Disability and Inclusion in the Workplace: A Toolkit and Discussion

Disability and Inclusion in the Workplace: A Toolkit and Discussion: Video automatically transcribed by Sonix

Disability and Inclusion in the Workplace: A Toolkit and Discussion: this mp4 video file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Maria De Fazio:
Here we go.

Maria De Fazio:
All right, welcome, welcome, everybody. We are just getting started. We're going to give everybody a chance to log in and get settled, maybe grab a beverage. This session is going to be an hour and a half long. So get comfy. It's going to be great. And I will be back in just a second to get us started.

VTT Voiceover:
A screenshare Zoom.

Maria De Fazio:
Welcome, welcome, everybody. We are so glad to have you here for our session today, "Disability and Inclusion in the Workplace: a tool kit and discussion." Thank you so much, on behalf of the Presidential Management Alumni Association for joining us, we are just getting ourselves set and organized at the moment. So we are going to start in just a minute. I'm going to get our our video view all set up.

Maria De Fazio:
Wonderful.

Maria De Fazio:
Great. So today we have with us a very special guest, Gary Norman, who is going to be discussing issues about disability, accessibility, inclusion and how we do that work together. I am Maria De Fazio. I am the executive director of the Presidential Management Alumni Association. I will be both moderating and handling the technical stuff today. So I wanted to go over a few quick housekeeping items before we got started. If you have a technical problem, please use the chat box to let me know about that. It blinks at me and I can find what's wrong and help you quickly. If you need clarification, there's confusion, I know a lot of us still have that very federal service habit of using lots of acronyms, that sort of thing. Click the raise your hand function. And that way we'll be able to know that there's a moment that's in need of clarification. We will be having plenty of time for audience Q&A. We're leaving a whole half hour at the end, but if you've got something that you want to ask and you don't want to forget about it, you can use the question and answer box and drop it right in there. And that way we'll have a whole group of questions ready to go. When we get to the open question and answer section. I will say that if you are calling in via phone or are using the Zoom app on your phone, you may not have all of these same functions depending on the version or operating system you're using.

Maria De Fazio:
So I'm sorry about that. But we are doing our best to make this as interactive an experience as possible. We do have a couple of questions that we get, like, every time. So I wanted to just answer them right off the bat. Will there be a recording? Yes, there will be. We will be posting it on our website. Will we be sharing the slides from today? Yes, we will. That will also be posted on the website and go out to you in a follow up email. What happens if I have more questions? After the session is over, we will be sharing contact information for both Gary and PMAA so you can reach out however you feel comfortable and chat with us and ask some more questions and get some more get some more information that is useful to you. Something I wanted to talk about sort of finally before we jump right in, is the sort of spirit of community and learning. We're among friends, colleagues, and we are having a conversation. It happens to be a conversation about something very important. So I don't want anyone to be afraid to ask questions for fear that you might use the wrong language or embarrass yourself or accidentally be insulting. We're going to work through it together, so just be gracious if you receive a correction or a suggestion or an alternate opinion from those folks that are doing the work or living, living this as their reality.

Maria De Fazio:
And I am really proud to say that the PMF community is a great place to do this because we are all lifelong learners with strong motivation to make our community better. So we're a great audience to have this kind of conversation. So with that, I am going to give a quick bio of Gary. It's very hard to give a quick bio of Gary because Gary is very accomplished, but I'll do my best. So Gary Norman is a dedicated public servant gifted with the ability to bring people of seemingly unrelated interests together. He currently serves as the chair of the Maryland Commission on Civil Rights. In serving in this capacity, he's got many roles, including serving on the Maryland Lynching Truth and Reconciliation Commission. His public policy dialogue work shows a real commitment towards non-partisan collaboration and the convening of experts. So in twenty fifteen, he served as a visiting fellow at the nonpartisan Robert J. Dole Institute for Politics. And his unique brand of public service comes with a special sidekick, his guide dog, Bowie. In November of twenty nineteen, he served as a fellow at the invite-only public policy Conflict Resolution Fellowship was a program for high level leaders convened under the auspices of the Maryland Judiciary. He established a multiyear, non-partisan symposium on animal law and policy, brokering regional and national events.

Maria De Fazio:
He is known for his semi regular salons, where he brings together thought leaders, including the disabled and the abled and having mentored a range of law students with disabilities. He is the past founder and co executive editor of the Maryland of the Mid Atlantic Journal on Law and Public Policy, The Animal and Disability Reporter, a non-partisan law and public policy journal on animal and disability issues. Gary got his start in public service as a Presidential Management Fellow in 2000 with the federal government after graduating from Wright State University and Cleveland State University. In 2011, he obtained his Master's of Letters in Law at the Program on Law and Government at Washington College, at American University, with a focus on health care regulation as well as health care and health care nondiscrimination policy. He served as a high level policy briefer on disability and non-discrimination at a variety of conferences, and Gary also serves as the attorney advisor to the Presidential Management Alumni Association, helping us manage a variety of of legal questions and was very helpful and critical in getting our our first year setup and becoming a nonprofit. So if you want to check in on his captivating career as a lawyer with a guide dog or read some of his writings, you can do so in Maryland Daily Record or on his blog that you can find on Facebook. So, Gary, welcome. Welcome.

Gary Norman:
Thank you. It's my honor to be with all of you today.

Maria De Fazio:
Great. We're so glad to have you. I want to just throw up a quick slide, if I could be so bold. Pin your video and pin my video, and then we're going to.

Maria De Fazio:
Let's just pop that up.

Maria De Fazio:
So we've got a screen sharing and folks, if you're hearing a voice in the background, that is Gary's text to speech system - or is that JAWS, Gary? I forget which one I'm sorry. It's JAWS. It's an accessibility technology that helps Gary when we're doing meetings like this. So some of today's topics, I've thrown up on a slide here. Just because I want everybody to sort of get an idea of the different things that we're going to be talking about, but we're going to be doing this more as a conversation. Those are just a little bit more engaging. So I know Gary has a an opening statement that he would like to give. So I will kick us off by popping over here and say again, thank you. Thank you, Gary, for sharing your time and experiences with us today as part of PMAAs work to to sort of explore and share the full breadth and depth of our alumni experience and continue to help alumni grow. This was a session we knew early on that we wanted to do. Unfortunately, we were really looking forward to doing this one in person. But COVID had other plans. So to keep everyone safe and healthy, we have made it an extended "Couchella" session. Gary was a natural choice to lead the session due to his involvement with the board. But I wanted to also say that I felt really comfortable asking Gary to lead this discussion because he spends a significant amount of time on disability rights, advocacy and inclusion, work in both his professional and personal life that he really enjoys is educating others. And he's very much a people person. So if you want to go ahead and sort of kick off with an opening statement and sort of maybe touch on why you engage in this advocacy and leadership, which is surely a labor of love across so many areas of your life, so, go ahead, introduce yourself, let us know how it goes.

Gary Norman:
With this sort of captivating and top shelf speakers, as it were, through the alumni network and lunch and work session,I consider it a privilege an honor to speak with you today, to share insights with you, and in a way, both to celebrate and commemorate the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 as amended. Its laws that went before that. That is laws that of come since. And then the many, many people who have made that become a reality and an attorney who have opened doors for me to opportunity, as well as to talk about how that's the floor. Right? So we need also create more opportunity and more growth in the federal workplace and in other workplaces and then in society as a whole. But I don't want that to be a negative conversation. I wanted to be a positive one of which we bring people together, in which we open the lines of communication, compassion and networking. And that's why it's an honor to be with you today. The slide that I believe Maria showed gives some kind of high points, or goals for today. And while there's a bunch of bullet points you can read yourself,one thing I've learned from a very close friend of mine, is the idea of providing a good cornerstone message. I think the top bullet point of our common goals for today. It says "The ADA: significant achievements or progress, but work yet remains. And i think that's true. As a lawyer with a disability in the private and public space. I've been incredibly blessed by this country of many opportunities, and yet I also know discrimination. And I've also been a voice to many people who feel that they are discriminated against so we can continue to come together as of the conversation while bringing people together, and really opening up education and enlightenment. So I thought I would start today by opening statements.

