A Washington, D.C. newspaper is facing rebuke after an editorial written by its own staff criticized federal efforts to hire more people with disabilities.
The opinion piece from The Washington Times editorial board focused on a recent U.S. Department of Justice memo informing employees about the agency’s plan to hire more people with so-called targeted disabilities including cerebral palsy, deafness, blindness and severe intellectual disability.
“Most employers would balk at even minor mental disabilities in hiring a lawyer, let alone severe ones. But the policy states that the Cabinet department run by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. must ‘achieve a work force from all segments of society,’ which includes those who are teetering on the edge of sanity,” The Washington Times said in its Aug. 22 editorial.
The commentary is drawing strong backlash from disability advocates who say the criticisms are baseless and rely on untrue information.
“While the Times editorial suggests applicants with disabilities would be fast-tracked into jobs at the DOJ without due screening and assessment, the DOJ memo clearly states otherwise,” said Jonathan Young, chair of the National Council on Disability. “To mischaracterize the DOJ initiative with fear-mongering and hyperbole misses the point.”
Under a 2010 executive order signed by President Barack Obama, all federal agencies are supposed to dramatically increase hiring of people with disabilities. The presidential initiative calls for an additional 100,000 employees with disabilities in five years.
“The fact is that since the 1970s, the law requires federal agencies to be model employers and hire qualified people with disabilities. This practice has had bipartisan support ever since President Nixon signed it into law,” said Julie Ward of The Arc. “It is still needed today as people with disabilities face staggeringly low employment rates and discrimination in hiring practices.”
A recent Government Accountability Office report found that federal agencies have a long way to go toward meeting Obama’s goal, with just 20,000 new hires added under the policy in 2010 and 2011.
The Justice Department did not respond to requests for comment on the newspaper editorial and the agency’s hiring practices.
What ignorance from the editorial board of that paper! I would have hoped that this paper’s paid writers would become just a little informed, just a little educated on disability issues before writing about them. It just proves that there are still uninformed, callous, uncaring people in the world who only believe in survival of the fittest and have no interest in giving another less fortunate a hand up. What an opinion piece! I wish those with disabilities and their loved ones could write an opinion piece about them.
It is not enough in a sense that private employers feel like they are given a free pass to discriminate people with mental disabilities. Why is it that certain sect of disabilities is unemployed at 86% whereas the rest of non-disabled people unemployed rate is at 10% maxed? If any other sector there will be class act lawsuits against a minority group. Just because DOJ decides to live up to name it is time for the rest of the private sectors to do so.
The attitude of the newspaper in Washington, D.C. is still the attitude of people in the United States. The fact is that attitudes of the federal government need to change if we are going to get equality for people with disabilities. .
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. must ‘achieve a work force from all segments of society to achieve the intention.
We have very progressive legislation here in Ontario, and also from our Federal government. Unfortunately, employers find ways to circumvent even the most enlightened laws. This goof at the Post is really disappointing, and seems to be turning away from what I remember as the very liberal stance of this paper. (I lived in DC and read it in the 60′s, so the world has changed a lot!)
OOPS! I see the editorial is from the Times, not the Post!! BIG difference, and sorry for maligning the Post!
It is from The Washington Post! What can one expect. The Washington Post is fav. reading of the Far Right! Nice that its out there to give sane people a window into the thinking of the Far Right. If they print these thoughts, imagine what they are really thinking.