Blind People Face Lingering Workplace Bias

Technology and training have improved to the point that blind people can adeptly perform a dazzling array of jobs — soon to include the governorship of New York. The biggest obstacle still in their way, advocates say, is the negative attitude of many employers.The most recent available statistics suggest that only about 30% of working-age blind people have jobs. That figure was calculated more than 10 years ago, but the major groups lobbying on behalf of blind Americans believe it remains accurate despite numerous technological advances.“Most people don’t know a blind person, so they assume that blind people are not capable of doing most jobs when in fact that’s not true,” a spokesman for the National Federation of the Blind, Chris Danielsen, said.Exhibit A, for the moment, is the incoming governor, David Paterson.“Unfortunately we’re still living in an age of misperceptions of what blind people can do,” the president of the American Foundation for the Blind, Carl Augusto, said. “We’re hoping that an employer considering hiring a blind person will say that if David Paterson can be governor and be legally blind, maybe this applicant who is blind can be a good computer programmer.”There are an estimated 10 million visually impaired people in the United States, including about 1.3 million who are legally blind, according to Mr. Augusto’s foundation.The foundation says legal blindness is generally described as visual acuity of 20-200 or less in the better eye, with a corrective lens. Mr. Paterson has enough sight in his right eye to walk unaided, recognize people at conversational distance, and read if the text is close to his face.In theory, those people are covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act, which among its many provisions requires employers to give fair consideration and treatment to visually impaired employees and job applicants. But Mr. Augusto said employers routinely turn down blind applicants without incurring legal sanction.“The ADA is a wonderful law, but many employers find a way not to seriously consider blind people,” he said. “They look at themselves and then say, ‘I can’t imagine how a blind person can be a computer programmer. They can’t possibly do it.'”Advocacy groups work persistently to change such attitudes, with employer education programs and public appearances by successful blind people to discuss capabilities. One component of such campaigns is to raise awareness of the technology that helps blind people handle more types of jobs — including software that reads aloud information on a computer screen.

Blind People Face Lingering Workplace Bias

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