by Charles S.P. Hodge
(Editor’s Note: The author was unable to attend the emergency telephone conference call meeting of the ACB board of directors reported upon herein. However, he listened to and reviewed the audiotape which was provided by the conference calling service as preparation for compiling this summary of the events which transpired.)
President Chris Gray convened an emergency telephone conference call meeting of the ACB board of directors shortly after 9 p.m. Eastern time on the evening of Monday, Nov. 25, 2002. Secretary Donna Seliger called the roll, and all board members were present except for treasurer Ardis Bazyn, director Mitch Pomerantz, and ex officio board member Charles Hodge. Also in attendance were executive director Charlie Crawford and Director of Advocacy and Governmental Affairs Melanie Brunson. At the invitation of the board, Debbie Grubb, President of Guide Dog Users, Inc. (GDUI) representing that special-interest affiliate of ACB, and John Taylor representing the Iowa Council of the United Blind (ICUB), ACB’s Iowa state affiliate, were in attendance as well.
A motion was made by Ed Bradley and seconded by Alan Beatty to suspend the notice requirement so that the board might go forward to conduct business. Steve Speicher indicated that his review of the relevant provisions of Robert’s Rules of Order revealed that a motion to suspend the rules was not proper to suspend a provision of an organization’s standing constitution or bylaws. Since the ACB constitution and bylaws contain a 14-day notice requirement for an emergency meeting of the board of directors which clearly had not been complied with in this instance, Speicher expressed his opinion that a motion to suspend the rules would not properly lie to suspend the 14-day notice provision. A number of board members concurred with Speicher’s parliamentary opinion, and the maker and seconder of the motion to suspend the rules agreed to withdraw their previously made motion. In light of the procedural and constitutional infirmity confronted by the board, Paul Edwards made a motion seconded by M.J. Schmitt that the ad hoc ACB leadership convene this meeting in order to render advice to the ACB president regarding the subject of the meeting. This motion was adopted by voice vote.
President Gray proceeded to lay out the issue at hand, as follows. A blind guide dog user from Iowa, Stephanie Dohmen, had apparently been readmitted to the rehabilitation program offered at the Orientation Center operated by the Iowa Department for the Blind in the spring of this year. When Ms. Dohmen appeared accompanied by her guide dog from Leader Dogs for the Blind for the first day of training on June 5, she was told to return the next day to meet with Allen Harris, the executive director of the Iowa Department for the Blind. At her meeting with Harris on June 6, Dohmen was informed that it was the policy of the Iowa Department for the Blind that she could not attend the rehabilitation program at the Iowa Orientation Center for the Blind while accompanied by her guide dog. Since Dohmen insisted on her right to attend computer and job-development training program sessions accompanied by her guide dog, she believes that she has been constructively excluded from the rehabilitation program and been denied services by the Iowa Department for the Blind based upon her use of a service animal and her blindness. Dohmen has filed civil rights complaints which are still pending before both the Des Moines Human Relations Commission and the Iowa Civil Rights Commission. She also contacted both GDUI and ACB’s national office seeking GDUI’s and ACB’s further assistance in making civil rights complaints regarding this matter under federal law before the appropriate federal government authorities. A complaint under both Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act had been drafted for submission to the U.S. Department of Justice regarding the alleged violation of Dohmen’s federally guaranteed civil rights to which Dohmen, GDUI and a number of guide dog training schools were committed to sign on. On the other hand, the Iowa Department for the Blind and ICUB took the position that the Department for the Blind has a right in furtherance of the core elements of its rehabilitation program and underlying philosophy of rehabilitation for the blind to insist that Dohmen not be accompanied by her guide dog if she is to attend and go through the rehabilitation program offered by the Iowa Orientation Center. Furthermore, the Iowa Department for the Blind and ICUB believe that this exception to the normal proscription of no discrimination against service animals and their handlers is legally warranted because to override its announced and well-established policy would constitute a fundamental alteration of the department’s rehabilitation program not required under the Rehabilitation Act or the ADA. In addition, although there is some dispute or controversy on this point, both the Iowa Department for the Blind and ICUB contend that the Iowa Department has offered Dohmen several alternative options where she can obtain the computer and braille training that she is most interested in while accompanied by her guide dog at settings other than the Iowa Orientation Center for the Blind, and that such alternative training options constitute reasonable accommodations to Dohmen’s legitimate training and service needs in compliance with both the Rehabilitation Act and the provisions of the ADA.