Gary Norman:
In which I will rise for you, my fellow citizens, and indeed alumni of the network. Through our society, we witness various expressions and representations of people with disabilities. Some are positive, some are negative. But in my view, they're all important to defining what it means to be differently disabled than the twenty first century. As a side note, that's kind of the fanciest language, but that really means someone like me, someone who's been benefited by the ADA and has had an unfolding leadership story. So I was a teenager in 1990, in 1990 when President Bush the first enacted ADA by signing it on the White House lawn. So I had an unfolding leadership story. When I think about this year, I think about the great privilege and honor I had to be a visiting fellow at the Institute 2013. As a visiting fellow, prior to speaking on stage one afternoon, I had the opportunity to delve into the storehouse of the amazing artifacts and papers of Senator Dole, really kind of his presidential library. So after looking at his wonderful artifacts and papers downstairs in the library, I also touched the Masonic items by note. We returned to the lobby in the front lobby just as I'm standing to the right of the front doors,that are electric doors, very accessible doors, is a floor to ceiling stained glass window representation of the United States flag. On each side of the window, contained in the showcase, is a beam of the World Trade Center.

Gary Norman:
I remember standing there that day and that afternoon with a sense of awe. Both of the greatness of this country, but also just the greatness of me as a person with a disability to have the opportunity to be a visiting fellow at the institute like the Dole Institute. So. The ADA has been a landmark civil rights law and set of regulations that has really defined our concept of being a more perfect union. While as a soft Libertarian, I don't disagree that we could always use less laws rather than more, even the ones that I prefer. Quite clearly, the law can only set the floor. We need to continue the conversation on cultural reform, and really translating the law we have in the daily practice. Like many of us, find a currency in conversation of expanding and pushing the boundaries of established communities, as well as the concept of inclusion. One point that I think we will discuss today that I have long tried to consider and write about, is the idea that law shapes culture. So the ADA, for example, really shapes culture in a way that other laws haven't before it as its predecessors. And yet, in some ways, culture also has to shape law. So while we have a corpus of laws and piles of civil rights laws, we still have a lot of work that remains to translate civil rights law into daily practice. When I think of inspiration, who keeps me wanting to do this conversation? I think of the very gentle African-American, African Studies, as well as English professor from the University of Kansas, that I sat with the night before I went on stage. They held a dinner in my honor and my mentee from that week at Kansas kind of told me recently how they very carefully select those people who attend those dinners. So in the room, a large conference room about one hundred foot long with all the plaques of Senator Dole from floor to ceiling on each of the walls around the table, I sat next to this very gentle soul who lived the civil rights struggle as an African-American. While we were eating salads, I remember us talking about how great this country is as middle Americans, but also we talked about how we have both had our civil rights struggles and how much work we still have remaining as a country. She impressed on my heart the need for us to build better bilateral conversation, compassion and inclusion. So I thought that would be a good theme today, not to talk about the negatives, such as with "schedule A", where I see there are problems for getting people with disabilities in the government, to really talk about my personal experience. And I hope maybe even insights of how we can come together to promote and include better people with disabilities in public service, specifically federal service, and then also to really come together more compassionately as a country.

Gary Norman:
And I yield the balance of my time, my opening statement has a set of recommendations that we've begun to talk about today.

Maria De Fazio:
Excellent. Thank you, Gary. So I had also put up a slide of just some basic info about the ADA and we'll return to that slide in a little bit. But I think sort of what we what we wanted to do now, which clip did you did you want to kick off with a video clip here, Gary, or did we want to sort of get into more of those basics?

Gary Norman:
I think the question on the ADA would be a good one, and then follow with the clip.

Maria De Fazio:
Alright. So July twenty sixth, this past July twenty sixth, was the 30th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. And it's often considered landmark legislation for people with disabilities and their legal inclusion in numerous areas, but especially the workplace. Obviously, the ADA is critical...but the ADA is critical legislation, but it's far from the only piece of legislation that secures and protects the rights of disabled individuals. Except that I noticed when I was getting ready for today's session, that a lot of the the the news and the pieces and the history done on the ADA, talk specifically about the effects of being part of this quote unquote, "ADA Generation."

Gary Norman:
Yes, so, of course, all movements have kind of a language and perhaps humans need a certain way to talk about things that seems like kind of slang. But in a way, if I'm part of it, I guess I am part of the ADA generation because I was a teenager when it was passed in Congress and then enacted by the president. As my old professor for my thesis project in the LLM once told me: "always remember, Congress passes, the president enacts." And I know that's kind of a silly thing to bring up, but that's something that's always stuck with me as a legal scholar. And so people like me have benefited because prior to the ADA, while there were laws that you will see in the PowerPoint, like the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 as amended, it didn't apply to other spaces besides the federal government.

Gary Norman:
So there was a sense that we needed more law and we needed more advocacy to open the doors of opportunity for people with disabilities. So I thought I would share a few high points of what the ADA is or what maybe it looks like. I say in my own personal notes tonight, I think perhaps in the slides as well, like all good laws, it was a bipartisan law. Imagine that, Democrats and Republicans worked together. Both Senator Kennedy and Senator Dole, a thirty-third degree Mason, wrote that law. And indeed, Senator Dole was at the signing ceremony that day, along with the EEO director, as well as, what we call the father of the ADA, Justin Dart.

Gary Norman:
The ADA, contrary to its myths in the business community sometimes, is a bipartisan, neutral law that really seeks to compromise. And the bill includes, on the one hand, for people with disabilities, while also kind of having a good conversation with the business community about the business case and the pros of opening doors of opportunity to people with disabilities. Indeed, as a person is really trying to build this from the ADA. The ADA specifically encourages multiple forms of dispute resolution. So contrary to some of the arguments, otherwise,it's not a business hating ADA, not a business hating law.

Gary Norman:
It's a very much a good, bipartisan, pro-business, civil rights law. And yet we have a lot of work that remains. So the ADA has several titles. It has five titles, to be specific. It ranges from applying to private business, 15 or more employers. And of course, state law can always have more requirements, not less. And many states have a version of the ADA in state law. It has a title that applies to state and local governments. Title two. And then Title three applies to a concept that was largely drafted from the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The idea of the place of public accommodation.

Gary Norman:
So often when I speak without using that kind of help, the language of, say, a public space, the idea that Bowie and me are in a restaurant,Bowie and me are in the taxicab or LYFT, and what that looks like in terms of reasonable modifications, et cetera, et cetera.

Gary Norman:
It has a Communications title, which, of course, back then was antiquated compared to what we have available now. It really seeks to open up the conversation about what it means to be somebody who has an impairment or condition. And we know that by examples of the many competent, high-level people, with disabilities in the federal government, by far not enough according to the GAO. According to the many people with disabilities you may see in the federal workplace, there's a lot that disability brings to the table. So we really needed the law to push that conversation, keep that conversation going. And I hope that's kind of what we'll talk about today.

Gary Norman:
So we've achieved a lot of progress. We have a lot of work yet remains during this 30th anniversary. And I hope that by having these conversations, we really open the doors to a much higher level of service to people with disabilities and serving the American people.

VTT Voiceover:
Zoom window.

Maria De Fazio:
Great, so, Gary, just refresh my memory, which clip, where are we going to start with?

Gary Norman:
So if we're moving the clips, I think it's worth... So if we know that the ADA did a lot to kind of promote the conversation. But we also know now that there's still conversation remaining. I think that naturally lends itself to some new questions on implicit bias. So before we jump to my favorite show, The West Wing, I think maybe the clip on Mel and his partner's telling him not to be visually impaired, right?

Maria De Fazio:
Yes, because you should just tell someone not to have a disability and then they won't. All right. So I am going to share...this will be two separate clips and we're going to start. We're going to start with the clip from the beginning of the show, essentially just for a little back story for folks who aren't familiar with this. This is a clip from "Growing Up Fisher", which is a short-lived sitcom, but it starred J.K. Simmons as a blind attorney, who throughout his life, had managed to hide the fact that he was blind and had gotten to become a partner in a law firm with, with his brother. And none of the clients, up until very recently, knew that he was blind. So we're going to play...that right now.

VTT Voiceover:
Screen share to video.

Movie Clip - Secretary:
Tom Hawkins is in town Thursday, you and Glen are taking him to dinner, remember to get the retainer check from them.

Movie Clip - Glenn:
I wanted to talk to you about that.

