Imagine you are a disabled, Iraq war veteran and confined to a wheelchair. You want to go play some miniature golf, only to discover when you arrive that the facility is not accessible to anyone in a wheelchair. You feel disappointed and depressed.

After losing a leg to an IED in Iraq, you come home and can’t even play miniature golf.

But, that may change. The federal government is considering major changes to the historic Americans-with-Disabilities Act (ADA). Consider this: There are already about 51 million disabled Americans, and that number is steadily growing as wounded veterans return from the Middle-Eastern wars.

By the way, in the S-P-J, the National Committee on Diversity works with the disabled, as well as with ethnic minorities and Gays.

The proposed 1000-pages of new regulations will apply to a wide range of facilities, including access to court houses, amusement parks, drinking fountains, stadium and theatre seating, fishing piers and boat slips and bowling lanes, among many others.

They establish specific regulations for qualifying accessible designs. For example, 50-percent of the holes at a miniature golf course would have to be accessible for players in wheelchair, something that Iraq vet would appreciate.

The new rules will apply to new businesses and to alterations to existing ones.

But, there are complaints. Rather than praise the proposed regulations as helpful to bring in more business from the disabled, many business assocations are complainting about the cost.

And, journalists covering the story sometimes favor those business complaints. For example, an Associated Press story on the issue was slanted, with a headline that said the new regulations would “hit” millions of businesses. It was clearly a business-oriented story.

While some business interests are complaining, some disability advocates say the proposed regulatioins don’t go far enough. They cite the need for regulations to help the disabled avoid ticket fraud and in information technology – such as at hotel and airport check-in kiosks.

They also cite the need for close-captioning at movie theatres for the deaf and hard-of-hearing. These are issues they say need to be addressed as the proposed regulations are vetted in future months.

WRITE and WRONG is a one-page essay by Anna Quidlen in the July 21st issue of Newsweek. It is about “a teacher who is psyched about engaging struggling students (and who) learns that bureaucracy is more important that pedogogy,” the essayist write.

Maybe journalists can learn a lesson from this.

In the Newsweek essay, Quindlen reports on a teacher named Donnie Heermann who was placed on an 18-month suspension without pay for using The Freedom Writer’s Diary as a teaching tool by her school board in Perry County, Indiana.

The book grew out of the work of a new teacher of a class of “at-risk” students in California. “‘At-risk’ is edu-code for students who are poor, usually minority, with chaotic home lives and are likely to drop out,” Quindlen writes.

That teacher, Erin Gruwell, decided that “the road to success was for her students to write about their lives,” the essay continues. “They kept diaries about everything from self-doubt to incest to gang membership.”

“Some of the students used profanity and racial slurs; but a reader notices that, as their writing improves, that disappears. As they wrote more, they made better choices. They also had better lives.

“The students in Gruwell’s classes started out believing that they might not survive high school – literally.  By the end of the book, they’re headed for college,” Quindlen writes.

The students in Heermann’s classes at Perry Meridan High School in Indiana were not so much different from the ones in the book.

So, Heermann bought 150 copies of The Freedom Writer’s Diary and gave them as a gift to her students, after reporting her intentions to her superiors. She even got permission slips from her students’ parents.

After handing out the books, she was almost immediately ordered to get them back, and to keep a list of those students who refused to comply.  Most of the kids kept their copies, which were a personal gift from the teacher.

Heermann was told she would be fired if she didn’t resign.

She was forbidden to contact her former students, and forced to go overnight from a powerful influence on her students to nothingness.  She heard that some quit going to class and dropped out of school.

These are kids who assume that they will get a shaft from the government, school or anyone else in authority. That’s also what “at-risk” means.

She doesn’t regret what she did. “You know what,” she said. “My kids still have the book. They kept The Freedom Writer’s Diary. They kept the book,” she added.

“It’s hard to unearth exactly why (the Indiana school board) was so hellbent on keeping The Freedom Writer’s Diary out of the classroom.  Maybe it was the use of a particular racial slur, the one that keeps getting people riled up about Huckleberry Finn, and that keeps (out) the perfect teaching moment for discussing racial divisions in America – at least if you’re not paralized by cowardice.