President Gray indicated to the board that on the one hand, the executive committee had concluded that at least until further information could be developed and/or obtained regarding a number of points, ACB should abstain for at least the time being from signing on to and lending its name as a party to the complaint which was about to be filed with the Department of Justice; whereas, on the other hand, the advocacy services committee had concluded that Dohmen’s and GDUI’s draft complaint did constitute a clear violation of federal disability rights law, and therefore that committee had recommended that ACB should sign on as a party to the draft administrative complaint.
President Gray then invited Debbie Grubb to make a presentation representing GDUI. Grubb made an impassioned appeal to the ad hoc ACB leadership asserting that discrimination against service animals and their handlers is clearly forbidden by the Department of Justice’s ADA Title II implementing regulations, and that the refusal of the Iowa Department for the Blind to permit Dohmen to attend the rehabilitation program at the Iowa Orientation Center for the Blind accompanied by her guide dog, which the rehabilitation professionals working for the Iowa Department for the Blind had decided was best suited to meet Dohmen’s training needs, does, in fact, constitute a clear violation of Dohmen’s federally guaranteed civil rights. Grubb also made the point that the problem reflected in the draft complaint is not limited just to the Iowa Department for the Blind, but rather is a nationwide problem where many rehabilitation agencies for the blind enforce similar exclusionary policies against guide dog users and their certified and highly trained service animals. Grubb also stressed that ACB as a nationwide membership organization should think broadly or nationally, and should not permit itself to be held hostage or made paralyzed to act through the veto or demands of one single state affiliate. Grubb concluded by stating that GDUI was committed to pressing the administrative complaint at the federal level with or without ACB’s direct participation, just as GDUI had done in the Hawaii quarantine litigation.
President Gray then asked John Taylor to make a presentation to the ad hoc ACB leadership representing ICUB. Taylor indicated that most members of ACB’s Iowa state affiliate have the highest regard for the Iowa Department for the Blind and view it to be a model rehabilitation agency for the blind. Taylor went on to state that a clear majority of the members of ICUB endorse the professional judgment set forth by the Iowa Department for the Blind that attendance at and participation in the rehabilitation program offered at the Iowa Orientation Center for the Blind by a newly blinded individual without a guide dog was reasonable and designed to further the purposes and objectives of the Orientation Center’s comprehensive rehabilitation program. While he acknowledged some federal civil rights implications raised by Dohmen’s and GDUI’s allegations, Taylor urged the ad hoc ACB leadership to allow the blind citizens of Iowa the opportunity to resolve this issue at the state level in cooperation with their state’s rehabilitation agency for the blind without undue outside interference on the national level from ACB. Taylor said that ICUB’s biggest concern was one of governance and respect for affiliate autonomy within ACB. He urged that ACB as a national organization of the blind should treat its Iowa state affiliate and its members as adults with respect and deference, and should not impose upon it and them dictates from on high even if arguably based upon national civil rights principles. Taylor said that ICUB does not believe — as apparently does GDUI — that this complaint does set forth a clear-cut case of federal civil rights violations. He pointed to the fundamental alteration defense available to the Department for the Blind, and he stressed that in ICUB’s view, the Department for the Blind had offered Dohmen reasonable accommodations which would render the department’s actions arguably in compliance with both the Rehabilitation Act and Title II of the ADA.
Donna Seliger then pointed out to the leadership that if ACB should decide to sign on to and lend its name and influence as a full party to Dohmen’s and GDUI’s federal administrative complaint, she as president of ICUB will be confronted with demands from several ICUB board members to convene a special ICUB convention at which the matter of ICUB’s possible disaffiliation from ACB would be discussed and voted upon.
