Being Reasonable: A Manifesto for Improving the Inclusion of Disabled People in SIGCHI Conferences
Abstract
Participation levels of people with disabilities in the
SIGCHI community reflect a general inadequacy in how
they are supported, and their interests promoted,
within the ACM, the wider computing industry and
academia itself. In response, we propose a manifesto
for overhauling existing SIGCHI practices to increase
the opportunities for including a wide range of disabled
people in our research community through
dissemination venues such as CHI. We set out the
moral case for change, before providing a summary of
UK disability discrimination law which we use identify
sources of direct and indirect discrimination. Our goal
has been to go beyond just accessibility: instead we
emphasize disability inclusion in a much broader sense,
and articulate a range of steps that can be conducted in
order to meet this.
Author Keywords
Accessibility, Conferences, Disability Discrimination Law
Introduction
Legislation such as the Americans with Disabilities Act
(1990) and Disability Discrimination Act (1995)
introduced a range of measures to address disability
discrimination, primarily through “reasonable
accommodations”. Following the UN Convention on the
Rights of the Persons with Disabilities (UN CRPD)i the
principle of reasonable accommodation is now
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2702613.2732497
Reuben Kirkham
Culture Lab, Newcastle University
Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
John Vines
Culture Lab, Newcastle University
Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
Patrick Olivier
Culture Lab, Newcastle University
Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
embedded in most countries’ legislative systems.
Despite the implementation of legal frameworks that
aim to assert the rights of people with disabilities, it
has been well documented that rates of participation of
people with disabilities in both higher education and
academic research communities lag well behind their
non-disabled counterparts. The attrition rate of people
with disabilities across career stages is severe with
recent statistical analysis of UK higher education [2]
identifying that 9% of undergraduates, 6% of
postgraduate researchers, and 3% of academics, have
disabilities.
Through special interest groups such as SIGCHI and
SIGACCESS, the ACM lays claim to having genuine
concerns for people with disabilities, but in practice
significantly more research is being done about people
with disabilities than by people with disabilities within
SIGCHI. The current approach to some other under-
represented groups is more progressive - for example,
the recommendations of the ACM SGB Taskforce on Full
Inclusion identify numerous proactive measures for the
promotion of gender equality (e.g. affirmative action in
appointment of female speakers and review committee
members, and the promotion of opportunities for
women to participate in a range of ACM activities). In
contrast, disability is generally framed as a matter of
accessibility, and little or no consideration is given to
the structural inequalities that people with disabilities
actually face.
This situation is both a waste of talent and deprivation
of opportunity. Modern societies include people with
disabilities as equals, and strive to meet the standards
under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Persons
with Disabilities (UN CRPD). Furthermore, the
transnational character of the ACM provides it with a
unique opportunity, and responsibility, to promote the
interests of people with disabilities within academic and
professional life across the world. In support of such an
endeavor we propose a manifesto for the Inclusion of
Disabled People in one important activity of the ACM
SIGCHI community, namely SIGCHI conferences. We
argue that the SIGCHI community, with its explicit
focus of human aspects of computing research and
practice, has a particular responsibility to lead on this
issue and our proposals seek to respond to structural
inequalities that undermine participation of disabled
people in SIGCHI conferences. In formulating our
manifesto we use concepts from UK Disability
Discrimination Law as a frame of analysis for the
identification of potential sources of inequality.
Why Use Disability Discrimination Law?
One might ask why should we formulate our manifesto
within the frame of analysis of disability discrimination
law? Indeed, it has been suggested to us (by alt.chi
2015 reviewers amongst others) that the legal frame is
‘too aggressive’ and ‘not appropriate’ii. We choose the
legal frame of analysis as it has been deliberately (and
carefully) constructed by disabled advocates, national
governments, and human rights law experts in order to
include all disabilities and specific impairment types. In
line with the well-expressed intentions of the UN CRPD,
it also shifts us from a purely benevolent model, to one
of rights and entitlements. Disabled people should be
able to fulfil the essential functions of being academics
or researchers, such as free speech and critique,
without tempering their activities in response to a
perceived fear that essential reasonable
accommodations might not be made for them. If
disabled people are to be empowered and involved in
ensuring research agendas are suitably inclusive, then
Box 1: Extracts from the UN CRPD:
“The purpose of the present Convention is to promote, protect and ensure the full and equal enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms by all persons with disabilities, and to promote respect for their inherent dignity.” (Article 1)
"Discrimination on the basis of disability" means any distinction, exclusion or restriction on the basis of disability which has the purpose or effect of impairing or nullifying the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal basis with others, of all human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural, civil or any other field. It includes all forms of discrimination, including denial of reasonable accommodation;” (Article 2)
“States Parties undertake … To undertake or promote research and development of, and to promote the availability and use of new technologies, including information and communications technologies, mobility aids, devices and assistive technologies, suitable for persons with disabilities, giving priority to technologies at an affordable cost;” (Article 4: 1g)
they need the same level of actual power as other
(non-disabled) academics.