“You have to wonder if the (Indiana) school board ever read the book.  Maybe they never got to the entry by the student who wrote: Who would have thought the ‘at-risk’ kids making it this far? But, we did, even though the educational system desperately tried to hold us down,” Quindlen writes.

Something similar happened in San Diego. For over 4-1/2 years, the local SPJ “pro” chapter sponsored the unprecedented High School Journalism Project (HSJP). Local journalists, editors, photo-journalists and even page designers from print and broadcast media taught high-school students about their profession every week in those classes.

The HSJP was even featured in two, illustrated stories in the Quill, the SPJ’s monthly magazine.

Did the HSJP work?  Several participating students are now working on their journalism degrees in universities. Mike Ritter, a HSJP participant who was the Sports Editor of the Patriot Press at San Diego’s Patrick Henry High Schoo, later became the Sports Editor of the daily newspaper at the University of Arizona.

At the ripe age of 21, Ritter was hired this year to cover major-leage beaseball for MLB.com.

He totally credits the HSJP for his success.

“On a personal level, as sports editor for the Patriot Press in high school, Leo and I worked one-on-one during the production of our sports’ section,” Ritter wrote.

“He helped instill great journalism passion in me. I was waivering between several different college majors as a high-school senior.  But, after working with Leo, it was easy for me to pick journalism,” Ritter added.

For unknown reasons, the SPJ’s local chapter dropped their sponsorship of the HSJP.

More recently, the journalism class at San Diego’s flagship institution, San Diego High School, the oldest in the city, has for decades produced the school’s official newspaper, The Russ.

That journalism course was dropped as a regular f-r-credit class and downgraded to an extra-curricular activity. The local SPJ did nothing about it, though a board member was asked to help.

Some believe our high-school students deserve more.

by Leo E. Laurence, J.D.; Member: SPJ Nat’l. Committee on Diversity

When the California Supreme Court legalized gay marriages effective June 17th, homophobic opponents quickly launched a successful drive to put an initiative on the November ballot to overturn it.

The state’s high court carefully analyized the two separate-but-equal conditions under which California laws allowed a couple to unite: “marriage” for straights and “domestic partnerships” for Gays.

The high court held that those laws violated the state’s Constitution. It was basically an equal-protection argument, one which also prevailed in Massachursettes and which outlawed separate-but-equal education for blacks and whites in the south years ago.

Gay-rights supporters and their union allies in San Diego - which are numerous – have now launched a boycott of the elegant Manchester Grand Hyatt, a favorite hotel of the rich and famous in downtown San Diego.

Another high-end hotel, the new Grand Del Mar, is also targeted in this boycott.

The owner of the two hotels, multi-millinaire Doug Manchester, made a major contribution to the statewide ballot initiative, dubbed Proposition-8, which will amend the state’s Constitution to ban same-sex marriages. The amount of his significant contribution is reported somewhere between $125,000 and $1 million.

Boycott leaders are urging the traveling and vacationing public to avoid these two, high-end hotels in the San Diego area because Proposition-8 amounts to discriminatory treatment of Gays and Lesbians.

“Manchester’s contribution to this anti-marriage initiative is discrimination pure and simply,” said Briget Browning, president of Unite-Here Local 30, in an interview with the San Diego Union Tribune. That union represents 4,500 hotel and restaurant workers.

Manchester said in an earlier interview that he decided to donate to Proposition-8 because he was motivated by his Catholic faith to believe that marraige must be only between a man and a woman.

Manchester also said that, as he understand it, if schools teach that marriage is between a man and a woman, they could be sued for discrimination against Gays. That issue, however, has not been litigated.

He also stressed that he welcomes money from Gays and Lesbians in his hotels and restaurants.

For now, some gay civil-rights activists say they are only targeting the local Manchester Grand Hyatt and the Grand Del Mar hotels, rather than the larger Hyatt Corporation, which runs both. That’s because the corporation has a good record of hiring Gays and Lesbians.

However, other gay activits disagreed, saying the boycott could easily go nationwide against all Hyatt hotels.

Manchester is one of several wealthy San Diegans who are contributing significantly to overturn the state Supreme Court’s decision.

