Civil Rights Violations at the Department of Veterans Affairs

Civil Rights Violations at the Department of Veterans Affairs

by Jeffrey Schwartz, Ph.D.

Thousands of blind/visually impaired individuals  are employed by the Department of Veterans Affairs.I am a clinical psychologist and have been there for 33 years.  I am also on the faculty of the Yale School of Medicine.  I suffer from a progressive retinal degeneration, Retinitis Pigmentosa, which has left me at age 60 with light perception only.   I was first diagnosed in the second semester of my senior year at Johns Hopkins University.  I was a premed and had been accepted to medical school.

I saw an ophthalmologist for a routine exam.  My friends had noticed that my night vision left something to be desired.  The physician I consulted suspected something more ominous and referred me to the Wilmer Eye Clinic at Hopkins Hospital for a thorough “work up”.  When the results were in, I was stunned  by the diagnosis.  I was already legally blind in terms of field of vision.  I decided that no one really wanted a blind physician, so I took a year off  and applied to graduate school.In 1975, I took a position at the VA. 

About 20 years ago when I reached the point that I could no longer read or write standard print, I approached my service chiefwith my problem.  He thought about it, shook his head, and said “I’m sorry Jeff.  I just don’t know how we can help you”.  This despite the fact that the West Haven VA housed one of the system’s first and largest regional blind rehabilitation centers in the nation.  My office was across the hall from it.  The real message was quite clear.  “We don’t want a blind psychologist here.  Maybe you should retire”.   I sought and received training and adaptive equipment from  a state operated vocational rehabilitation program for the blind. 

They saved my career.  After about four years, they could no longer justify the expenditure and stated that the VA was required by federal law to “pick up the ball”.  This is when my problems really started.  I filed grievances with some success but was generally without the hardware and software which I required to perform the essential functions of my job.  In recent years, the VA has moved our continuing education and other tasks to web based sites.

They have been uniformly inaccessible to the blind/visually impaired.  What follows is a report which I made to the FBI today regarding the latest of these sites.  Blind employees have been resigning and moving to law abiding companies.  In the final analysis, it is our veterans who suffer most significantly. 

I am a blind, 60 year old, doctoral level, clinical psychologist who has been employed by the Department of Veterans Affairs for 33 years.  I am also an Assistant Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the Yale University School of Medicine.  I am writing to report that the VA is in flagrant violation of federal law, the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, Section 508.  As you may know, federal employees are not protected by the Americans with Disabilities Act.  If we were, I would be contacting the Department of Justice.  Section 508 of the Rehab Act of ’73 was passed into law in June, 2001.  It deals with electronic media.  “Section 508 requires that when Federal agencies develop, procure, maintain, or use electronic and information technology, Federal employees with disabilities have access to and use of information and data that is comparable to the access and use by Federal employees who are not individuals with disabilities”.  In recent years the VA has moved our required mandatory training to a web based site called the Learning Management System (LMS),  https://www.lms.va.gov/plateau/user/login.jsp

LMS went online in October, 2007.  In January, 2008, the staff of the VA was instructed to begin doing our required training on LMS.  I logged in, but discovered that the program was inaccessible.  My text to speech software would not navigate the web site.  It had not been constructed in such a manner as to make it available to blind/visually impaired users.  I contacted the Chief of Hospital Education at my facility and told her that I was unable to do my training on LMS as it was not, as mandated by the above referenced federal legislation, 508 compliant.  She contacted VA Central Office, and they lied to her.  They stated that if one was using the latest version of the most commonly employed speech software, Jaws, version 9, one could use LMS. 

I was using that program and after many years I am an expert in the use of adaptive software.  I went back and gave it another try, with the same results.  Federal legislation assigns responsibility for Section 508 compliance to the VA’s Chief of the Office of Information and Technology, currently Mr. Robert Howard.  I emailed him, but he ignored me.  I contacted Dr. James Peake, Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs.  Soon I heard from Ms Jennifer Duncan, Mr. Howard’s executive assistant.  She acknowledged that LMS was inaccessible to the blind, but assured me that they were working diligently on the problem.  I have documentation of this admission.  I urged her to post a notice on the web site alerting blind users that it was not useable.  I had learned that hundreds of us were wasting thousands of frustrating hours in a futile attempt to do the impossible.  This was and continues to be time taken away from treating our veterans.  She ignored me.  I began an email campaign, contacting various members of the OI&T, appealing to their better natures, to pragmatism, to the law, etc.  Uniformly, they ignored me.  When I threatened to take the issue to the press, they posted a link warning the blind off LMS within a few days.  Unfortunately, the notice is not prominently displayed.  It is hidden away on an ancillary document, Inside LMS, http://www.insidelms.va.gov

If one stumbles across this obscure document and searches diligently, they will find a “508 link” which takes them to the following site,
http://www.insidelms.va.gov/insideLMSpages/508.shtm

This does warn the blind “VA’s Section 508 Program Office has found the LMS User Interface Platform and some of the courses posted on that platform to be Non Compliant to the Section 508 Standards. Thus, users With visual impairments are experiencing some issues with the VA LMS and some courses offered through the VA LMS.”.”   They proceed to say “It is not our intention to put forth the idea that any employee who is blind or visually impaired should be able to complete these courses.”   Thus, they clearly acknowledge, if one is able to find this page, that LMS is not compliant wit federal standards of accessibility.  They admit that they are in violation of federal law and are thus violating the civil rights of their employees.  I have urged them to move this warning to a conspicuous location in order to save blind employees the frustration of wasting their precious time, diminishing that available for caring for our veterans.  They contacted the Hospital Director at my facility, Mr. Roger Johnson and told him to prohibit me from contacting them any more.  I have documentation of this warning and much more relating to my attempts to force them to act appropriately. 

Increasingly, our government agencies and officials violate federal law and the constitution with impunity.  I implore you to investigate this situation and take appropriate action.  If the FBI can not investigate flagrant violation of federal law, albeit by another federal agency, who can?    

If anyone would care to express their feelings  about this issue, the Secretary, Department of Veterans Affairs, a cabinet level post is:
 

James Peake, M.D.
Department of Veterans Affairs
c/o The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500  

Jeffrey Schwartz, Ph.D.
Clinical Psychologist.
VA Ct. HealthCare System
Assistant Clinical Professor, Department of Psychiatry
Yale University School of Medicine
950 Campbell Avenue
West Haven, Ct. 06516
203.932.5711 x4172
[email protected]