Movie Clip - Mel:
Wow. Janice, your Glenn impression is spot on impression.

Movie Clip - Glenn:
So what do you plan on telling Tom Hawkins about the old situation?

Movie Clip - Mel:
Well, the truth, you know, I've got a couple of them sitting here on my face.They're blue. The ladies seem to love them.

Movie Clip - Glenn:
You know what I mean. We haven't told our biggest client that you are blind. We've been lying to them since the day we met.

Movie Clip - Mel:
We have never lied to Tom. We may have led him to form some incorrect conclusions...Glenny, boy, you better take these . I am in no condition to drive.

Movie Clip - Glenn:
All right.

Movie Clip - Mel:
What a blind guy can't get the don't drink and drive message out there?

Maria De Fazio:
And we're going to be following it up with the sort of second half of that conversation...that that the second half of the conversation that Mel and his brother have.

Movie Clip - Mel:
I'm telling him at dinner, Glenn, just like I told all our other clients.

Movie Clip - Glenn:
And we lost two of them. I'm just saying, Tom is 30 percent of our business. We've had a rough year, you with a divorce. Me going cold throwing craps at Pechanga.

Movie Clip - Mel:
I'm telling them I'm here, I'm blind.Get used to it.

Movie Clip - Glenn:
Or you pretend to be sighted one more time and we cash the check with all the nice commas and zeros.

Movie Clip - Mel:
Glenn!

Movie Clip - Glenn:
Mel! We've done it this long. Just do it one more time. I'm asking, as your business partner, as your brother, and as a new boat owner who did not fully research marina fees.

Maria De Fazio:
All right. So this is obviously an example of a lot of different things, but I'll have...I'll have Gary go into it. But just to say that the show itself, in doing my research, the show itself was created by D.J. Nash, who based it pretty closely on his own life, actually. And he had a father who was a successful man, but was also blind and did not get a guide dog until he was in his mid 40s. So, Gary, take it away. What can we learn from that?

Gary Norman:
So I think we can learn a lot of things. One, throughout the show, in many ways, it kind of shows the abilities of a blind lawyer. It shows kind of the promise of the law and how it allowed that particular blind person to become a lawyer and then practice law. On the other hand, I think it shows just how on a couple of fronts. Number one, to struggle to translate the law into inclusion.

Gary Norman:
And then, number two, I think any reasonable blind person is lying to you if they tell you that...it's it's always question. Am I, at least for myself, am I Gary first or am I a blind person who also happens to be Gary or am I a Gary who happens to be a blind person. I think, to clips even kind of show Mel struggling with that. And I think Mel comes to some conclusions eventually through to show in a way.

Gary Norman:
And I think what really is pertinent is what my blind, longest blind mentor in the blind lawyer community once told me about a month ago on the phone, because he's been very involved with Florida advocacy around accessible voting, recently in the press.

He said, I asked that question. So I think both communities would pigeonhole us, or me anyways. Either be kind of the blind person who's unique in the room or just be Gary and forget that I'm blind and somehow hide it. And what my mentor now, now retired in Florida said is, why does it have to be one or the other? So quite clearly Mel, as a blind person, he can't escape that, especially what he, like me, has a dog in the room. On the other hand, that's only one part that defines our identity. And indeed it comes with skills and abilities. But those are not the entire set of our skills and abilities and everything else is really a question of how we kind of translate that and have that conversation with people.

Maria De Fazio:
So I think too, you're also getting a little bit at the point of, of implicit bias. In that the, the unfair but the implicit bias is that somehow folks with disabilities are less capable of doing a variety of things. People tend to focus a lot on the process as opposed to necessarily the outcomes. So can you talk a little bit to about a little bit to that?

Gary Norman:
Oh, I sure could.

Maria De Fazio:
(Laughing) So I thought you might.

Gary Norman:
So we both do that, certainly through the PowerPoint materials and the extra additional follow up materials we provide. We also do it through a clip, and I hope in discussion. As a person with a disability, I can personally tell you that how I'm interpreted and how people react to me or treat me is different when I'm in a suit like now versus if I'm in my favorite thing, shorts. Right? So if I'm in a coffee house in a suit, someone will look at me as this important person because he looks nice. He has this beautiful dog. Or maybe I'm speaking on the stage when I've been blessed to do that in my life many times. But when I'm at Common Ground here on the avenue in my neighborhood, and I'm in my shorts. Oh yeah, glad to help you. But maybe they's sort of this implicit thought, "oh, that poor blind person," et et cetera.

Gary Norman:
So if we look at most recent social science data and research, we know that on one hand there is an implicit bias, according to the twenty nineteen study that appeared in Science Daily. We also know that this implicit bias tends to expand or flourish over time and with age. And on the other hand, we also know that people are increasingly uncomfortable about having the conversation and also perhaps even admitting that they have some biases towards people with disabilities. So we thought we would kind of show the fictional story version of that and what that looks like for a politico with a disability and then talk about kind of how implicit bias is translated in terms of the opportunities of people with disabilities.

Gary Norman:
So disability circles, whether this is the best use of the language or not, we call it ableism. And abilism and really takes it's fullest fruit, if you will, in limiting opportunities of high level professionals with disabilities in the federal space. We can even chat on studies in the GAO. And most of all, we can have a group discussion about what is implicit bias and how we kind of cure implicit bias.

Gary Norman:
And I think PowerPoint slide number 11 does a good job and give me tips on that. I have recommendations of kind of like how we broker together. Because I never want these conversations to be negative. Tell you,oh you're doing such a bad job. I rather have to be about solutions and thus collaboratively working on those solutions together.

Maria De Fazio:
Awesome, so we'll go with that clip next, then.

Gary Norman:
It's the West Wing.

Maria De Fazio:
All right, so let's share that clip.

VTT Voiceover:
(unclear)

Movie Clip - Interpreter:
Are you the unmitigated jackass who has the DNC choking up funding for the O'Dwyer campaign in California Forty sixth?

Movie Clip - Josh:
What in God's name is happening right now?

Movie Clip - Interpreter:
I'm Joey Lucas.

Movie Clip - Josh:
You're Joey Lucas.?

Movie Clip - Interpreter:
No, I'm Joey Lucas.

Movie Clip - Josh:
Help me because I don't...

Movie Clip - Joey:
You idiot. I'm Joey Lucas!

Movie Clip - Josh:
Oh, OK, I'm Josh Lyman

Movie Clip - Interpreter:
I know who you are.

Movie Clip - Josh:
You're Joey Lucas.

Movie Clip - Interpreter:
What were you expecting?

Movie Clip - Josh:
A man.

Movie Clip - Interpreter:
I'm a woman.

Movie Clip - Josh:
You're O'Dwyer's campaign manager?

Movie Clip - Interpreter:
Yes. And I have three sources, two at the DNC...

Movie Clip - Joey:
What the hell are you wearing?

Movie Clip - Josh:
Me?

Movie Clip - Joey:
Yes.

Movie Clip - Josh:
I was I, I spilled some things on my clothes. Tell you what, let's let's just take a deep breath for a second while I try and remember, you know, where I am right now.

Movie Clip - Interpreter:
Are you drunk?

Movie Clip - Josh:
I have a very delicate system.

Movie Clip - Interpreter:
Look, I'm totally serious about this. I'm trying to get a guy elected to Congress. It's going to be a very tight race. And I want to know why the White House is screwing around with me.

Movie Clip - Donna:
Excuse me.

Movie Clip - Josh:
Thank God.

Movie Clip - Donna:
What's going on?

Movie Clip - Josh:
This is my assistant, Donna Moss. Donna, Joey Lucas, I am just going to go I'm going to go change my clothes. I'll be right back. Took you long enough.

Movie Clip - Donna:
I got stuck at Dupont Circle again.

Movie Clip - Josh:
Do you have any idea who dumb I looked in there?

Movie Clip - Donna:
So Joey Lucas is a woman.

Movie Clip - Josh:
Yes.

Movie Clip - Donna:
And she's Deaf.

Movie Clip - Josh:
Yes.

Movie Clip - Donna:
Cool.

Movie Clip - Josh:
Gimmie that.

Maria De Fazio:
Ok, that never fails to make me laugh on so many levels.