Others include wealthy Mission Valley developer Terry Caster who has reportedly contributed $125,000; and Robert Hoehn, owner of the large Hoehn Motors auto dealership, who reportedly gave $25,000.

“Our goal is to create a loss of business for those who contirbute to Proposition-8,” said Fred Karger, one of the boycott’s organizers.

Both sides of the battle over Proposition-8 are expected to raise huge amounts of money, for a combined total of about $30 million.

After the state’s high-court ruling legalizing gay marriages, the non-partisn Field Poll found that a majority of Californians opposed the constitional ban (Proposition-8); and for the first time, actually support gay marriages.

Our American cultural landscape is changing, particularly as the percentage of resident, Spanish-speaking Latinos increases and many young people speak more than one language. This makes many people very uncomfortable.

But, I think the English-only wars that are emerging are unnecessary and even un-American.

Research actually indicates that children of immigrants are more likely to lose their native language and speak only English, than never learning English at all.

One day the valedictorian of a high school wrote into his speech a single sentence, welcoming his grandparents who had traveled to the Unitd States to attend the ceremony. That sentence was in his grandparent’s native language. No harm? Of course, not!

At an eighth-grade graduation in the same city, another valedictorian did something similar. She included a single sentence thanking her grandparents – and in their native language – for their support. Again, no harm.

The single line in the high-school speech was in German. The single sentence in the junior-high speech was in Spanish.

However, guess which one caused a furor.

Days before the graduation ceremony, the junion-high principal tried to pressure his student to remove the line in Spanish. He was afraid those who didn’t understand Spanish might feel uncomfortable. It is more probable that the principal didn’t want to respond to angry phone calls anticipated from people like the Miinutemen.

The girl stood her ground, and the principal backed down. The Constitution’s first-amendment right of free-speech was on her side, the same as the Constitution’s presumption of innocence makes it wrong for journalists to use the phrase “illegal immigrants” when referring to undocumented immigrants in their stories. It’s the law!

Conversely, no one said a word about the line in German, but the Minutemen types are attacking Mexicans, not Germans.

More recently, Cindy and Hue Co, cousins and co-valdictorians in a Louisiana high school, delivered part of their speech in Vietnameese. They are daughters of Vietnamese immigrants.

Cindy told the Associated Press that she added a sentence in Vietnamese to thank her parents. It also meant that she could always be true to herself, and it expressed gratitude to her parents for immigrating to the United States.

It, too, unfortunately turned out to be controversial.

Now the school officials are thinking about adopting an official school policy that requires future commencement speeches to be in English only, contrary to the First Amendment of our fedeal Constitution.  That doesn’t surprise me, because several high schools in San Diego have intentionally violated state laws regulating their school newspapers.

I dislike it when busybody school officials think that, because they don’t like something (e.g., adding a compliment in another language to a valedictory speech) they can simply outlaw it, even when that act may violate federal law.

I don’t like it when journalists call undocumented immigrants “illegal aliens,” in violation of our constitutional presumption of innocence.

I don’t like it when some American teenagers, who can barely speak proper English, may eventually be outmatched in the global market by a teenager from Mexico, Europe or Asia who can speak two or more languages.

Let’s face it, English-only policies may seriously handicap American students as they grow up and enter the global market.

Monolingual students need to study harder and become bilingual themselves, and adults need to lay off their objections about a single sentence in a graduation speech in another language.

In the daily grind of stories from the campaign trails of our presumptive, presidential nominees; we are seeing far too few articles – and speeches by the campaigners – on the major importance of Supreme Court appointments that the next president will likely make – which could change the course of American jurisprudence for generations to come.

Time magazine and the Washington Post are rare exceptions.

“(The Supreme Court) is sharply divided ideologically on some of the most fundimental, constitutional questions; and the upcoming presidential election will determine its future path,” wrote Robert Burns in the Washington Post.

“A victory by the presumptive Democratic nominee, Barrack Obama, would probably mean preserving the uneasy – but roughly balanced – status quo, since the justices who are considered most likely to retire are liberal.

