This is being provided in a rough-draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.
SANHO STEELE-LOUCHART: All right. Please join us on the stage side of Members Hall.
All right. Thank you, everyone.
I hope that your roundtable session was a great success. I know they all will have been done slightly differently. Maybe some had more talking from the presenters and some more from the participants.
So we wanted to come together again for the next 20 minutes and discuss what came up in your roundtable.
Now, in theory, in your roundtable, there was someone assigned to take notes and there was someone assigned to be a spokesperson.
That being said, everyone is welcome to contribute. So what we'll do is if you have either a strategy, strength, weakness, opportunity, tactic, or a threat that you would like to share, if you have anything at all where you think you would like to offer an opportunity to strategize across the movement, then please do. Either say your name and a mic runner will come to you, or if there are mics on the floor, you're welcome to line up at those.
EVE HILL: And everyone noted that that was not enough time, that was not enough time. We recognize that.
But for those of you who took the notes, please type them up and email them to Sanho, and we will circulate them to everyone so we can keep these conversations going.
SANHO STEELE-LOUCHART: I'm also going to very awkwardly interrupt our own presentation for a moment just to say, please do not use the single occupancy bathroom by the elevator. Please use the bathrooms in the hallways. The public bathrooms, let's call them, the multi-unit bathrooms. Because we are having an out of order issue with the single occupancy bathroom.
EVE HILL: Okay. You want to call on people?
SANHO STEELE-LOUCHART: Sure. I'll go ahead and go through my list here.
I'll start selfishly with technology. I wonder, technology, would you get to a microphone or have a microphone gotten to you?
ARIANA ABOULAFIA: This is Ariana. The mic was in fact brought to me.
So Sanho and I facilitated this breakout together. And sort of some of the major things that we talked about, Sanho did a really fantastic job of setting the stage on the absolute mess of Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act web and mobile app accessibility rule.
And we talked about sort of what the status is of that rule right now and what potentially people can do moving forward depending on what happens there.
And then we spent quite a bit of time talking about AI and employment. Sanho and I talked about resume screening algorithms, about hiring tools, and how these sorts of things could lead to people with disabilities not getting jobs that they're otherwise qualified for.
And we talked a lot about sort of potential legal recourse there.
And one of the things that was brought up in the session was just how difficult legal recourse is in this context. One, because of lack of transparency. There's no mandated transparency that says an employer has to tell an employee when they're interacting with an AI tool, so it can be difficult for a potential employee to know that's why they didn't get a job.
But of course there are other reasons why it might be difficult even if they knew there was an AI tool.
Megan Schuller from Bazelon brought up sometimes you have to prove "but for" causation.
Even if they know there's an AI tool they're interacting with, folks may have a difficult time proving that there wasn't some other reason that they didn't get a job. So we talked about how that's kind of analogous to other issues that disability attorneys have faced in the employment context just regarding pretext and how we've gotten around some of that in the past and how you may be able to apply some of that to AI tools.
We talked a little bit about education, specifically about the use of AI in building IEPs, and that there are potential concerns under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act surrounding whether or not a large language model can make an IEP that is sufficiently individualized.
And then we talked about just sort of thinking about AI tools and algorithmic systems as something that's like in your issue spotting toolbox as an attorney.
So if you have a client who comes to you and says, I applied to 100 jobs and didn't get an interview or my Medicaid benefits were suddenly cut, anything to think about an algorithmic tool or AI as something that could be going on and to sort of try to take it from there.
And the last thing I'll mention is we talked a lot about just various ways to sort of approach this issue with the understanding that it is somewhat new, and as Sanho mentioned, judges may be I believe he used the word "skittish" around tackling some of these concerns, but that there are legal methods as well as policy and also thinking about what we can do to organized and to try to run tests ourselves and see how these things impact disabled people that can eventually probably be useful for litigation.
So I will stop there.
SANHO STEELE-LOUCHART: All right. This is Sanho. I will quickly add, we did have a couple of opportunities for strategizing and kind of active solution-oriented work. One of the thoughts was from Jonathan Lazur around how we may create a public education document around AI and people with disabilities, specifically so that we understand our rights and have more data, more tools with which to work.
Jonathan, if you would like to speak briefly to that.
>> Yep. The idea that we're discussing is, for some of these issues related to sort of AI and employment, the question is how do you do enough testing to determine if, let's say a hiring software system is somehow biased? And all these questions about the resources to evaluate all this.