Gary Norman:
Now, I think in our conversation we talked about two things, right?How "bad" Josh does, and then how to Donna, it's like nothing?

Maria De Fazio:
Right.

Gary Norman:
I wonder if it's not appropriate to have maybe either check in with the audience at this point or, you know, the tools that are available and zoom into a box and see what people think so far.

All righty. Yes, we can. If you folks want to. If you have any sort of thoughts, questions, clarifications, I did get a question that will captions be available in the future during future sessions to increase accessibility? That is a hope of ours. We would like to be able to do that. Zoom has the capability to incorporate third party closed captioning. We're looking to do that in the future. That is usually a subscription service. We will, however, be providing a transcript of this event after the fact, and it will be downloadable with...In the same place that you'll be able to view the video recording of this. So that that will be that will be one way that we are going to try to make this a little bit more inclusive and accessible. I hope that answers that question. Does anybody else have, I don't see anything in the Q and A. I mean, any time I get to watch a clip of the West Wing during the middle of a webinar, I'm really for it. So A plus right there.

Gary Norman:
To use the legal disclaimer, we use these video clips for educational purposes.

Oh, yes. Oh, and I forgot the other disclaimer at the top of the hour, which was that we are speaking, Gary is speaking not in his professional capacity working for CMS, but in his personal capacity and in his capacity as a disability rights advocate. Oh, so we've got our board president popped in to ask us to see if there were any suggestions or ideas regarding disabilities or special needs that might be associated with employees as they age. Something like progressive hearing loss or progressive vision loss. And that's probably very specific to the federal government, because, as you know, Gary, there are quite a few people who work for the federal government who are able either currently eligible to retire or eligible to retire within the next few years.

Gary Norman:
So I think that actually covers two questions and we just haven't reached them yet. So let's jump forward. One is a reasonable accommodations question and the other is, I think, always a pertinent question for me. That's kind of living this experience, kind of what do you wish people knew? Right. So one is sort of reasonable accommodations. One is the idea of what you wish people knew. And I have actually broaches both questions and a very pertinent way. So what I would like people to know is that blindness and vision loss are very distinct things, in a way. The are very much a spectrum type of of situations of life experiences. So, for example, my mentor in Florida, I mentioned, as far as I know, has always been blind, was born blind, or at least almost blind from the youngest age possible. And he lived all his legal career as a "fully blind person". Whereas as a kid, because my degenerative form of RP or retinitis pigmentosa, I saw perhaps quote unquote "normal" as a lad. But what greatly trammelled sight, meaning I used big, huge bottle glasses to see when I was a kid. By the time I was in third grade, the last I remember being able to see at night, I was catching fireflies in the back field. And then by that summer, I stopped being able to see at nighttime or I had night blindness. By the time I was in seventh grade, I started working with a white cane, which helps blind people guide in the built environment. By the time, I was in ninth grade and Mel kind of touches on this in one clip. Actually, I actually asked both blind teenagers, do we sort of rebelled against being visually impaired or blind. At least I did. And so I was like trying to hold on to reading large print for just as long as I possibly could.

Gary Norman:
But I probably missed half of my ninth grade year trying to pretend that I could actually read stuff in class when I couldn't because my eyesight had given out for large print, which is usually 18 font. A sighted the person can read a newspaper at, say, six or eight font. large print's considered to be 18 by example. By the time I was in college, because I was on the cusp of technology, I mostly worked with readers. I could still see enough to kinda cheat with my cane. But I also ran into a couple of poles in college when I wasn't paying attention. By the time I was in law school, I could still see well enough with my cane, but I started using accessible technology like JAWS. And then by the time I got my first guide dog, I started seeing so little, that really a guide dog truly made sense, beyond my love of animals. And having the extra independence, I feel comfortable working with the service animal. But even then I could still see a lot back then compared to now. The example I use is the bald eagle in my dining room above an antique server.

Gary Norman:
When I worked my first dog, I could still see it because it was very large and very black and white. I haven't been able to see that or TV since about twenty ten. And now today when I work with my first guide dog, I very much can see very little. And if I do see something, it's probably more like imagination, imagination than anything else.

Gary Norman:
So the cornerstone point is: These disabilities that we live with, whether they're true, a lot of those disabilities in the workplace or not or just I'm kind of more of an able bodied person and I have a growing impairment. They shift over time. And so therefore, the importance of accommodating a person either with impairment, not disability or full on disability means that the conversation of reasonable accommodation may have to shift over time. And one cornerstone point we wanted to bring today is the idea that we need to destigmatize. That's the word, that reasonable accommodations or modification conversation. In my experience, as a person with a disability who has been a volunteer mediator for you for almost two decades, I've either organically or naturally or sometimes even been called on to mediate disability related accommodation questions. And I found great power in the conversation and the abilities of workers with disabilities, either employees or managers. And yet I've noticed that there's a lot that we still don't know or don't want to accept. And in many ways, both sides of the camp, those without disabilities and those with disabilities, are stuck in an old conversation, old ways of thinking. The EEO litigation complex, if you will. I think one one tool we wanted to bring to the toolbox today is the idea that we can have better conversations on this topic and that we can kind of have continuous learning about what reasonable accommodation might look like as they expand over the lifespan of a worker.

Maria De Fazio:
So we're not saying don't ever talk to EEO, but what we are saying is that perhaps your first step as a manager or as a person with a disability, should be to have a face to face conversation with your supervisor and talk about reasonable accommodations for whatever it is your needs are or whatever it is that employees needs might be. Rather than starting out by going straight to the EEO process.

Gary Norman:
I think that's true. No, of course. And in our lifespans, we're bound to have a bad boss or bad employee and maybe a formal process is needed. But I really hope that we as persons with disabilities who are employees with disabilities, are managers with disabilities. We can kind of build that our conversation with our boss in a way that's not threatening, kind of meets our needs legally, but also kind of builds rapport where disability is an included idea and not kind of a threatening legal topic.

Maria De Fazio:
The same way that a good manager or supervisor would help you talk about your career path and other development that you need to do. In that same sort of nonconfrontational way that you're discussing your needs, your abilities, your skills, areas where you might need assistance or support. To make that part of that sort of ongoing conversation, the open conversation that you have.

Gary Norman:
I think that's true. So I think that's the part of how we eliminate bias and open opportunities is really building the idea that we can have these bi-lateral communication and abilities to work together to meet the needs of employees with disabilities or managers with disabilities. And really make it more like: what can I do? What is my career path as somebody who's disabled? Instead of sort of this is what I can't do and therefore it has to be a tense situation.

Maria De Fazio:
So I would love to backtrack just a little bit, you mentioned you've mentioned Bowie, your your current guide dog partner a couple of times. So I know I've had the opportunity to observe you when you're partnered with Bowie, as has the rest of our board at a board retreat and other sort of public events that we have done. I know guide dogs, guide dogs or service dogs are a common accommodation, but certainly not everybody has a whole lot of experience with them. Since your love of being a guide dog handler has arisen in a lot of our conversations. You are a dog person. You've now you're now on your third guide dog. And you know, the things like the challenges of working a dog during COVID have come up. Could you talk a little bit more just about guide dogs? And then I think we'll we'll also show the clip of of Mel and his guide dog, which is a whole lot of what you should never, ever do with a guide dog. But so why don't you talk about what it's like, what is sort of a day in the life, what the sort of the the what it means to actually have a guide dog as part of your accommodation in the way in which you move through the world?

Gary Norman:
I would love to. So my column, The Daily Record, is really premised on the idea of the day in the life of a lawyer and his guide dog. Kind of how I sort of vision today's training or discussion to be. Sort of walking through the day of life, in this case, this particular lawyer with the guide dog.

Gary Norman:
So this is a great time to kind of talk about what it's like, both from perhaps an accommodation point of view as well as a personal point of view and doing mostly that through stories. The column really is the idea that I'm uniquely in the room with the guide dog. People react to that guide dog. And then perhaps if I'm in that room, somehow I'm leading on a policy issue so we could kind of learn through the columns about sort of the one hand what it's like to be that lawyer with a guide dog and number two, my perspective on policy. And in many ways, I truly think that while it's an accommodation to be sure, or it's a tool to be sure, it's more than that to me. It's both a leadership lesson. I've learned everything and many things from every dog. It's also an opportunity to connect with the nondisabled public in a very personal way for those who can love animals and understand animals.