“A win for his Republican counterpart, John McCain, could mean a fundimental shift to a conservative majority ready to take on past court rulings on abortion rights, affirmatrive action and other issues of importance to the right,” Burns wrote.

In its most recent term, the high court has bounced back and forth between the left and the right on the constitutional rights of terrorist suspects, individual gun ownershiip and the increaingly narrow view of who is eligible for the death penalty.

Each case has pitted the four consistently conservative justices against the four slightly-less consistent liberals, with Justice Anthony M. Kennedy returning to his role of last term as the deciding vote.

“The blockbuster cases, the really big cases, have now brought into very sharp focus how closely divided this court is on the really large and philosophically-charged issues before the court,” says Charles J. Cooper, a Washington lawyer quoted by Burns.

“It has cast ‘the sharpest possible focus on how important the court is going to be . . . in the upcoming election debate,’” Cooper added.

The average age of the court’s liberals will be 75 when it opens its next term in October.

An Obama victory will surely replace one of those liberals with another liberal.  But, a McCain win will give the high court a solid, majority block (of conservatives) for years to come.

Chief Justice John Roberts has made a determined effort to have the other justices draft narrow rulings, creating the stronger possibility that there will be a greater consensus and avoid the 5-4 splits.  Also, more non-controversial business cases have been acceptd by the Robert’s court.

Roberts has done well. Of the 15 cases in which the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has filed briefs, 80% were deciced by a 7-2 or higher split, and a third were unanimous. Roberts was in the majority in 90% of all the cases this term, more frequently than any other justice.

But, “regardless of Robert’s consensus building, the future of the court will be determined by the (upcoming) presidential election,” Time magazine reported in its issue dated July 14th.

“If McCain wins and gets to replace one of two liberal justices with reliable conservatives, there will be a lopsided, conservative majority and Roberts will have little incentive to win over the marginalized liberal justices who remain.

“By contrast, if Obama wins, the ideologial makeup of the court will remain the same in the foreseeable future – four liberal justices and four conservatives, with Kennedy in the middle,” Time says.

“In that case, Robert’s success in promoting bipartisn unity may make the difference between a Supreme Court that declares war on Obamam’s domestic agenda . . . and a court that is content to get out of the way of a Democratic president and Congress,” Time concludes.

When referring to diversity, the SPJ uses a broad-stroke definition; meaning ethnic minorities, Gays and the disabled.

But, when we speak of the disabled, the public often thinks only of those who are in wheelchairs or are otherwise, physically impaired. However, the word can also refer to the deaf community, though many deaf persons do not consider themselves to be disabled.

Indeed, their lives are far from the classic description of a disabled person. This blog will offer tips on how a journalist might cover a story involving a deaf person, or an event in the deaf communithy.

Having already worked over 11 years as a photo-journalist, while I was earning my undergraduate degree at the private Westminhster College in Fulton, MO; I worked my way through college by teaching photography at the nearby Missouri School for the Deaf.

It was an exhilerating experience. I loved it!

I literally lived in the deaf community, and found the deaf to be an exciting, diverse population.  By deaf, I do not mean the hard-of-hearing, those who can restore their ability to functionally hear with a hearing aid.  I refer to those who have little or no hearing cognition.

Many of the high-school teenagers in my classes became deaf as a result of having German measles at birth, a comon cause of deafness. These deaf persons may most easily develop the unusual skill of lip reading, a talent which those who became deaf later as an adult may find difficult to acquire.

All of my students used the American Sign Language for communicating with each other, a skill I quickly learned out of necessity and fervent desire to more easily “chat’ with my students, who quickly became close friends.

Other than the inability to comprehend sound, deaf individuals are just as diverse in their skills and personalities as those of us in the hearing world. To think that they are mentally retarded simply because they are deaf is a major mistake of many hearing people.

Many of my sharper students went on to earn their college degrees at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C.; a private institution of higher learning designed primarily to serve deaf students.  It’s an amazing university!

Covering Stories of the Deaf

While an untrained journalist might be apprehensive at first about working a story involving a deaf person, or the deaf community; particularly if they don’t know the sign language, they should approach their assignment exactly the same way they would any story where the principals involved speak a foreign language.

