There’s a fine story about Ontario’s Lieutenant Governor David Onley at the Milton Canadian Champion (an excellent name for a newspaper–eh?) Mr. Onleyhas had polio and post-polio syndrome for most of his life and he spoke last week at an Ontario Rotary event about the need for everyone to get involved in the effort to help people with disabilities find jobs. This is a speech that I too have delivered to many groups around these United States from Lions Clubs to Rotary to civic and educational organizations. I sense that Mr. Onley is my brother.
I believe that higher education needs to get involved with this campaign to help people with disabilitiesfind good jobs. Right now (at least in America) most colleges provide fair to passably good accommodations in order that students can attend classes and take tests. That’s about it.
But what if colleges took seriously the possibility that people with disabilities have far more potential than is customarily imagined?
By this I mean that PWDs are profound and aggresive alternate learners. They know a lot about assistive technologies. They are tireless when it comes to the art of “thinking outside the box” and isn’t that the truth?
What if the Big Ten universities brought together their considerable prowess in engineering and their muscular programs in critical thinking to actively promote internships for their graduates with disabilities?
Why help people with disabilities? Because if we’re serious as a nation about entitlement reform than our first order of business should be helping the most vulnerable achieve success. Its just plain common sense.
But in order to achieve this revolution in thinking colleges need to see that students with disabilities are not a burden but a promise and that promise is embedded in our nation’s potential for success and resurgence.
Imagine if Apple which makes mostly inaccessible products actually employed lots of people with disabilities and accordingly their i phones could talk and in turn these devices could be used by blind people to scan the labels of groceries as well as play a song or call friends? Why not?
employing people with disabilities is about imagination and we can all agree that this nation needs as much imagination as we can muster.
S.K.
Planet of the Blind 
Rich, I use a wheelchair and agree with the assessment that Apple as a corporation is not access friendly. I have found Apple stores to be grossly inaccessible. Store staff is unhelpful when I make a request or complain and managers non responsive in terms of access issues.
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Hmmm, I’d agree about the iPhone, and iPod Touch from Apple not being accessible… But as computers go, Apple has built in access technology that does not require extra programs like WindowEyes. I can enlarge / zoom my screen with one command key… And I can enable speaking menus and keyboard with little trouble. – Unless I’m missing something, I think as computers go, Apple is very accessible.
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I share your views and dreams regarding how universities could play a central role in eliminating the high rate of unemployment among people with disabilities. Sadly, I doubt such an will ever take place. As budgets are slashed during the economic crisis the first group of student to be adversely affected are those with disabilities. When this is combined with the inability of academic administrators and university presidents to act in a progressive manner I am pessimistic substantive changes will be made to empower students with disabilities.
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