Equality by Degrees: A Place on the Platform

Following are excerpts from a first class speech about inclusion which appears in full on the Gladnet website: www.gladnet.org
 
13 April 2000
By Graeme Innes
Deputy Disability Discrimination Commissioner
Australian Human Rights And Equal Opportunity Commission
(Address to graduation ceremony of School of Health and Leisure Sciences, Sydney University)

Who was Rosa Parkes? Perhaps recollection would improve if I said that she refused to sit at the back of the bus? In the 60's various governments in the United States spent millions of dollars providing a public transport system, but in many places if you were black you could only ride at the back. Rosa Parkes´ action was the catalyst for the civil rights movement.

In the 60s and 70s Aboriginal people were allowed to drink in hotels, but only in the public bar. Sadly, in more isolated areas, this continued well into the 80s and 90s.
 

"For their own good"

In the 50's and 60's women were not allowed in to the public bars of hotels. They could go into the lounge, or the ladies lounge.

The example of women's access to the public bar is an interesting one, though, because unlike most of the others it was often justified on the basis that "ladies" should not have to put up with the indelicacies that occurred there. In other words, it was "for their own good" and done as a very patronising form of exclusion. This is exactly the type of exclusion which people with a disability have suffered for many years and sadly, unlike gender and race discrimination, we still have a long way to go to redress it.

Let me tell you a story. Bradley Kinsela, like many of you today, completed his degree in human services, in the social sciences school of Queensland University of Technology in 1997.

Bradley uses a wheelchair. The only way in which he could participate in the ceremony was to sit backstage whilst his colleagues walked in and sat in the hall, come on to the stage to receive his degree, and then go and sit backstage again...

Bradley lodged a complaint under the Disability Discrimination Act. In her decision on that complaint, hearing commissioner Roslyn Atkinson said in part:

"The end product of any university education is expected to be a degree or diploma, undergraduate or postgraduate, and universities have traditionally had degree awarding ceremonies to recognise the students. The ceremonies are usually very moving for the family and friends of the graduating students, and the last opportunity where the student group is together as a student group."

She went on:

"If the venue is changed Mr Kinsela will be able to participate in the processionary and recessionary marches. He will be able to sit with his fellow graduands during the graduation ceremony, and he will be able to progress with his fellow graduates from the body of the hall to the stage for the actual presentation of the degree. These, for the reasons I set out earlier, are not trivial matters, and all go to the undoubted goals of the Act - inclusiveness, accessibility and availability."

Commissioner Atkinson found the complaint substantiated, and directed QUT to provide facilities for the complainant´s graduation ceremony that would enable him to participate in the same way that any able-bodied person would participate.

Perhaps by now you understand why I am speaking from this level when everyone else has spoken from up there. I could, if I chose, walk up these stairs in the same way as most of you. But I am not prepared, as a matter of principle, to speak from a platform which excludes people with mobility disabilities. I cannot support an attitude which means that Rosa doesn't just sit at the back of the bus but can't get on it.
 

"Pared with good intensions"

Where and how a person receives their degree is just one example of the much broader problem of exclusion that people with a disability face every day of their lives. It is often done with the best of intentions, but the way to hell is paved with good intentions.

People with disabilities have been institutionalised for years - and some still are - with the justification that "it is the best place for them" or "they wouldn't survive in the community".

People with disabilities have been sent to work in sheltered workshops, receiving in a week what some of us receive in an hour, because "they are happier with their own kind". When national unemployment sits around 7% the rate for people with a disability is about 70%: 10 times the national average. People with disabilities are described in conversation and in the media as sufferers, as incredibly brave, or as achieving against the odds. These perceived best owings of praise are compromised, because they are patronising and reinforce the charity mentality.

The power of people with disabilities is constantly taken away, and we have to fight to retain it. We are often prevented from taking what others perceive to be dangerous risks in the name of our own protection; limited in our expectations in the guise of reality; and given narrowed alternatives for the rest of our lives in the guise of good professional advice. And if these things are challenged then we have a chip on our shoulder, or we're not professionally qualified so we wouldn't know.

You may say this is extreme: I don't think so. I was amazed last year - when Bruce Maguire lodged a successful discrimination complaint against SOCOG for not providing the Olympic ticket book in Braille - how many people said to me "why would you want the ticket book in braille anyway- what's the point of you going to the events if you can't see them". As an avid cricket-goer all of my life I found this view incomprehensible. If you just wanted to see the games you'd get a much better view on television. After all, isn't the SOCOG message "there's nothing like being there".

I agree that attitudes are changing, but the pendulum has a long way to swing. You can help to increase the momentum of that swing.

I challenge you graduates to set as one of your professional goals supporting people with a disability gain full participation and equality. Meeting these challenges will not just benefit people with a disability. As with the progress towards race and gender equality they will improve the quality of the whole community.