You get an interpreter.

Usually, the deaf person or group will quickly provide an interpreter for you.  If that person is a lip reader, when communicating with you, they may try to also speak.

If they have been deaf most of their life, the sound of their voice may sound artifically high pitched when they speak to you. They have been trained to use their vocal chords, even though they cannot heard their own speech. It may sound as if they are straining their voice to speak, but they may not be.

When speaking to a deaf interviewee, or interpreter, who can read lips, do NOT overemphasize your lips movements. Speak natually and the lip reader will be able to understand you.

And, do NOT shout when speaking to the lip-reading person. Shouting will not help them understand what you are saying. Indeed, speak naturally and the lip reader will comprehenend.

If there is any difficulty in communication between you, feel comfortable in writing out what you want to say to your deaf interpreter. And, be comfotable if that person sends you a written note. It’s all within the ”normal” communications experience for the deaf.

Try an Experiment – and Find a Story

For a great feature story, go out with 4 or 5 deaf personhs to a nice restaurant where good service and food is expected. But, say NOTHING aloud. Communicate entirely with your friends by writing notes.

Communicate also with the waiter/waitress with written notes. Let that person think that you are also deaf and cannot understand what he/she says.

Notice how the waiter may treat your table quite differently than might be expected from a professional.

Several times I have gone out with my deaf friends in Fulton, Missouri and went to a quality restaurant.

I said nothing, communicating only in sign language or by writing messages with my deaf friends at the table.

But, in plain view and right in front of me, I had a small tape recorder recording everything the waiter said.

You would be amazed at the insulting, rude remarks the waiter would make when he thought nobody at the table understood what he was saying.

Service would be horrible. Orders were incorrect and the food was not cooked properly.

In such situations, after all of the above bad service occurred, I walked over to the head waiter and spoke, asking to speak with the owner/manager.

When the owner/manager heard the tape recording of the dismal and unprofessional service, I reminded him that such conduct was also a violation of state and federal laws.

In negotiating a quick, on-the-spot settlement, the managment on several occassions agreed to provide all meals (freshly and properly cooked) on the house. They also agreed to meet with my school’s principal to determine how the swanky restaurant could help the deaf school financially in the future.

Any journalist with questions about covering a story involving a deaf person or the deaf community, is invited to contact me at leopowerhere@msn.com or (619) 757-4909.

by Leo E. Laurence; Member: SPJ Nat’l. Committee on Diversity

We can learn about American patriotism from immigrants, including those some improperly call “illegal.”

I wrote the word “illegal” in quotation marks for a particular reason. While I wanted to catch your attention, I also strongly believe it is profesionally unethical, as a journalist, to brand anyone as “illegal” who has not been so judged by a court of law.

Our nation of laws holds firmly that a person is innocent until – and only until – proven guilty by a judge.

An article “Is Obama American Enough” by columnist Ruben Navarette, Jr. of the San Diego Union Tribune addresses the issue of patriotism as we celebrate the Fourth of July. Being a Navy veteran, I proudly fly my Stars ‘n Stripes frequently. The Fourth of July is a special day for me.

After exploring the “silly controversies over flag pins” and other similar issues, like “when it was that his wife became proud of her country;” Navarrette says, “In some quarters, Obamam is being attacked for not being American enough . . .”.

“The irony is that, as the son of someone who immigrated here fromn another country, Obama probably understands better than many of his fellow, native-born citizens what it means to be an American.

“Immigrants (all of them), no matter where they came from, have a lot to teach the rest of us about seeking opportunity, working hard, pursuing dreams, treasuring liberty and remaining optimistic even when you fail,” Navarette wrote.

“If you really want to understand patriotism, don’t talk to those of us who were born here through no effort of our own.

“Talk to someone who came here from Iran or Eastern Europe, or Cuba and who doesn’t have the luxury of taking freedom for granted.

“Talk to somefrom from Vietnam or Indian or Mexico (yes, Mexicans) who see only opportuntities where many of us see obstacles,” Navarrette wrote in his revealing column.

In other words, to understand American patriotism on the Fourth of July, you might talk to those who many would improperly call “illegal immigrants.”

