-threatening in a heartbeat.

Cerebral Palsy Alliance Research Foundation USA writes:

“….individuals with cerebral palsy will likely experience trouble quickly. This trouble includes inability to generate sufficient force to clear the airway and in fatiguing with the increased work of breathing.”

An Axios/Ipsos poll this week found just 36 percent of Americans said there was significant risk in returning to their “normal pre-coronavirus life" however, the disability community remains at incredibly high risk from COVID.

With the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shift from deemphasizing infection focusing on risk assessment, the need for more accessible data surrounding infection rates and daily cases remains paramount. At home test kits and personal protective equipment (PPE) need to be more widely available, affordable, and accessible. Perhaps most importantly there needs to be clear indication of the relative safety of public spaces. We need to know what precautions businesses are talking to protect the vulnerable populations they serve.

The pandemic is not over, its impacts are still being seen and felt globally, and the disability community is here to tell you that you are ignoring its current state at your own peril. Every one of you could become one of us at any time. The difference is. when you do, we will welcome you and not cast you aside.

4 Things High Risk People Need Now To Fight Covid