And I said, what if some group, some coalition, some pick whatever, all the friends in the room who have a cycle or two to do this, could put together a package of materials given out to university educators all around the country, basically teaching them more or less how to do a matching study. You give them some resumes to upload.
Years ago I did a study with my students where we called up airlines looking for the prices because your website is inaccessible so we can't check the fare and other students comparing them to the prices online and of course they were different.
What if you could set up educators, because everyone at universities is required now to somehow work AI into what they're teaching, what if you could have an easy to use set of materials to teach about AI bias in hiring and if you want a hands on activity, right, basically say here's what you can submit, here's what you can't submit, go apply using software and see, you know, what if you could just do it?
First of all, it would be a great resource that faculty would want to use, it would educate students about potential bias, and plus, you get enough universities doing this, you get a groundswells, you then get news stories, you know, students across the Cal State system have been determining bias! Those are the type of news stories that don't often bubble up, but you could imagine this would be a really low-cost thing to do, low resource required, but with a big impact. Maybe some of my friends in the room litigators could find something to do with that criminal litigation point of view.
I am not a litigator, but I have friends who are. Thank you.
SANHO STEELE-LOUCHART: All right. Thank you, Jonathan.
I want to see everybody working on that. Good luck.
I have no idea how you're going to do it, but I can't wait to see the product.
EVE HILL: Oh, I know.
SANHO STEELE-LOUCHART: I strongly suspect I'll be involved with this, is that right, Eve?
EVE HILL: Probably, yes.
SANHO STEELE-LOUCHART: Exactly.
We technically only have 10-11 minutes left in this session. We don't want to go too far into our lunch period because people are hungry, I'm sure, and I will tell you the menu is incredible today as it always is. I wonder instead of going through each session, perhaps people could say their name, a microphone could be brought to them, they could say what session they were in and offer any strengths, weaknesses, or strategies that they think are germane.
Yes, shout out your name and we can have you brought a mic. I think I heard Rebecca.
>> Yeah, we only have a little bit of time. I did emergency preparedness with an amazing team of people. There's lots to talk about.
But one of the main things we want to convey is that this can't be a workshop next year. It's got to be a plenary.
We know that people with disabilities are disproportionately impacted in disasters, and more likely to be displaced for longer, injured, and killed, and die. So we need to do more around the issues of emergency preparedness and people with disabilities.
Did you want to add anything, Cat?
That's all. Thank you.
Next year?
SANHO STEELE-LOUCHART: Sounds great. Can't wait to see your proposal.
All right. Next?
>> Hi, everyone, this is Rebecca Williford, sticking with the Rebecca theme.
So I was in the physical access group. We had a fantastic group of litigators, nonlitigators, and just we talked about the mess that is the physical access world and all that we're doing to help make it better through litigation and nonlitigation strategies. And just a couple highlights is that we've still got some good action coming from the Access Board. Any tipster can go online and file a complaint against any federal facility.
Our friends are the Access Board are here. There's a great webinar that Access Board and PVA collaborated on talking about this process so check that out.
We also have a lot of hope for state and municipal legislation. The San Francisco Bay Area has some cool legislation about landlords having to fix elevators within 24 hours or paying for a hotel. So talk to us more about that.
And we talked about autonomous vehicles. We didn't solve it.
(Laughter)
But we talked about litigation. We're going to bring lots of litigation.
And so much more. So keep the conversation going.
SANHO STEELE-LOUCHART: Excellent. Thank you.
Who would like to go next?
>> Right here. Hi, I'm Robin Petty, a social worker in the education panel.
And we reiterated the fact that education of students with disabilities is so transformative in nature.
And I just want to add, I think the biggest takeaway from our group was that despite the Office of Civil Rights and the Department of Justice having its moment right now, don't let that stop you from using the OCR and the DoJ complaint process and going online, because there are people at work behind the scenes using this data to continue fighting against the evisceration of these agencies.
We had a good conversation.
But if I want to say anything about strategizing across the movement, it's to continue using these low-hanging fruit that are online forms to fill out and continue making complaints that will go to these agencies so that your voices will be heard in Congress where it's needed most.
SANHO STEELE-LOUCHART: Excellent. Thank you.
>> Ronza? Sticking with the R theme....
My group focused on employment.