Gary Norman:
And then, number three, I think, whenever a dog's in the room, whether it's on a mediation or speech or in the boardroom, maybe it makes us all a little more compassionate to each other. So I thought I would do two things. Number one, I just mentioned the ADA in the law around service animals and workplace accommodations, number two, and stories number three, cap that off with the antics of Elvis, the guide dog in "Growing up Fisher" .

Gary Norman:
From a disability/ADA point of view, service animals were first mentioned in the Fair Housing Act amendments in nineteen eighty eight for the first time, really incorporated the idea of service animals being in the housing, the private space. The ADA followed up on that and kind of discussed the idea of service animals in the public space or places of public accommodation. Private entities, meaning (private) employers, of course. The federal government, the Rehab Act would apply to us and translate the protections of the ADA into letting me have a service animal in the workplace.

Gary Norman:
In 2010, the Congress passed and the president enacted amendments to the ADA. So the ADA in 2010 amended the regulations by the DOJ, at title thirty five and thirty six. Or parts thirty five, thirty six of Title Twenty-Eight to discuss service animals and that defined service animals in a more concrete way to say a service animals,is any dog, individual individually trained to perform a task for a person with a disability. So it kind of breaks down in terms of accommodation for modification. Accommodation or reasonable accommodations is a word we would use in the workplace space modifications and the government like public space or places of public accommodation.

Gary Norman:
So a dog has to be individually trained and has to provide a function. As a guide dog, it's really one thing I like to point out to people. It's kind of a team effort. It's not that Bowie knows how to cross the street, and it's not that I can cross the street myself. We cross the street together, for example. So he's individually trained to perform that kind of job function for me. He's also a dog. The ADA modifications in 2010, really said has to be dogs. On a case by case basis, it can be miniature horses. Wild, exotic animals are not included in that definition and in the context of our public spaces, places of public accommodation, not emotional support animals.

Gary Norman:
And then number one, it's providing all those things to me as a person with a disability. So a guide dog guides a person who's visually impaired, blind. So moving, in the sort of... If that's the law, what really does it mean when we reach beyond the law? And to me, every one of these partners, I've now had three and kept two of them in retirement. It's been a life altering experience for me. It's both helped me build a brand. It's given me leadership lessons. Each dog has needed a different kind of communication currency, if you will. Each dog has had a different story. Each dog has really lived a different chapter of my life and I thought I'd share a few of those stories real quick.

Gary Norman:
So for Langer, I really guided with him as a PMI to begin with because I worked my first year and entering the program at CMS, and doing different rotations, at SSA and even back to Cleveland as a person who worked with my cane. And while as a guide dog handler, I need basic "O&M" orientation and mobility skills with a cane, there's just so much that a guide dog does for you. An emotional and a guiding towards access level that a cane on the corner will never do. So, I both saw it as an opportunity to kind of build my mobility and my independence, but also to have a unique life story through these dogs. So I obtained my first dog Langer in August of two thousand one towards the I guess the beginning of the second year of my program. I went to California and obtained Langer and then Pilot in 2010, at Guide Dogs for the Blind.

Gary Norman:
I hadn't been back in Baltimore working Langer at CMS and the SSA, as I kind of learned the SSA to start my new rotation in the OGC, when 9/11 hit. And indeed, the day that 9/11 actually happened, I was in my own mediation because I felt like there were some miscommunications around my accommodations as a worker with a disability. And they broke in and said really with great concern and fear. "The World Trade Center's just been struck, everybody. And we'll kind of, let you know?" So we finished up, our mediation was a positive result for everybody. And then immediately after that, the second plane hit and they kind of dismissed everybody that day. So I go downstairs, hit the bank, and then I'm like, what am I going to do? Because then I didn't have the transportation resource in place. So I decided to go back, walk about a mile and a half to the church that I first went to when I first moved to Baltimore. And I said, what? What do you do during a crisis? You go to church, right? And I still remember to this day there was nobody at church. So I walked into the Rectory with Langer and I said, two things have got to happen. I'm sure I'll find very gracious people. Give me a ride home, Pikesville, or I can always find a bed and beer. Yeah. So it was just, awe inspiring the kind of work a guide dog in those circumstances.

Gary Norman:
On the negative side, these dogs, they're never machines or just tools. So they're living, breathing beings and they have success and they have failure. And everything in between is kind of how we manage it. As a captain of the guard dog team. As a case in point, I remember how Langer tried to guide me after graduation from the PMF program and it was just so overwhelming for both of us that day. I remember my long standing, first sighted friend of Baltimore who was in the program with me still. My friend said "Gary, really I really should guide you on stage today." Of course, as a young, brash attorney with a disability back then, I went "No! I can do it myself." Well, what does Langer do when we get up on stage? He goes off and sniffs the orchestra on stage and walks me into like a microphone. But he was great guide dog who I'll always cherish in my heart. Very much worthy of having been an honorary Mason. And then I partnered with Pilot.

I did my postgrad degree with Pilot. He was a big goofball, too. I think a funny story is, my wife Laura was talking about him and Bowie. Pilot lived as the mentor of Bowie until we lost him in December. And in October 2019 we celebrated Halloween by putting a lion costume on Pilot and we put a witches costume on Bo, and apparently Pilot, in the photos, because he was always kind of Odie (From the cartoon Garfield) "Yeah, yeah, yeah. I want to be a lion." And Bo's looking at your like an angry New Yorker, "Like, no. What are you doing?" He's just a wonderful little ball of love and ability. I'm so proud to be partnered with him and to serve on a couple of rising executive roles this year.

Maria De Fazio:
So Bowie was who had come to the Board Retreat. And I think Bowie was also with with you, working with you, when you were installed as the Worshipful Master at your Masonic Lodge, correct?

Gary Norman:
Yes, Pilot was the first guide dog in our lodge to be an honorary brother. And when he was diagnosed with lymphoma cancer, basically for a dog, I knew that his time was short. Memento Mori. So I got him up in the East, at the place where the Executive of a Lodge sits because I was "pro-tem" that night, and he just he loved it. He loved to the Lodge. And we lost him December but I think he would have been proud to be at the installation too. And then Bowie has had the unique experience of kind of being the new kid on the block at Lodge and really has grown his own following in the Craft.

Maria De Fazio:
Excellent. All right, I've got one more question that I want to ask. Oh, no, you want to know what, we're going to flip to that...we'll do that clip real quick, because it's just it's really funny. Excellent. And then here we go.

Movie Clip - Glenn:
Eh-he-hey, with that dog, it looks like you're blind. What are you doing?

Movie Clip - Mel:
I'm telling the truth. I owe it to myself and to Henry.

Movie Clip - Glenn:
No, you owe it to me. I'm the one who read your comic books. I'm the one who drove you to law school. I'm the one who alphabetically arranged the work refrigerator so you can clean things.

Movie Clip - Mel:
Yeah. Where are the pickles always under "C"?

Movie Clip - Glenn:
Because it's a condiment. Come on, boy.

Movie Clip - Mel:
Why is somebody stealing my dog?

Movie Clip - Glenn:
I'm tying him up outside.

Movie Clip - Mel:
Well, good luck with that. He's trained to stay by my side,so...

Movie Clip - Glenn:
We'll get you another one. Ye--who's a good-- Look, this is not just for me. This is about our firm. I care deeply about each and every one of the thirty five people we...

Movie Clip - Mel:
Thirty eight.

Movie Clip - Glenn:
Whatever! They're counting on us Mel.

Movie Clip - Mel:
All right. But there's forty thousand dollars worth of training in this dog. It's crazy to just tie him up outside.

Movie Clip - Glenn:
Yeah, that'd be crazy. I'd like to check this, please.

Maria De Fazio:
So that's obviously a list of things one should never, ever do with a service animal.

Gary Norman:
I also love it because it shows the dogs are not robots. They like I said, have success. They also have failures. And all my dogs have not only been exceptional, exceptional friends and partners, but they've been big goofballs.

Maria De Fazio:
Well, it's it's nice because I think they remind you not to take things too seriously, you can be a very focused person.

Gary Norman:
I'd say Bowie, even though he has a touch of ADHD sometimes, he's probably the most determined focus of my dogs. My most recent dog, Pilot, was the biggest goofball.