Next, Melanie Brunson discussed the specific provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act which appeared to be relevant to the Iowa Department’s actions, and Charlie Crawford discussed ACB’s longstanding record of supporting and promoting the civil rights of all blind and visually impaired people. ACB’s Resolution 79-09 in support of guide dog users’ rights to access publicly available services while accompanied by their service animals was read aloud to the assembled meeting.
The ad hoc ACB leadership group then engaged in a wide-ranging discussion about the relative strengths and merits of Dohmen’s and GDUI’s draft administrative complaint as well as the issues surrounding internal governance within ACB raised by the situation in which two ACB affiliates appear to be at loggerheads with each other and are appealing for support to ACB as their mutual parent national organization. Several of the ACB leaders expressed annoyance, unhappiness and discomfort with the fact that ICUB would appear to be threatening ACB with its possible disaffiliation over this matter. Yet other ACB leaders countered that ICUB was merely raising its view that ACB might be running roughshod over its members’ legitimate reservations and concerns regarding Dohmen’s and GDUI’s civil rights allegations. Several of the ACB leadership group also expressed the view that ACB might be able to learn from the historical precedent of the Hawaii quarantine law litigation where ACB did not become an active participating party in that litigation even though ACB supported GDUI’s position in the case at least in part in deference to the contradictory views of one of our Hawaii affiliates, the Hawaii Association of the Blind. A number of ACB leaders also expressed the view that there remained a lack of clarity regarding a number of important factual and legal points involved in this matter. Some of the ACB leaders also indicated great reluctance to be placed in the position of having ACB appear to be choosing sides either in favor or against one ACB affiliate over another. Yet other ACB leaders pointed out that to allow a single ACB affiliate to hold a virtual veto power over whether ACB as a national organization could adopt a position or become actively involved in a disputed legal matter would almost inevitably lead to ACB’s being paralyzed to take action or adopt a position between national conventions on literally any important or controversial issue.
After much thoughtful discussion, Brian Charlson made a motion, seconded by Pat Sheehan, that the ad hoc ACB leadership recommend to the ACB president that ACB should join GDUI’s administrative complaint as a joint party complainant. This motion was subsequently defeated by a vote of four in the affirmative to nine in the negative. Those voting in the affirmative were Brian Charlson, Dawn Christensen, Paul Edwards and Pat Sheehan; those voting in the negative were Jerry Annunzio, Alan Beatty, Ed Bradley, Billie Jean Keith, Oral Miller, Carla Ruschival, M.J. Schmitt, Donna Seliger and Steve Speicher. President Gray did not vote on this motion.
Paul Edwards then made a motion, seconded by Carla Ruschival, that the ACB leadership group recommend to the ACB president that ACB act supportively to Dohmen’s and GDUI’s administrative complaint. Although some ACB leaders expressed a view that they found this motion simply too ambiguous and did not understand precisely what the ACB support endorsed in the recommendation contained in this motion meant in practical terms, the motion was adopted by voice vote, with Donna Seliger and Steve Speicher noting for the record their voting to abstain on the motion. Those supporting adoption of this motion indicated that similar to ACB’s actions in the Hawaii quarantine challenge, ACB could under the authority contained in the recommendation adopted in this motion take actions supportive to GDUI’s complaint without actually joining as a full party in interest. President Gray directly asked Taylor whether the members of ICUB would find this motion more acceptable than ACB’s joining in GDUI’s administrative complaint. Taylor responded that while he was reluctant to speak for the ICUB membership on this question, he believed that the ICUB membership, while not being happy with ACB’s support of the GDUI complaint, would probably find it possible to tolerate the national organization’s position on the matter. President Gray then thanked all attendees for their frank, candid and constructive participation in the meeting, and upon a motion duly made and seconded, the emergency advisory meeting of the ad hoc ACB leadership adjourned around 10:30 p.m. Eastern time.