Expanding Accessibility across Sectors

When HPOD Executive Director Professor Michael Ashley Stein first visited Harvard Law School (HLS) in the spring of 1985, he met with the Dean of Students in order to discuss what his law school experience as a wheelchair user would be like. The Dean offered "an unadapted room in the one dorm that has a ramp," with “a wooden chair for the shower, and a shower curtain instead of a door around a toilet stall.” She continued:

“We won’t otherwise adapt anything or provide accommodations: there’s no access to cooking or laundry facilities in the dorm. Moreover, the tunnels underneath the school used by students during snow, rain, and other inclement weather are inaccessible for lack of an elevator; similarly, there’s no elevator to access the school cafeteria; and you’ll need to sit at the back of nearly every classroom. But we’re very happy to have you join us in the Fall.”

This meeting was five years before the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) would impose new accessibility standards, but per Professor Stein's telling, "my mind was not focused on legal compliance so much as feeling supported and included." He mused out loud, “That’s not very welcoming," to which the Dean replied “Well, if you don’t like it, you can go to Yale.”

As Professor Stein and disability rights attorney Daniel Goldstein have written for the Harvard Law Review Blog, there is a need to shift away from "[ADA] compliance as an imposition toward desired inclusion and belonging—from a semi-effective external enforcement stick to a more effective self-motivated carrot." They point to the example of Wal-Mart, whose website was one of the first retail websites to be non-visually accessible, and that, without any litigation or known threat of litigation. Slowly, corporations have begun to the benefits of including people with disabilities as valued customers, patrons, and employees. Some companies have worked together to devise voluntary accessibility standards, such as the Disability:IN. Although not comprehensive, for which they have been rightly criticized, the Disability:IN standards have helped to produce some notable progress. LEED-type standards for disability inclusion, while critically needed, must as a matter of course come from the disability community itself. One such effort at a benchmarking tool, under the sobriquet Smart Business 4 All (SB4All), might signal a path forward for corporations to shift from compliance to internalizing the values of supporting and including people with disabilities.

On November 16, 2021, Professor Stein joined Professor Ilias Bantekas of the Hamad Bin Kalifa College of Law, along with panelists Professors Marija Jovanovic of the University of Essex School of Law and Jessica Corsi of City University London, for an expansive discussion of corporations' role in promoting human rights standards for people with disabilities and other populations across the globe. This event showcased the work compiled in Professors Stein and Bantekas co-edited volume, The Cambridge Companion to Business and Human Rights Law, as well as their co-authored Business and Human Rights Journal article, both of which advance the thesis that businesses can operate profitably and sustainably while ensuring that they are applying human rights.

Yet, as Stein and Bantekas' volume readily recognizes, business efforts alone are insufficient, and governmental entities laike must possess sufficient regulatory power to work together with businesses and investors – not only to improve human rights but also to foster development more broadly. Local governments in particular have a key role to play in encouraging and creating incentives for private sector inclusion. In their Fordham Urban Law Journal article, Professor Stein and co-author Holly Jeanine Boux hone in precisely on this role by exploring efforts by the New York City Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities (MOPD) to make its city more accessible and inclusive for persons with disabilities. For example, to promote employment opportunites for New Yorkers with disabilities, the MOPD has positioned itself as an intermediary between potential employees and prospective employers. Its Business Development Council comprises a group of over 90 members from a variety of industries as well as City government and meets quarterly to discuss the recruitment of employees with disabilities and to meet with job seekers. Similar initiatives, such as its abilITy Academy and NYC: ATWORK seek to bridge employer and employee gaps by providing targeted job training and navigation services not only to open up avenues to employment for disabled job seekers, but also to foster inclusive cultures that can be the engines for expanded access to employment over the long haul.