Maria De Fazio:
Awesome. So I've got one more question that I want to ask, and then we've got some questions infrom the audience. So let me start with this sort of this idea that just because we can see a person with a disability in our community or in our office doesn't mean that there's not a problem that folks that have a disability are facing. So not only do you give me such useful counsel on PMAA and legal concerns, but sort of learning about your journey to become a leader as we've become friends has been really educational to me. So what I've noticed is that since I do a lot of work in communications, we're often familiar with the face of a movement or the face of an issue. And frequently the work that's done by the rank and file advocates in organizations is not well known. So, for example, one of the most well-known American deaf blind advocates, Helen Keller, acted as the spokesperson for the American Foundation for the Blind for over 30 years. AFB is just one of many organizations that prioritize employment, accessibility and accommodation for everyday disabled Americans. Obviously, we're very familiar with with Miss Keller and much less so with AFB. But just as Helen Keller was a successful public figure, doesn't just because she was successful, it doesn't address the injustice faced by millions of other disabled Americans at the time. Seeing blind or disabled individuals working in the federal space today doesn't mean that there aren't challenges that folks facing.. That folks face in seeking employment, or in particular, advancement. So could you speak specifically to equal employment and equal public service opportunity in the in the context of also having participated as a PMF in this sort of recruitment program for federal service?

Gary Norman:
So I think that's a great question. I think one point is that there's a power in disability and disability itself can have power and add value to the table. As I said, I've witnessed the abilities that people with disabilities to bring to the table. And then I've also witnessed how much confusion yet remains about disability and accommodating disability. I think that while none of us can understand each other's struggle or different circumstances, and sometimes even myself as a blind person, I forget that other people are having struggles just because they're not quote-unquote "disabled." Yet from a disability perspective, when we think about how we open up inclusion and really elevate people with disabilities at much higher levels in public service than they are now. There's still a fear to both kind of hire people with disabilities also have that honest bilateral conversation about how we give people with disabilities the best tools possible to be part of that inclusive workplace. So that really means a good conversation about reasonable accommodations to be specific, and also means trying to do our best to eliminate the implicit bias that we've talked about today, quote unquote, abilism.

Gary Norman:
And so if you want data points to show that we are still struggling with this topic in terms of disabilities, I can give you a few. Both the study starting from back in 2019, which are my own personal notes that said we reference before. Implicit bias grows over time and with age, and we're still kind of hiding that we have it. If you look to information by the American Bar Association Commission on Disability Rights, they talk about that, sometimes the conversation is about what can I not do as a lawyer with a disability instead of what can I do? Or as one lawyer in the article said, I really want to bring my A game. So how can we work together so I can bring my A game to the table? So if we looked at also data points, a GAO report recently from this year, about one month ago, said that in terms of schedule a while, certainly Schedule A is a good tool and one of our most probably significant tools for recruiting people disabilities to federal service. We can also tell you, according to GAO, that as a two year probational period under Schedule A, 60 percent who go through that route tend to leave federal service after two years. So if we look at the military analytical framework, what do we know? We know that people with disabilities are largely leaving government and a quick kind of pace. What can we speculate? We can speculate that perhaps that Schedule A program is not the only tool that we need. And then what kind of solutions can I give to you today to both eliminate bias and to have a better conversation about accommodations? What does that is really twofold.

Gary Norman:
Number one is in the slides, at slide 11, I believe, recognize that the fullest sense of diversity when it comes to the table will include all seats at the table. So when we have successful women like Maria, when we have successful lawyers with disabilities like myself, when we have successful African-Americans, says I'm proud we do on the board, that adds to the fabric and the abilities and ultimately the business decisions of our federal government when we serve the people. Number two, we can help people really make accommodations a career path instead of just a narrow space. "And you're a disability and you need this." So we need to find ways to have that collaborative bilateral conversation.

Maria De Fazio:
Just for your own reference, one of the things I've put up on a slide is the idea of using courageous conversations, or these bilateral conversations as a tool. So there's a number of a number of your recommendations for how to have these conversations.

Gary Norman:
And I think that's true. And one tool, my friend, that she developed you culture stop, drop and roll. I love her so much. We're working increasingly on training together. I developed my own version of it. I call it organic dispute resolution. And it's really the idea, because certainly I filed litigation, I've been part of litigation. I have certainly read people the riot act when I was a young attorney. But then I thought, you know what? Pissing people off, to be frank,doesn't always get you what you want. When you want to go to a coffee house or the Four Seasons with your dog and you have some young, uneducated person saying to you, you can't bring your dog here. Yeah, I could certainly file a legal complaint or sue them, or I could resolve the situation in the moment, through what I call on the spot conflict resolution. Which we're trying to kind of market to the disability rights and the able bodied community. And both stop, drop and roll and on the spot resolution kind of talk the idea of step back, breathe. I know that you're right, because perhaps you are right, according to my friend Deborah Hamilton, but reach beyond that. So breathe and focus on the idea that we need to recognize that we both have perhaps different perspectives. So understand that there is a different perspective, but also know that there is a legal basis for your rights and that you need to have a conversation about what those rights are. And then, as the slides can indicate, really use crucial conversation tools to say, yes, I recognize your perspective. Unfortunately, that's not necessarily an accurate perspective. I know that we probably both have interests at heart. And let's see how we can have a solutions based conversation to reach, either, in this case, accommodations, or maybe a access denial, a restaurant or in a taxi cab.

Maria De Fazio:
Excellent, that's fantastic. So what I'm going to do now is take a quick look at some of the questions we've received so far. Laura Kunkel says, hi, Laura. Laura is the vice president of the PMAA board. ...The clip we played of Joey...of Josh Lyman meeting Joey Lucas reminded her about interacting with an interpreter. So what's appropriate? Who should I look at? Do I say thank you? Got any recommendations there?

Gary Norman:
Yes, I do. So I've increasingly worked with people of the hearing loss community. My twenty eighteen grant DMF really brought it home to me to learn more about that community because Carrie is a deaf blind person. She sees probably a little more than I do, but she definitely hears a lot less than I do. So for every one of our dialogues we held that year, we worked with ASL interpreters. And also one thing that she's really pushing that I've seen a lot and some disability rights conversations, she's doing a lot of what's called "pro-tactile." She showed it to me. It was really cool. So she has kind of a type of like somebody might tap your arm, which is kind of what I do in large, actually, for ritual, or somebody might take tap her back back to let her know that somebody somewhere in the room. So we've had that kind of experience of both hiring ASL interpreters, now managing domestic Civil Rights Commission, and also how you interact with people who work with sign like interpreters. Once thing I've always worried about as a blind person is that I'm not speaking to the right person. So as a custom, to answer the question, you always kind of speak to the person who is the person with a disability, not to the sign language interpreter. And I think that answers that question. So. It's a great language it's really fascinating and there are definitely some customs around it.

Maria De Fazio:
And you can always thank an interpreter at the end, but if you're having a conversation with the person who's using their ASL interpreter, the conversation is with the person.

And I think I think also that question doesn't ask, but but one thing that you may see in the Federal workplace is CARTS, which I can never remember the acronym for that, but it's Real-Time captioning software. One thing that we noticed in those dialogues is that, of course, we use the sign language interpreters, both for the audience and Carrie, but we also use CARTS. And then, my friend Deborah did one of them with us or a couple of them, as kind of our scribe, note taker She would write stuff up on the board. And that also really help people who have low hearing.

Maria De Fazio:
Excellent. So this is kind of a broad question, but I think it's important. What ways am I discriminating against people who are disabled and I don't realize it? So give us give us a couple of like really things that grate on you that are obvious, that are obvious to you, that may not be obvious to folks who are ablded.

Gary Norman:
You know, I don't know if this is a workplace example or a life example, but it perhaps applies to both in some ways. One thing I was going to say, like when somebody asks you, what do you wish I knew about you? One thing would be if I'm out training a dog, he's not in training. I don't know it grates on me. But every time we've encountered encountered this either professionally, personally, if I'm like working with Bo on finding a door, he missed a curb or something. Someone come up to me like, oh, I can see you're training your dog. So that just that seems to have some sort of weird implicit, both implicit bias as well as ignorance about people with disabilities working a service animal. Again, these guys are not robots. Again, it's a team effort. Again, people who are blind or visually impaired don't look blind or visually impaired. Also something I've received in the past. And I think that maybe is some sort of micro example of, you know, I'm sure I don't want to discriminate against somebody, but maybe by my my obliviousness to the situation, I am indeed discriminating against somebody.