Moreover, Deal [1] describes a ‘hierarchy of
impairments’, in which purely benevolent approaches
manifest as a competition between disabled people for
scarce resources, with those who are perceived to be
the most disabled typically winning out in such a
process. Using the tenets of disability discrimination law
addresses this issue, by removing the competition, and
treating all disabled people as individuals with the same
rights. There’s no need to determine winners and
losers, because everyone is entitled to be included as a
legal right. In the same way that the First Amendment
of the US constitution led to the protection of freedom
of speech and individual rights, modern disability
discrimination legislation offers protection to people for
being disabled, with the goal of actually including them
in wider society. Laws that protect the rights of
individuals reflect and mediate progressions in our
social system, and underpin freedom and fairness. Such
well-formed principles and processes should be adopted
in any sensible human rights advocacy, as we are doing
here. Crucially, they provide us with a fully developed
frame of analysis by which we can both identify direct
and indirect source of discrimination.
Principles of Disability Discrimination Law
We introduce disability discrimination law from the
perspective of the UK legal system (with Box 2
providing case examples). The UK system has many
similarities to US law, but has the additional advantage
of including further public law elements, as well as
being rooted in a successful ratification of the (2006)
UN Convention on the Right of Persons with Disabilities.
In so doing, we introduce criteria and concepts which
we use to identify source of discrimination and
articulate recommendations—with the added value of
having practical legal force—in order to revise SIGCHI’s
conference practices.
The notion of reasonable accommodations, or in UK
parlance reasonable adjustments, is the core notion
behind disability law. It requires adaptions to a
provided good or service when it is ‘reasonable’ to do
so. This covers a huge array of providers of ‘goods and
services’, and includes physical spaces such as cafes,
bars, shops, societies and higher education institutions;
events such as conferences; and those with financial
powers such as quasi-government funding bodies. The
notion of indirect discrimination broadens this further,
requiring that reasonable adjustments can apply to
practices, rather than simply access to goods and
services. Reasonableness happens to be a specialized
legal term, and relates to what a judge would consider
reasonable to meet this criterion based on all the
circumstances, and overall an adjustment must be
made if it is practical, feasible (and legal), and does not
place an undue burden upon those having to provide it.
In the context of SIGCHI, and SIGCHI sponsored
conferences, a number of additional concepts are of
relevance which we list below:
Goods, Services and Practices: The ACM and the
SIGCHI community provide a range of ‘goods and
services’ (see ACM policy on ‘Rights and
Responsibilities’). Amongst other things, these include
the review of papers and submissions, the opportunity
to publish papers at ACM venues, the opportunity to
partake in the activities of a SIG (including being a
conference program committee member or reviewer),
and to be able to attend the events themselves.
Box 2: Example cases from UK disability discrimination law.
Hurley and Moore vs BIUS: This case involved the use of the Public Sector Equality Duty in respect of disabled people to argue successfully that the British Government’s decision to implement £9000 tuition fees was unlawful, on the basis that they had not sufficiently considered disabled people in taking this decision.
Foster vs Leeds NHS Health Trust. This case concerned Mr. Foster, who requested a redeployment which was highly unlikely to succeed as a reasonable adjustment. The defendant refused to proceed on that basis. The court disagreed with the lawfulness of their decision, and awarded Mr. Foster over £50,000 in compensation, noting that the absence of a real prospect of success was not sufficient to make an adjustment unreasonable.
Croft Vets and Anor.vs Butcher. This case involved whether or not private medical treatment could be a reasonable adjustment. Ms. Butcher was signed off work for depression. Her employers (the Defendant’s) referred her to a private psychiatrist with the goal of determining whether she could return to work. The psychiatrist recommended (privately funded) therapy sessions as a reasonable adjustment. Her employer failed to provide them, believing that private medical treatment was not reasonable. The court considered otherwise, and upheld Ms Butcher’s case.
Party of responsibility: The duties associated with
SIGCHI activities, that is, the provision of goods and
services (including events) fall directly to organizers of
these events. That is, the ACM (through its paid and
volunteer staff) and in some cases the academics
involved (see PSEDs below).
