Tag: ada

The Justice Department Just Shut Disabled People Out of Essential Online Services for Another Year

Alast-minute change from the Department of Justice (DOJ) has outraged disabled people and disability rights groups and could affect access to the ballot box come the midterm elections this November. The agency issued an interim final rule on April 20, pushing back a planned April 24, 2026, deadline for large municipalities to ensure their apps and online offerings are accessible in accordance with certain technical standards.

“It is outrageous that the Justice Department thinks that they can delay this regulation for one more year,” Chris Danielsen, a spokesperson for the National Federation of the Blind (NFB), told Truthout. “This is a real betrayal of the promise of the ADA and the promise of equal access to our government that applies to all Americans.”

Ensuring access to the websites and mobile apps of government entities is required under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, which forbids discrimination based on disability in state and local government services. Since 1996, the DOJ has consistently held that the law applies to digital content.

A vast number of state and local government services are now online, including forms, payment processors, and information from election offices, courts, public hospitals, parks, libraries, utilities, transit agencies, school districts, universities, and more. Those online services often lack basic features, such as zoomable content, high-contrast text, keyboard navigation, autocomplete options, or compatibility with screen readers, which would make them accessible to users with certain visual, motor, or cognitive disabilities. Over 70 million Americans have a disability; 7.6 million have a visual disability.

The DOJ, which is responsible for issuing regulations to clarify the rights and obligations of those covered by the ADA, has been slow to issue specific regulations for online content. The rule that was meant to take effect this April was only finalized in 2024, more than three decades after the landmark disability rights legislation was signed into law. Initially, the new rule gave state and local governments in cities of 50,000 or more residents until this April to comply. Smaller municipalities were given until next April. Under the interim final rule, both deadlines have been extended by a year.

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Utah corrections department discriminated against transgender woman, DOJ says

The Utah Department of Corrections violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) when it failed to provide a transgender woman with her hormone therapy, the Justice Department said Tuesday.

The state corrections department discriminated against the woman, who is not named in court documents, by denying her equal access to health care services, imposing “unnecessary barriers” to treatment for gender dysphoria and failing to grant her requests for reasonable accommodations, including allowing her to purchase female clothing and makeup at the commissary, a federal investigation found.

Utah’s corrections department also “unnecessarily delayed” the woman’s treatment for her gender dysphoria, a condition with which she had “for many years” before entering the department’s custody in 2021, according to the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) findings.

The woman’s psychological distress worsened while she was incarcerated in a men’s prison, federal investigators said, and a health care provider contracted by the state corrections department formally diagnosed her with gender dysphoria — a state of severe distress that stems from a mismatch between a person’s gender identity and sex assigned at birth.

Unlike other requests for medical care, which are typically directed to the state corrections department’s medical staff, a request for treatment for gender dysphoria is sent to the department’s gender dysphoria committee, which federal investigators described as the “gatekeeper” of care.

The committee during the woman’s incarceration included members who demonstrated “overt bias” against transgender individuals seeking care and expressed reluctance to prescribe treatment for gender dysphoria, including hormone therapy, the Justice Department said.

“Complainant’s access to medically necessary care for her disability was unnecessarily delayed due to [the Utah Corrections Department’s] biased and prolonged approval process,” DOJ Disability Rights Chief Rebecca Bond wrote Tuesday in a letter to Brian Redd, executive director of Utah’s corrections department.

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AI tool used to spot child abuse allegedly targets parents with disabilities

Since 2016, social workers in a Pennsylvania county have relied on an algorithm to help them determine which child welfare calls warrant further investigation. Now, the Justice Department is reportedly scrutinizing the controversial family-screening tool over concerns that using the algorithm may be violating the Americans with Disabilities Act by allegedly discriminating against families with disabilities, the Associated Press reported, including families with mental health issues.

Three anonymous sources broke their confidentiality agreements with the Justice Department, confirming to AP that civil rights attorneys have been fielding complaints since last fall and have grown increasingly concerned about alleged biases built into the Allegheny County Family Screening Tool. While the full scope of the Justice Department’s alleged scrutiny is currently unknown, the Civil Rights Division is seemingly interested in learning more about how using the data-driven tool could potentially be hardening historical systemic biases against people with disabilities.

The county describes its predictive risk modeling tool as a preferred resource to reduce human error for social workers benefiting from the algorithm’s rapid analysis of “hundreds of data elements for each person involved in an allegation of child maltreatment.” That includes “data points tied to disabilities in children, parents, and other members of local households,” Allegheny County told AP. Those data points contribute to an overall risk score that helps determine if a child should be removed from their home.

Although the county told AP that social workers can override the tool’s recommendations and that the algorithm has been updated “several times” to remove disabilities-related data points, critics worry that the screening tool may still be automating discrimination. This is particularly concerning because the Pennsylvania algorithm has inspired similar tools used in California and Colorado, AP reported. Oregon stopped using its family-screening tool over similar concerns that its algorithm may be exacerbating racial biases in its child welfare data.

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Barack Obama’s Secret Service SUV parked in handicapped space for TWO HOURS while he enjoyed dinner with daughters Sasha and Malia at swanky LA sushi restaurant

Former President Barack Obama‘s Secret Service SUV was spotted parked in a handicapped spot for two hours as he dined at a swanky West Los Angeles sushi restaurant with his two daughters. 

The black SUV stayed in a spot marked for handicap parking as it waited for the Obamas to finish eating at the pricey Hamasaku restaurant, where eight-piece sushi rolls cost $50 and specialty rolls go for more than $20 each. 

The former president was pictured in all white as he stepped out of the restaurant alone while being escorted by secret service agents. His daughters, Malia and Sasha, left separately. 

Obama could be seen waving goodbye to the restaurant staffers and turning down their offer of free ice cream dessert before the agents warned them to stand back as they made their exit. 

Obama was enjoying dinner with his daughters on Saturday night while former First Lady Michelle was in Seneca Falls, New York, being inducted in the National Women’s Hall of Fame. 

The family chose to dine at Hamasaku, a trendy restaurant located on Santa Monica Boulevard, in West LA. 

Hamasaku boasts a fusion of traditional Japanese sushi with a taste of California, and features a plethora of dishes containing salmon, lobster, crab, tuna, yellowtail and other tasty sealife. 

While the restaurant also has several high-end desserts on the menu, including a berrie cheesecake and sake-filled tiramisu, the former president appeared to have wanted a simple batch of ice cream, which he left without.  

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