Racial minorities have been hit especially hard by the housing crisis, and some newspapers – like The San Diego Union Tribune – are covering this angle.

Minority borrowers accounted for half of the increase in homeowners from 1995 to 2005, according to Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies.

Latinos represented about 46 percent and African-Americans about 55 percent of those who took out risky mortgages. They also got higher-cost loans, as compared with about 17 percent for whites and Asians.

“Many of these people with subprime loans were misled. In some cases, fraud was involved and some just got in over their heads,” said Gregg Robinson, co-chair of the Affordable Housing Coalition of San Diego and reported by the Union Tribune’s Penni Crabtree. It is one of the few major newspapers that is covering the affect of the housing crisis on racial, minority populations.

Many of the Latinos who took out these subprime loans spoke little or no English. They were relying on the honesty and professionalism of the housing agents with whom they did business.

Cezar Gonzalez saw his neighbors becoming home owners, and he wanted to own his home, too. He trused his realtor and the loan officer.

“But, (Gonzalez) didn’t understand what he was doing, said Adelina Enriquez, a counselor at Community Housing Works, a non-profit that offers free counseling to distressed homeowners.

Gonzalez is a constructor worker who speaks little English and dropped out of school after the fifth grade. It’s a problem that many Latinos, particularly in Californoa, face as loan officers pushed risky loans.

“But, once you sign the loan papers, you take the responsibility and the risk,” added Enriquez.

Latinos and African-Americans make up a disproportionately large number of the thousands in the nation who face losing their homes to foreclosure, and are in default on their loans with adjustable interest rates that are rapidly rising.

Gonzalez, speaking through an interpreter, said he still is uncertain what kind of loan he signed up for on the $565,000 duplex he bought last May.

His monthly income was $3,200, but the loan officer approved mortgage payments of $4,200; so the loan was ill conceived from the beginning.

Recently, his lender, Countrywide (which has figured prominently in the housing crisis), called Gonzalez to ask why he was late on his payments.

The housing crisis is far from over. But, it is hitting racial minorities particularly hard.

Newspapers across the nation should follow the lead of the San Diego Union Tribune in covering this angle of the housing-crisis story.

Stories and photos of gay civil-rights events are in the news more than ever, particularly with the California Supreme Court legalizing gay marriages. Summertime, also, is when Gay-Pride events are held worldwide, celebrating the Stonewall Riots in New York City in June of ’69.

To illustrate its coverage of the massive Gay-Pride parade in San Francisco recently, the San Diego Union Tribune – which is usually sensitive to diversity issues – ran a Reuters photos of two lesbians in campy, leather drag.

That photo reinforced the stereotype that Gays are a fringe element in society, and not a part of the mainstream. They could have run a photo of the large law-enforcement contingent in the parade, showing that cops and sheriffs are Gay, too.

Some photo editors need more diversity education!

Editors, also, need to learn more about gay history if they are going to run stories about it.

Historically, it is a myth that the Stonewall Riots launched the worldwide gay, civil-rights movement. Those riots in ’69 were little more than a big street fight between Latin drag queens from inside the Stonewall, a hustler bar in Greenwich Village, and the cops.

There was no fundimental, planned, organized, civil-rights issue(s) or purpose behind the Stonewall riots.

However, several months before Stonewall, there were non-violent, “militant” civil-rights demonstrations, pickets and events in the San Francisco area.

They were led by the Committee for Homosexual Freedom (CHF), which was orgaized to fight for employment rights for Gays. The CHF was fighting to get the job of its co-founder, 19-year-old Gale Whittington, restored after he had been fired by the States Steamship Lines in San Francisco’s financial district for being Gay.

Eventually, the CHF expanded it’s civil-rights operations to hit major businesses such as the downtown Macy’s Department Store in San Francisco for homophobic practices.

Because some religous, fanatical homophobes threatened the CHF members, and because the notoriously homophobic police were not expected to protect the CHF members, the CHF received help from the Black Panther Party which cupported gay civil rights.

But, that history is usually ignored by editors – and many gay “history” books – who take the easy way out and perpetuate the myth that the Stonewall Riots launched the Gay Lib movement.