Jo,
I’m afraid the “one” came from inappropriate internal AAA staff sharing. Jeff Martin, is the Director of Communications and Public Affairs at AAA. I looked him up on the web to see what his job was. I was pretty shocked to find out it was communications and public affairs. He used the royal “we” thus stating that he feels he represents all AAA staff, and by extension the membership. He could only have gotten the information about the specific interpreting problem from a staff member in the meeting department. Probably the one who apologized about the error they made in this case, who had NO reason to tell Public Affairs about this problem at all.

I am confused, where did you get “one attendee” from?

Wow, this is a defensive and egregious reply. Interesting too that you choose to focus on an individual situation and potentially “out” that person. Is this possibly retaliatory? What do you hope to gain here? The authors of the original post clearly stated that they were crowd-sourcing anonymous responses. How do you even know who said what? Indeed, with replies like yours, it seems all the more clear why people might wish to stay anonymous. Just wow.

That you would publicly post the details of one person’s accommodation request flirts with the unethical. By referring to this person as “she,” your comment has the unfortunate (and I’m sure unintended) effect of dismissing a complaint about accommodation by evoking the tired trope of the disorganized and emotional woman.

Also, “The AAA goes to great lengths to ensure we apply an attitude of acceptance, collegiality, and respect toward disabled persons.” This sentence recapitulates so many of the ableist attitudes this post is trying to work against. It suggests disabled scholars are a burden to the AAAs, that the AAA is doing some great and burdensome task by extending basic features of intellectual and professional decency to disabled scholars, and also that disabled scholars are some kind of rare species that require special handling. FYI, 37% of academics have a mental health disorder, 20% of Americans are disabled, 1 in 6 Americans takes a psychiatric medications, and nearly 70% of Americans take a prescription drug of some kind. The issues and experiences we raise here are hardly rare.

Finally, I’m glad to hear the AAA is committed to exceeding the ADA. It would be great if it could also be committed to disability justice. And as for recommendations, don’t worry, the DIRG will continue to make them. If the AAA would like to be a better ally, I’d recommend buying copies of the Sins Invalid disability justice primer Skin, Tooth, Bone for everyone in the office and on the executive committee. Here is a review with instructions: https://tinyurl.com/ydgzlck3

Jeff,
Whoa!! I warned the AAA Executive Director, Ed Liebow that people were unhappy. We are in a collegial conversation. I just had not yet had time to send him our post. Jeff, NOTHING about your hyper defensive post furthers that conversation. It just makes it obvious why we are upset.
1) Your post outs an anonymous poster. There are so few Deaf people in AAA who attend; we now know the author just as well as we know the comment about speech impairment is mine because I am unique. Our stories are not yours to tell.
2) Had the Deaf poster’s experience been unique, you stress “one,” we would not be here now. AAA’s intention is not at issue, I wrote the line about AAA wants to “exceed all of the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).” I don’t need it quoted back to me. I need it implemented.
3) The National Council on Independent Living (NCIL-a group I belong to and respect) recommended “expert” you hired was a BIG MISTAKE and I said so AT THE TIME after doing some research about him — and I was not heard. He doesn’t know anthropology, our meeting structure, or any of the complex cross-impairment communication and other issues that are the big problems.
4) It was also insulting to the disabled AAA long-term members, like me, who have been begging for the opportunity to do his kind of work with AAA for DECADES and would do it for free or expenses. This is up there with AAA using Public Health meetings access process as a model. Wrong models, and we said so.
5) AAA misunderstandings about the hours of coverage and when coverage is indeed are legend. You are a new name attached to an old problem and your post disqualifies you from doing this work in the future. Our stories are not yours to tell. We keep hoping AAA will have a process that allows disabled members the same SPONTANEITY as everyone else has. We have ways of doing that without breaking the bank, but we now need a measure of administrative CONTROL over the Societies’ accommodation process to believe that change is possible. We feel “managed” and may take that to the general membership.
6) Accommodation to disability is NOT easy, straight forward, formulaic, nor an individual issue and in our increasingly diverse world it is a skill set about I INTERDEPENDENCE. It is no longer about individual independence. Many disabled people have a whole repertoire of possible accommodations that can work for them. In order to best accommodate at a group event, we choose from the repertoire according to the fiscal, temporal, AND human context. AAA does not supply enough context nor does it encourage exchanges of who needs what when. Some basic accommodations are directly incompatible. Solving that problem takes communication and group trust.
Unfortunately, AAA has lost the TRUST of its disabled members and the growing number of disability scholars and allies we have in the membership, those that are still members. Our stories are not yours to tell. “Nothing about us without us.”
Devva Kasnitz, PhD
Executive Director
Society for Disability Studies

AAA consults with experts from the National Council on Independent Living to continuously improve its capacity to provide reasonable accommodations. We are always open to suggestions on how we can enhance our services. AAA is committed to ensuring that our Annual Meeting is inclusive and accessible for all attendees and will continue to not only meet, but exceed all of the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).