And it was a great group. Thank you to everyone who was there. We acknowledge the doom and gloom and focused on solutioning.
We touched on AI and some of the adverse impacts of AI related to hiring and disqualifying candidates because of bias and so forth and solutioning around that. We talked about technology and the 508 standards and equivalent standards and strengthening state statutes to ensure there's a minimum standard for accessibility similar to 508.
We talked about how do you enforce 508 when the federal government won't or just outright ignores it. So it was a great therapy session for us in that space.
We also talked about the need for more disability rights lawyers so those of you thinking about going to law school, do it.
We need you. Especially in the coming years.
A positive ending, even though there's gloom and doom out of politics, there's also good work happening in the field at EEOC but in other places as well for folks bringing private rights of action and so forth. So even though we're hearing a lot about people with disabilities struggling, there are still enforcement mechanisms and rights that people have. So encouraging them to use those avenues despite what's happening on the news.
SANHO STEELE-LOUCHART: Wonderful. I heard Jennifer Mathis.
>> We had the Olmstead topic. We talked a lot about challenges more than opportunities. Many, many challenges, including the litigation involving the HHS 504 rule which is now particularly focused on Olmstead and situated in the fifth circuit. If it goes forward, potentially is poised to generate a very problematic decision on what Olmstead means.
The Mississippi decision that already exists from a couple of years ago from the fifth circuit and the ripple effects that it's having in other litigation.
The Executive Order on homelessness and civil commitment and the difficulties that it has the potential to create for Olmstead litigation.
The trend in child welfare cases to have Olmstead claims kind of thrown in as sort of an additional claim in a much, much bigger case, and sometimes in ways that end up being unhelpful and generate unhelpful decisions.
The federal pull out, obviously, the difficulty courts seem to be having in understanding and applying Olmstead's application in contexts other than living settings like in education and work settings.
And fundamental alteration problems that people are experiencing with having the remedies that they would like, actually have their own flaws and having sort of the most integrated setting that actually exists in the jurisdiction often being not one that people can access and being concerned about not being able to ask for what you really want, to which my solution is, don't bring it.
But in any event, some of the opportunities, some of the strategies, talked about include number one being very careful about how you frame some of these claims and how you choose the kind of case you're going to bring.
I would say maybe in contrast to what the folks from the education section said, I think we did not think that it is necessarily helpful to be continuing to file complaints. I would say please don't file complaints about adult mental health Olmstead matters with DoJ right now in light of the Executive Order and the Administration's efforts to align with the Executive Order through all of the agencies. It will not come out well, I promise, so I think that advice has to be fairly specific to the kind of thing you're talking about.
And finally, we talked about the importance of public education and awareness. People talked about some of the public education efforts that have been done around the Texas versus Kennedy litigation, the things that DREDF has done to help people understand what is happening, public education also on a case level, sort of the importance of really doing the work on the ground to educate the community and understand, to help people understand families and community members, providers, to generate support.
That is very important that has ramifications that can be significant in litigation in either direction, if you do or don't do that work. That is often difficult to do but so critical.
And so I will leave it there.
SANHO STEELE-LOUCHART: All right. Thank you.
I note that we are at the end of our plenary session time. I'm going to give the opportunity for anybody who has a burning comment that they would like to offer.
For those who would have liked to have shared and would still like to do that, what I would recommend, if you email legal@NFB with the subject line "roundtable" and you send me your notes, I will compile them, clean them up, and send them out to everyone registered. That way all of you will be able to see what it is that was proposed.
If you are someone who is sending me notes and you would like to invite others to contact you, let me know and I can put your contact information in the relevant section.
Before we make a couple of housekeeping announcements, are there any final comments?
>> I have one small thing, sir. I'm Marty Schikell leading the education group. In retrospect, I see I did a terrible job talking about systemic change except for one thing and I want to reiterate this over and over, that change occurs with individuals.
And I think it's very, very important here for individual practitioners or people who are individuals in any particular agency, is not to be scared to fail, not to be scared to lose. You know, Thurgood Marshall with the NAACP, I was in law school, I followed the civil rights issues very strongly.
They lost, they lost, they lost, they lost, they lost, they won a little, then a little bit more.
So I want to go back and remind us, don't forget, as an individual, you can do a lot. Thank you.
SANHO STEELE-LOUCHART: Well, that was beautiful. Thank you.
(Applause)