Maria De Fazio:
I think that gets back to a lot of that internal bias that we're talking about, we've got included in the slide deck some ways to help identify your own internal by your own unconscious bias that I think we will assign some homework and you all should read it because it was very useful. I've also included in the slides are some other additional resources, the sort of the top picks from both Gary and I that we thought might be helpful. I sort of tossed my opinion in there, too, as an abled person who who found resources particularly useful, so particularly the work done by the ABA, the American Bar Association, on identifying unconscious bias, hugely helpful questions to ask yourself.

Maria De Fazio:
So I think another question we've got here is from Leslie, that if an employee is concerned about talking with their supervisor or doesn't know how to approach that bilateral conversation you're talking about, she wanted to make a plug for the person to engage in the Agency, to engage the Agency's employee relations staff. I wanted you to talk a little bit, too, because in our preparation for this, you had talked about how the EEO process itself is kind of adversarial. But the EEO folks are great resources for all of the potential tools. So what do you recommend? Who do you recommend folks tap at their own agencies for conversations like this?

Gary Norman:
So hopefully it's a positive conversation and it's just confusion. If that's the case, then maybe that's a forum where you do go to the EEO office. One thing about the law EEO is conciliation oriented, and that's a real positive of EEO law at the various,earliest stages. And indeed both in the complaints process of the EEO process, the informal complaint and the formal complaint, mediation is very strongly encouraged to resolve issues before it has to go to court. So hopefully that's a positive conversation that can be dealt with very early on. Now, if there's a struggle in that conversation, perhaps it's two things: we need to do more training on having that conversation or number two: Workers or managers with disabilities should know that resources like employee relations or the office really are trained in these skills and hopefully can help you have that conversation with the manager.

Maria De Fazio:
I do also want to specify Leslie did mention that EEO and ER, so it employee relations is located in H.R. EEO is within civil rights. These are two different offices. They each might have different skills for you to take advantage of. Awesome, thank you for the correction, Leslie. And do you have any preference on use of the word disability? Do you prefer differently-abled, disabled, blind, another term? What, what have you gotten from other folks in the disability community about how they prefer to use the words?

Gary Norman:
So I think it's two things. The disability rights community would give you the textbook example. Personally, I work a Guide Dog, so I think the text book is the beginning, not the ending. But the formal response of very much advocates, would say use terms like people first language. So that means people with disabilities, a person who happens to be visually impaired, a person who happens to have a mobility impairment. I myself, I think I don't maybe always get the best communication on this because sometimes I forget, I can't see. So I'm just scary. Other times I'm very much like, oh yeah, I'm the guy with the guide dog in the room today. So I'm very kind of maybe happy to be that status. So I want to say, ah, I'm the blind person in the room, I'm the dog handler in the room, and maybe I don't have a good answer personally on that.

Maria De Fazio:
OK, so what I'm also kind of getting from that, too, is that it's important to talk to the individual person.

Gary Norman:
And I think that's probably the ultimate solution is to kind of build a relationship, the honest, good relationship. We can have a conversation. And indeed. We often do this in mediation's or workplace facilitation, we're in a room with people and we say, how do you want to be called? How do I identify you? And maybe that's just an extension of that natural kind of skill set that any good mediator would have for parties is to say, how do I acknowledge you? Do you want me to say you're a person with a disability? Or can I just call you Gary? God forbid, don't call somebody a blind guy, I guess.

Maria De Fazio:
So excellent. All right, so as a person without...This is from Stacey, as a person without disabilities in the federal workplace, are there ways that we can support our colleagues with disabilities? Hold on. I can totally answer that. The answer to that question is yes. The question I'm going to ask, Gary, is how can we support our colleagues with disabilities better? Because we totally should be.,

Gary Norman:
And there's no silver bullet to how we achieve that. Of course, we're all human. So some of us are better at this than others, and we shouldn't be afraid that we make mistakes. On the other hand, there is such a power in allyship. We see this and some of the current movements where leaders are recognizing the past injustices and in many cases are doing it legally and properly. So we have heard about the power of allies or allyship or partnership, and so people like myself really do need partners. And in turn, you need me to be your partner if you're a woman in the workplace or if you're an African-American in the workplace. That's number one. Number two, in terms of how we get to that point and that really involves building not one on one personal relationship. Understanding that we have come from different backgrounds and different understandings about disabilities, but that we can build such a partnership that we're honest to teach each other about our perspectives, and how you, Maria, support me as a person of disability and in turn, how I support you Maria,as a woman well now not in the workplace, but definitely in the workplace.

Maria De Fazio:
Taking that one step further, I think a great example of that was when we were getting to know each other, we spent a lot of time talking about Masonic practices because I've had a number of a number of Masons in my family. So it was something I was familiar with. And you were working on progressing through through the positions in the Lodge. And so that was sort of a way that we were able to build a connection on something completely unrelated to A work, or B, me asking you questions about you being blind. So that's just a little example of how that plays out. Now, if anybody else has other questions, I mean, I've got some in reserve, but if we've got questions from the audience, you can put them in the question and answer box. You can raise your hand. I want to thank so many folks are being able to make it through more of this extended session with us. We knew we wanted to leave extra time for questions. So ask us your questions. What do you want to know about what what are you concerned you might not be doing correctly? How can how can Gary help illuminate that with with his particular experience?

Gary Norman:
Or my favorite topic? Anything you want to learn about the dogs.

Maria De Fazio:
Yes. Gary is also more than happy to talk to you about guide dogs because his dogs are awesome. I, I could actually from when you were being installed at the Lodge as the Worshipful Master. For those of you unfamiliar with Masonic terminology, essentially Gary is the president for this year, for his particular lodge. And watching, Bowie waiting as patiently as he possibly could, but, boy, was he really upset that you were doing all of this ritual work without him there and he was hanging out with your wife and the second he was able to come back. Oh, boy, that was a dog that was really, really I have never seen a dog so motivated to get back to a person and then immediately sit still. So that was that was just a really interesting experience for me.

Gary Norman:
I remember how much Pilot loved to watch in many ways considered the Lodge a second home. In November was the last time you went on one of those vacations as a retired pet. From my friend Wayne, who watched him for us when we went back to Ohio and we kind of dropped him off. And then a bunch of other Masons came, and the Pilot kind of ran around the parking lot, as a pet, and said, "Hello. Hello." This is my lodge, I love being a dog-Mason. And I think when I came into the lodge feeling like. Like he wasn't a rock star, so we didn't like logic first, and today, I mean, we haven't been back to lodge in a long time. But in the old days when he started sitting up in the East, he just loved being up there, like stretching out like I'm the big Pu-Bah.

Maria De Fazio:
Gotta love it. So I want to ask you a question about representation. And we were talking about this. This is something that had come up in our conversations. The clips we showed were obviously very different. In one, you have Marlee Matlin, very acclaimed actress, who is deaf, doing the guest starring.

Gary Norman:
My other big crush.

Maria De Fazio:
I mean, she's kind of awesome. So she's she's using her real life lived experience to inform her acting of working with interpreters, of using ASL and of being a woman who nobody assumed was the person that everyone was talking about. And then we switch over to the the sitcom "Growing up Fisher," where you have J.K. Simmons playing Mel, who is a blind attorney who has been kind of hiding the fact that he was blind his whole life. So obviously, these are very two very different things because J.K. Simmons is a sighted man. So I you know, I'm always interested in how you feel about representation in media. And is it important to see actors with a disability playing characters with a disability? What what makes the most sense? Sort of where do you fall on that spectrum? Because I know some people get really heated about this.

