Student Sues University For Discriminating Against Her And Service Dog

 

(The Oregonian)
April 30, 2012

PORTLAND, OREGON– [Excerpt provided by Inclusion Daily Express] A deaf student and the Fair Housing Council of Oregon are suing Portland State University for more than $1 million claiming that the university has repeatedly discriminated against students with disabilities.

Student Cindy Leland claims that in fall 2010 university housing employees refused to let her and her service dog live in Stephen Epler Hall because it was carpeted. She and her dog instead were allowed to move into another university building, The Broadway, which does not have carpets.

She alleges she was routinely harassed — she believes because of her disability — with knocks on the door at night. Her dog had been trained to alert her to the knocks, and Leland would get up to discover no one at her door. She ended up sleeping only a few hours a night during finals week. After officials declined her request to install a security camera and the knocks grew more frequent, she moved out.

The suit states that the Fair Housing Council was aware of at least two other students who had service animals and encountered housing problems. The university threatened to evict one of them unless she removed her service animal, and the student filed suit in 2011, according to Leland’s complaint.

Entire article:
Deaf student sues, claiming Portland State University didn’t allow her service dog in some housing
http://tinyurl.com/ide0501124a

Rain at the Edge of Sight

I am in Manhattan where it is raining hard. In a few short minutes I will harness my guide dig and we will walk to Central Park. I can hear thunder out there.

The cool thing is that with a guide dog you’re out in all kinds of weather. We will get soaked but we will be smelling the greening of things and hearing the sizzle of wheels and there will be opportunities to be awake even on a wet day and wakefulness is never to be wasted. So says my dog, so say I!

Huffington Post: Clara Beatty, Girl With Treacher Collins Syndrome And Deformed Face, Learns To Navigate World

  "It was kind of strange sometimes with the doctors, some of whom I think really, really questioned why we had this baby," says Eric Beatty, Clara's dad.

Clara Beatty, Girl With Treacher Collins Syndrome And
Deformed Face, Learns To Navigate World

 

Wyn Newhouse Awards Exhibition, NYC

Last night I attended the New York City opening of the Wyn Newhouse Awards Exhibition at the Palitz Gallery at Syracuse University's Lubin House.

Here's the info from the exhibition's website:

Wynn Newhouse Awards Exhibition

The Palitz Gallery at Syracuse University's Lubin House is proud to host the Wynn Newhouse Awards Exhibition. The award exhibition was created to draw attention to the achievements of artists of excellence who happen to have disabilities.

The exhibition contains the works this year’s four grant winners: Barton Lidicé Beneš contributes two mixed media assemblages including Art Museum; Christine Sun Kim showcases three scores; Mark Parsons has four works from his “Figure from the Ground” series; and Sunaura Taylor has three works, two on paper and one on raw canvas, in the exhibition. There is also a video displaying the works of the runners-up.

The Wynn Newhouse Awards Exhibition runs through June 15, 2012. Exhibition hours are Monday to Friday, 10 a.m. – 6 p.m. and Saturday 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. It is free and open to the public. Contact 212-826-0320 or lubin@syr.edu for more information.

 

Lobster Girl, Sanaura Taylor

 

 

 

Believing in Ars Poetica

There's a breeze coming from the sea of my childhood. There is heat at mid-day and mail arrives. And I have chance meetings with the people I should know better. A live story is sung in my head. I am not certain about much else. Thinking of Tolstoi who said poetry should infect the reader, silly I think, a metaphor from the age when germs were new–but yes, there's something going around.

Essay: Disability Balloon Animals

I was in New York's Central Park and a very green man was twisting equally green balloons into animals. It was St. Patrick's Day and hundreds of green clad adults and children were about.

I didn't buy a balloon animal. I didn't even linger. I was in a hurry to cross Fifth Avenue before they closed it off.

Something happened to me over the course of the day. I thought of the balloon man as a kind of Pythagoras, who understood early in the morning just how the day would progress. All day, jammed in the crowds were wheelchair users, people with canes, elderly people. And their forms were struggling to unfold.