Public Sector Equality Duties (PSEDs): This requires the
proactive promotion of equality, rather than simple
non-discrimination. Section 149 of the UK’s Equality Act
(2010) requires ‘due regard’ (or adequate
consideration) of the three concerns in Box 3. While
SIGCHI is not a public authority, the majority of its UK-
based organizers are agents of publicly funded
universities. This duty would apply to the conference
because a subset of its organizers would be subject to
this law. The practical effect is that the conference itself
is obliged to proactively promote equality rather than
simply not discriminating against others.
Cost and Inconvenience: Case law (see Box 2) includes
precedent for expensive reasonable adjustments being
made by large organizations. For example, if requested,
the law would require a large organization such as the
ACM to provide sign language interpreters on request
even though this may cost upward of £500 a day for
one individual. It is very difficult for large organizations
to provide an adequate and valid defense in reference
to cost and inconvenience in relation to reasonable
adjustment requests. Requests that would involve a
member of an organizing committee to take a range of
steps—even if this took them a large amount of time—
would be legally reasonable. While conference
organizers are often volunteers, they are often
employed by public bodies, or by large organizations,
and their involvement in the organization of the
conference is an activity of their employment (and is
rewarded as such by employers). If an organizer is
disobliging, then the legal expectation would be that
the conference should have replaced them, or not
appointed them in the first place.
Competence Standards: This notion excludes the
application of reasonable adjustments in certain
circumstances—for example, if someone is unable to
fulfill a core part of a role once reasonable adjustments
have been made. One such example might be not
allowing someone to teach a specific course of study,
despite adjustments, as they are unable to
demonstrate the necessary knowledge to conduct it.
Competency standards cannot be artificial, and must be
objectively justified as to why they are essential. For
academic research, the competency standard should be
the ability to make an original contribution to
knowledge—however, the competency would have to
be determined through, for example, some different
form of assessment rather than expressed in the
context of the usual (e.g. conference review) process.
Academic Judgment: Academics have a special defense
in the matter of academic judgment, e.g. the decision
of whether a given fact of science is correct. However,
universities already oblige academics to make
significant changes to individual academic assessments
in order to meet the needs of students with disabilities.
This has included changing closed examinations to
coursework, allowing additional time for a coursework
and examination submissions, and providing mentoring
for completing assignments. The modalities of
assessment can be, and have been, challenged in the
context of higher education teaching and learning,
thereby setting a precedent for new forms of
assessment of research (beyond the constraints of the
traditional review process).
Box 3: The Public Sector Equality Duties (s149 of the Equality Act (2010):
‘1) eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation and other conduct prohibited by the Act;
2) advance equality of opportunity between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not; and
3) foster good relations between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not.’
Likelihood of Success: There is no requirement that a
person with a disability demonstrates that a reasonable
adjustment would work; in fact the legal test simply
requires that there is some (small) prospect of success
for an adjustment to be legally reasonable. Thus, some
evidence that an adjustment might work is enough to
make it a reasonable one (see Box 2 for Foster vs
Leeds).
The Anticipatory Duty: When must reasonable
adjustments be delivered in advance of a request being
made? This concern is known as the anticipatory duty.
In general, it requires a consideration of equipment or
existing practices, and determining whether or not they
are discriminatory, rather than making every possible
adjustment before it has been requested. For example,
a conference would be expected to provide an
accessible website, and a means of requesting
adjustments in an accessible format, including sufficient
information about the conference so that a disabled
person can determine whether (or not) they may need
to make a request. On the other hand, they would not
be expected to provide a sign language interpreter prior
to a specific request being made.
Reasonable Consultation: This is an honest and timely
exchange of information between parties, where in our
case the conference organizers would need to consider
and obtain appropriate advice in identifying
adjustments that might be made. If this takes place,
then there is no obligation to make adjustments that
were not previously identified.
Remedies: In addition to individual remedies afforded
by The Equality Act (2010), Public Law, through
provisions like the PSED, can be used to address
institutional and academic behavior. For example,
RCUK (Research Councils UK, the principle funder of
academic research in the UK) recently issued a
statement requiring compliance by individual academics
and their institutions with equality legislation (in terms
of who they employ and the adjustments they make for
employees and students) as a condition of their funding
[4]. As such, someone could challenge the public
funding (for a UK academic) of their involvement in a
conference (including in kind support) that does not
sufficiently address issues of equality. Going by the law,
because these academics are primarily exercising a
public function, the fact that many conferences
physically take place in other jurisdictions would be of
no consequence. Alternatively, if a conference were not
to be legally compliant, publically funded UK academics
should not be disseminating research at such venues.