Gary Norman:
People do get idea. So I would say as a person of value and philosophy, I'm a centrist libertarian, so I see kind of the middle of all things. There are people from their perspective, the right perspective, but very much of the advocacy mindset, I would say it has to be kind of this certain way. And that's sort of what it looks like this. So, yes, for sure, we all a lot more journalists with disabilities or more actors with disabilities in the public space. In terms of how we get there? If we have a show like "Growing up Fisher," that's not perfect, that has a non disabled actor and has a non-guide dog acting as a guide dog. I don't necessarily see the harm in that, but we know the context. So from D.J. Nash, the producer of the show, we know that she's writing basically a love letter to his dad, who was an actual blind attorney who actually struggled with being blind. And I think it's OK to admit that for any of our classifications, in my context, being a blind person, we don't always like being a blind person. I don't think that in any way diminishes that. I would like to think I'm a strong disability rights activist, activist or advocates, that I'm a strong lawyer who works on disability issues. I think that I'm approachable human that you guys can be friends with and also be equal partners in trying to push inclusion in the workplace. And if we have to have a show that has a person with a non-disability trying to help that conversation and I say so be it. Now, there are people truly, in the NFB or the ACB, they would say you're wrong, Gary. And that's a very legitimate point of view from a certain kind of philosophy.

Maria De Fazio:
Well, as a guy who likes and appreciates stories, you had said that it was it was kind of special for you to to to find a show like Growing Up Fisher, because it was the first time you really saw the sort of humorous part of your life reflected back to you.

Gary Norman:
And I think when I was young, I took these issues way more seriously. Scratch that. When I was young, I took these issues more aggressively than I do now. I take them very seriously indeed. I guess probably my benefit and my fault. I take everything very seriously. I've grown to love with disabilities in the public space like Joshua Blue. So if you've ever been to one of his shows, I think he does a nice job of talking both about the story of disability and making fun of it. Sometimes, as you said, punching upward at it. And then there's a part of his show at the one that I went to DC with my wife, where he does a segment and talks about the life experience of an actual person with a disability. And I think either perfectly or imperfectly, we can always kind of strive for that in journalism and media.

Maria De Fazio:
Awesome, so I'm going to pop up the slides again and just circle back on a couple of the just a couple of the specific tools that we had spoken about throughout this, just to sort of recap for everybody. One of the things that you highlight as a mediator is that the the quote I pulled from another presentation of yours, which is when relationships break down in the office, on a team, between colleagues, with the boss, or at home, look for the missing conversation. I think this speaks a lot to the importance of communicating well as sort of the foundation of, of better allyship, better relationships with disabled colleagues and better inclusion in terms of folks with disabilities in the workplace. So one of the tools that you recommend also that I don't think we covered is this idea of making effective requests. And call it a tool, call it a technique, but making sure that the requests that you're making, either as a manager or as an employee requesting an accommodation are effective, eliminates so many miscommunications. So if you could just take a minute and talk about effective request making, that would be really helpful, I think, for a lot of us.

Gary Norman:
Yeah, sure, so...In twenty fifteen during the twenty-fifth anniversary, some friends and I did a federal-wide training of both employees with disabilities and managers with disabilities and those without disabilities, to celebrate the anniversary, the silver anniversary. And one thing that we, I think, tried to push, at least that I tried to incorporate is my tripartite part of the plan versus the idea. On one hand, we need to equip a different kind of thinking about accommodations and the power of disability. Number two, we need to provide all of us with tools and storytelling and communication. And number three, we need to build up bi-bilateral communication, the non-disabled world or non-disabled federal worker. So I think we can do that in a couple of ways. Number one, have the crucial conversation, know that you're having a crucial conversation, knowing how to have that crucial conversation. And that incorporates both active listening, really putting your assumptions at the door and also really active questioning. There's actually very good training that I received on that from the Partnership for the Partnership for Public Service. And then number two, I think another effective tool is really knowing what to request and how to request it when it comes to accommodations for incorporating disability in the federal space. And one is to know, kind of, what you're asking for. As a person trying to give those accommodations, kind of putting your assumptions at the door for both of us, is to have active listening and active questioning. To be solutions based and then to kind of follow up that conversation with deadlines, timelines and really concretely defining what we've talked about and what we each plan to do in terms of responsibility and roles. And if we missed any part of those tips, tricks or conversation, that maybe I go away thinking, you're going to give me JAWS and maybe you, Maria, as the manager, right. You're going away. Think? Well, Gary needs another version of JAWS called X, but he doesn't need JAWS. I know he needs Text-to-Speech, but maybe he can just do it on his iPhone because the iPhone has its own version of the Text-To-Speech. And so we've both missed some part of that conversation by not having that effective request to place.

Maria De Fazio:
Excellent. And then while, so I will point out that the the American Bar Association has some great resources on this as well, sort of summing up. In our conversations, we talk about the biases and the unhelpful assumptions that we need to eliminate, and I've tossed the slide up with those with, you know, eliminating those unhelpful assumptions. And how this can help you address your own you know, your own unexamined bias, your own internalized bias about working with members of the community that have a disability. Some of it is pretty basic stuff, but a lot of it is all predicated on that building, a connection on a personal level. So that's that's a really important tool to remember going forward too. I've included some more some more information here. Again, a lot of this is drawn from Gary gave me tons and tons of resources. So what I am going to give to you is a two to three page resource biography. It'll be going out with the rest of the information from today's event. It'll also be posted on our website with the event, with the video of the event and the transcript when we get them up there.

Maria De Fazio:
Hopefully this will help sort of lay out some additional next steps for folks as we go forward. And as as we mentioned today, in terms of additional resources, you can read some of Gary's columns, you can talk with your own organization's EEO staff or the employee resource staff in H.R. OPM actually has some pretty great resources on diversity and inclusion and including disability in that as well. So I think that sort of brings us to just about the end of things. I've also put Gary's contact information here in the presentation. If you would like to reach out to Gary with more specific questions. He is happy to chat with you both as a PMF Alum and just generally being awesome and helping us all work through this and learn together. If you have questions for for PMAA, you can reach us at PMF Dot Alums at Gmail dot com. So I think we're we're getting close to the end of our session, Gary. I didn't know if there was anything else you wanted to say to kind of sum things up and then I'll take us out with a couple of announcements now.

Gary Norman:
Sure. So this is my pleasure and honor. So our cornerstone message today was the ADA basically is a landmark civil rights law. It's made significant achievement, and yet we have significant work to do. We talked about the idea of the life story of this particular lawyer with a disability. And we're trying to kind of give you some insights on including more lawyers with disability or other professionals with disabilities and most importantly, how we do that. I think we do that through destigmatizing the accommodations conversation and then providing each of us with the tools to have that conversation. And then lastly, I think we all need to work on our biases in this country, whether that's me, of Maria, or Maria of me. And I think we can do that by being allies and partners and most of all, by being friends. We leave you with some kind of tips to eliminate bias and to build that workplace. So in my view, I think we can do that in a few ways. Number one, we really got to work with offices of student services for students with disabilities to promote the program. I think we can work with the wonderful people at the Partnership for Public Service, to really elevate people with disabilities in the federal space. I think we can work with the SES association to do that. And most of all, like we've stressed today, I think we can have that conversation about accommodations without it being kind of s combative one. And so because I've had the opportunity to share all that during this week of anniversary with you, I just really toast all of you on the good work that you do to build our inclusive workplace. And I look forward to continuing to be your friend and partner.

Maria De Fazio:
Awesome. Thank you so much, Gary. And then just to close out the session, we've got a couple of quick announcements. I have just dropped a link in the chat for tomorrow's networking event. We are having a lunchtime or maybe it's an early morning coffee, depending on your time zone, event, based on career stages where we'll be breaking out into smaller groups on based on where folks are in their careers, early, mid legacy building and and sort of talking about where we're at, what we need, how we succeed, challenges we might be having. So this is just an opportunity to get to know some more of your fellow alumni and have a little chat to break up the day. We're also going to be, as I said earlier, posting this on our website. So give us a couple of days and we'll have that up there. We'll be following up with you all with additional resource material. And then we've got a feedback form for Couchella. So if you could do us the favor of following the link that I'm dropping into the chat now, it's a really quick survey, I promise. Just lets us know sort of what you're thinking about the experience of Couchella, what potential you want to see from Couchella's sessions in the future. We will be making an announcement shortly, probably in our next newsletter about what our next couple of Coachella sessions are going to be. I know our Professional Development Committee is working on some great stuff. So, again, thank you so much, Gary. Thank you, everyone, for sticking with us. This was a great session and I hope you all enjoy the rest of your afternoon.

Gary Norman:
You too. Thank you.

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