Disability Rights Advocates, Westchester Disabled on the Move, Inc., and Westchester County have reached a settlement agreement that will result in significant improvements to the County’s emergency preparedness and response programs for people with disabilities who live in, work in, or travel to the County. The agreement was reached through structured negotiations without any lawsuit … Continue reading “Westchester County Emergency Preparedness”
In October 2020, Disability Rights Advocates filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of blind New Yorkers and the American Council of the Blind, New York against New York state entities, challenging the inaccessibility of “NY-Alert,” a Mass Notification System intended to warn New Yorkers and visitors of emergencies and other critical information in a … Continue reading “Chiappetta vs. New York State Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services”
In September 2020, DRA filed a class action suit on behalf of San Francisco’s LightHouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired and two of its employees against payroll processing and HR giant, ADP TotalSource and its parent company Automatic Data Processing, Inc. for failing to make their industry-leading products and services accessible to blind managers and … Continue reading “LightHouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired v. ADP TotalSource”
On July 27, 2020, disability organizations filed a lawsuit against the North Carolina State Board of Elections for excluding North Carolinians with disabilities from their Absentee Voting program. The lawsuit charges the state agency with discrimination against voters who are unable to independently and privately mark a paper ballot due to vision disabilities. All North … Continue reading “North Carolina Council of the Blind v. North Carolina State Board of Elections”
Disability Rights Advocates is investigating the experiences of higher education students who are denied disability-related accommodations for remote learning. We would greatly appreciate if you would complete the following survey if you have confronted access barriers in remote learning. If you would prefer to share your experiences via email or phone, please contact Amy Ollove … Continue reading “Accommodations and Accessibility in Higher Education”
On June 10, 2020, Disability Rights Advocates filed a Charge of Discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against the State of New York and several of its agencies. The Charge challenges the State’s bright-line rule disqualifying anyone with binocular vision lower than 20/40 from being hired as a Mental Health Therapy Aide Trainee (MHTAT), … Continue reading “Herrera v. New York State”
On May 22, 2020, DRA and a coalition of disability organizations filed a lawsuit against the New York State Board of Elections for excluding New Yorkers with disabilities from their Absentee Ballot program, which has expanded in response to COVID-19. The lawsuit charges the state agency with discrimination against voters who are unable to independently … Continue reading “Hernandez v. New York State Board of Elections”
In September 2019, DRA and Proskauer Rose LLP, on behalf of the American Council of the Blind of Metropolitan Chicago and three individual plaintiffs, filed a landmark class action lawsuit against the Chicago Department of Transportation. The lawsuit alleges that Chicago ignores blind pedestrians in its pedestrian planning, sometimes ignoring their safety needs and sometimes … Continue reading “American Council of the Blind of Metropolitan Chicago vs. City of Chicago”
On August 29, 2019, Disability Rights Advocates and Legal Council for Health Justice filed a class action lawsuit against Chicago Public Schools (“CPS”) challenging CPS’s policy of denying free nutrition programs to students whose disabilities require them to attend therapeutic day schools (“TDS”). On June 3, 2021, Judge Young B. Kim preliminarily approved a settlement … Continue reading “Jackson v. The Board of Education of the City of Chicago”
In August 2019, DRA filed a class action lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, alleging that the City of Philadelphia discriminates against residents and visitors with disabilities that affect their mobility by failing to make its sidewalks and pedestrian routes accessible. When the lawsuit was filed, some corners … Continue reading “Liberty Resources, Inc v. the City of Philadelphia”