Reasonable Accommodations for CHI
Barriers to Participation amongst Disabled Students:
People with disabilities often have substantive barriers
in accessing the academic community, and the
conference system. Much of these concerns arise
directly from institutional limitations in provision, and
what effectively amounts to past and ongoing
discrimination. In what follows, we briefly set out these
challenges for Postgraduate Researchers with
Disabilities (hereon in PGRD’s). We focus on research
students here to highlight how the barriers to
participating in an academic community are particularly
problematic for young disabled researchers and those
still forming their academic networks and skills. First,
the process for assessing the needs of those with
disabilities is well known to break down at the Research
Student leveliii, with assessors often being unqualified
to consider the nature of a PhD program. These
assessments also usually take place at the beginning of
Box 4: Case Study 1
Mr B has bipolar disorder, which substantially impacts upon his state of mood. For a substantial proportion of the year he is in a ‘manic state’, whilst at other times he is a “depressive state”. This substantially impacted upon the motivation and nature of his writing, although he had the creativity that arguably came with his disability in order to produce profoundly original submissions. Under the existing system, he found that his papers were often being rejected due to being over-excitable when in a manic state, and failure to finish them off when in a depressive state, which due to the adversarial nature of the review process also gave him considerable anxiety.
Our recommendations would help address this situation. An iterative review process (Adjustment 3) would enable Mr B to access corrections, rather than simple rejections, and as such would likely help minimise the impact of their anxiety and depression. Adjustment 4 would also be of assistance, in that it would minimise the distress experiences by Mr B in the event of paper rejections.
someone’s PhD program, well before the student
themselves can determine what might be appropriate
themselves. The result is that students are often under-
recommended reasonable adjustments by their
institutions, impacting on the scope of studies they can
conduct and amount of research they can do in the
standard doctoral program timescale. Furthermore,
these concerns are further exasperated by weaknesses
in the broader process; in the UK this has led to
government proposals to radically reform it [3].
The second concern is the lack of institutional mobility
that PGRD’s face, relative to other students. Many rely
upon support networks, or struggle to relocate personal
care packages, or indeed to find accessible
accommodation in some cities. This can often limit the
choice of University to these students to the local area.
Moreover, perceptions of the relative accessibility (or
not), including the willingness to make reasonable
adjustments, of institutions are likely to strongly
influence the choices made of those with disabilities,
who in the abstract might appear to have more
freedom in choosing their institutions. Given the
relatively small number of leading HCI groups, the
reality is that a relatively lower proportion of people
with disabilities are likely to end up in world leading
groups, and thus cannot rely upon appropriate support
from their institutions when preparing their
submissions.
Third, there are bound to be barriers that arise from
individual disabilities themselves. In many cases, this
would include Cognitive or Psycho-Social Disabilities,
including acquired ones (e.g. via a cerebral vascular
accident); indeed these people would make up nearly
65% of PGRD’s in the UK, yet are currently excluded by
the existing deliberate focus in the SIGCHI community
almost purely upon ‘Digital Accessibility’ and ‘Physical
Accessibility’. To illustrate how these can impact upon
the accessibility of existing academic processes, we
have provided some case studies in sidebars, which are
also intended to reflect the recommendations that
follow in the rest of this section.
Adjustments to the Review Process
Despite the introduction of Disability Discrimination
Law, and its implementation (to varying degrees) by
private and public bodies, it is surprising that the CHI
review process take no substantive account of the
needs of people with disabilities who intend to submit
their research for peer review. Many of the existing
processes and practices are historical in character,
although some reflect an unhealthy ‘coziness’ at the
heart of many academic communities; in response to
this we propose a number of adjustments to ameliorate
some of these concerns and the disadvantage that they
place many people with disabilities at.
1. SUBMISSION OUTLINES AND PERMISSION STAGES
A submission outline stage is essential for some people
with disabilities, who need support well before they
reach the stage of submitting a paper or note. This
would involve them setting out their proposed work,
indicating how it would likely lead to an original
contribution to knowledge, and explicating their
proposed means for demonstrating and enquiring into
this area. As an outcome of this process, it would be
determined whether both the problem and methods of
studying it are sufficient to provide insights into that
area in ways that could be articulated at a top-tier
venue, and bind the conference to the agreed standard.
The authors would then go to their institution, with the
appropriate feedback, and request resources and
adjustments on the basis of such an assessment, thus
Box 5: Case Study 2
Ms A has a severe mobility impairment, which means they require a support worker with them when they travel. This impaired their ability to evaluate a system that they had developed, which required the use of minority participants that were difficult to access. They proposed to conduct a smaller scale evaluation with a more in depth analysis on a smaller number of participants, and to make this system open for further investigation or analysis.
