Miss-Delectable
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Pleas by hearing impaired not heard | montgomeryadvertiser.com | Montgomery Advertiser
The glowing tribute in the Advertiser to Troy University's Rosa Parks Museum rang hollow to some of us. The museum was designed and built with no thought for deaf and hard-of-hearing citizens. Captioning is not available for many of the videos, nor is it for the bus dramatization.
This is ironic for several reasons: Chancellor Jack Hawkins was formerly president of the Alabama Institute for Deaf and Blind and presumably approved the plans. The "foot soldiers" of the civil rights era are older now, and many have significant hearing loss. The museum is probably in violation of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.
The museum could have easily been designed for people with various disabilities, but the largest disability group -- deaf and hard-of-hearing persons -- was left out. Despite the claim by Vice Chancellor White that retrofitting would be enormously expensive, I believe that a satisfactory solution can be found at reasonable cost.
There is no excuse in my eyes for this oversight. The Council of Serving Deaf Alabamians, the Alabama chapter of National Black Deaf Advocates, and the Alabama Association of the Deaf have all called for a retrofitting. This call has truly fallen on "deaf ears."
Jay L. Croft
Montgomery
The glowing tribute in the Advertiser to Troy University's Rosa Parks Museum rang hollow to some of us. The museum was designed and built with no thought for deaf and hard-of-hearing citizens. Captioning is not available for many of the videos, nor is it for the bus dramatization.
This is ironic for several reasons: Chancellor Jack Hawkins was formerly president of the Alabama Institute for Deaf and Blind and presumably approved the plans. The "foot soldiers" of the civil rights era are older now, and many have significant hearing loss. The museum is probably in violation of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.
The museum could have easily been designed for people with various disabilities, but the largest disability group -- deaf and hard-of-hearing persons -- was left out. Despite the claim by Vice Chancellor White that retrofitting would be enormously expensive, I believe that a satisfactory solution can be found at reasonable cost.
There is no excuse in my eyes for this oversight. The Council of Serving Deaf Alabamians, the Alabama chapter of National Black Deaf Advocates, and the Alabama Association of the Deaf have all called for a retrofitting. This call has truly fallen on "deaf ears."
Jay L. Croft
Montgomery