Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
prosthetics to participate in the mainstream of social life. Examples of such
prejudice are numerous, from denying blind law students use of common
screen reading technology to take the bar exam
1
to excluding a competi-
tor with lower limb prostheses from the Olympic games. A third example,
more widespread, is anxiety about danger to pedestrians, which is directed
at wheelchair users.
In general, it is not unusual for prosthetics that enable people with disabil-
ities to function independently and competitively to be condemned prospec-
tively for their supposed potential for social destabilization. In the first case
mentioned above, the California Bar Association was comfortable with the ap-
plicant using a screen reader but the company marketing the bar exam feared
that the screen reading software would steal the exam questions (which are
reused for several exams).
2
The National Conference of Bar Examiners, the
vendor for part of the exam, objected to the use of standard screen reading
technology, claiming (among other reasons) that the bar exam items could
be stolen, but this expression of fear did not prevail. In the second case, the
International Association of Athletics Federations objected on the ground
that the lower limb prosthetics user did not exert as much below-the-knee
effort as runners on flesh feet,
3
but was overruled by the Court of Arbitra-
tion for Sport, which found no evidence that the prosthetics user expended
less energy overall because of his artificial running feet. (I will return to the
third case - conflict over safety between wheelchair using person and walking
people - in the Afterword.)
A commonly expressed fear is that using technology might catapult a for-
merly disadvantaged person to advantaged status, altering who is positioned
where on the social playing field. Both of the cases referenced above have this
dimension. In the first case, the vendor of the national segment of the exam
also objected to the plaintiff's using a screen reading program, claiming that
all blind bar exam takers might request this accommodation.
4
In the second
case, track ocials speculated that permitting an individual with a disability
to compete on manufactured racing feet would open the way to track com-
petitors being allowed many other kinds of assistive devices, including skates.
1
See [
16
] for the latest US court decision permitting use of screen reading technology.
2
Apparently, the company did not think the human reader it proposed to hire long distance
would be as larcenously inclined.
3
In early commentary, international track ocials invoked a range of speculative claims
about the destabilizing effects of allowing a double amputee using manufactured feet to
compete. These included fears that he would harm other runners by falling over on them
and that other athletes would have their legs amputated so as to be fitted with artificial
racing feet. I have addressed these exaggerations and the prejudices leading to them in [
13
].
4
Why the specter of a blind test taker independently using screen reading programs, rather
than depending on human readers of uncertain quality plus Braille, was presented by the
vendor as a harm remains obscure, except for the suggestion that allowing screen reading
programs would give more blind individuals access to bar exams and thus to legal careers.