Under the existing system, they would be forced to complete an entire submission, which would most likely be rejected. Ms A would then be left either with an unpublishable paper, or to be required to obtain a collaboration or other additional resources to complete their project. Our revisions would be more inclusive; the proposed evaluation under Adjustment 1 would be deemed sufficient for a full publication, or reasonable adjustments would then be made as these would become clearer entitlements. The support for building collaborative relationships would otherwise help address this situation if an evaluation they found inaccessible was required.
preventing a long, burdensome and adversarial needs
assessment process, because the assessors are simply
informed as to what they must provide. This would be
an anticipatory reasonable adjustment.
2. ITERATIVE REVIEW
Research students with disabilities are disadvantaged in
performing their research and accessing the academic
community, with the natural effect of often excluding
them from joining leading groups in the field. We
propose iterative review as an anticipatory
reasonable adjustment. This would mean
guaranteeing a number of stages of review completed
in a timely fashion (e.g. akin to a revise and resubmit
process), until a submission either reaches a stage
where it is deemed worthy of acceptance, or it is
determined that it should not be pursued further. This
would be more appropriate than existing approaches,
and effectively help substitute the assumed support
which often might not be being provided to PGRD’s,
either through failure of adjustments, or simply not
being able to join a world leading research group for
disability related reasons.
3. SUPPORTIVE AS OPPOSED ADVERSARIAL REVIEW
We argue that the process of reviewing through all
iterations should be driven with enthusiasm and a
desire to accept work and not be adversarial and
looking for reasons to reject it, or indeed aimed at
meeting a certain acceptance rate target. Supporting
authors in this way would be a great leveler for those
who are impaired in articulating their work in a paper,
or who find themselves in a university or group with
more limited resources by virtue of their disability. It
would greatly reduce the dependence on the immediate
availability of influential contacts, and de-emphasize
the skill of writing a paper to exactly fit a conference
community. Instead, being more supportive allows for
risk taking, and could widely benefit research in and of
itself. While this might involve some additional effort
relative to the standard review process for conferences,
it is arguable that this approach would reduce multiple
submissions (already noted as a serious problem in
computing conference review processes [5]). Even if it
did not reduce reviewer workload, then it would still be
a (legally) proportionate increase in effort to include
people with disabilities within our academic community,
especially if in response to individual reasonable
adjustment requests.
4. REMOVAL OF PAGE LIMITS
Existing page limits are in part historical in origin, in
that they reflect a cost once associated with the
production of printed proceedings that most
conferences have now dispensed with. In addition, they
also serve to limit the work of the reviewers, which for
a conference such as CHI (with its 2000+ submissions)
is substantialiv. However, page limits are intrinsically
problematic for many people with disabilities for two
reasons. First, getting the raw content and wording to
fit into a given word processing template is a skill in
itself which is bound to be more challenging for those
with a range of accessibility issues. Second, this
concern precludes someone who is less sure as to what
to select for inclusion or, more specifically, what can be
omitted (for example, due to a lack of advice as a
result of prevailing lack of inclusion with community
members).. As such, removing page limits provides the
possibility of including slightly more material that might
be deleted if necessary following a review process. We
therefore would abolish main-track page limits as an
anticipatory reasonable adjustment.
Box 6: Case Study 3
Dr C is an Assistant Professor, who had a cerebral-vascular accident (stroke) in recent years. Although he recovered most cognitive function, he suffered from ongoing loss of working memory as well as difficulties in engaging in social interactions due to an acquired impulsiveness. As a result, he found it more difficult to structure his articles, and to produce articles that were suitably concise as to fit the 10 page limit of a full submission. He also found it more difficult to interact and collaborate with his peers. The result was that his publication outputs sharply declined, threatening his prospects of obtaining tenure.
Under Adjustment 4– namely removing the page limits from conference submissions, Dr C would have a better prospect of having his papers accepted. It is not difficult to see how Adjustment 3 would be of assistance either, through similar arguments. Finally, the difficulties faced in social interactions might be addressed though providing support in developing collaborative relationships, under the proposed conference adjustments.
5. SELECTION OF PROGRAM AND ORGANIZING COMMITTEES
Program committees are a key part of both selecting
papers, as well as aiding the career progression of
those invited to join them. From the lack of an open
selection process, it is immediately apparent that
existing approaches place many people with disabilities
at a disadvantage. In general, the process for selection
is akin to a ‘tap on the shoulder’, and people are only
likely to be invited if they are well known ‘to the
community’. Becoming well known to the community
requires an equal opportunity to attend conferences,
and not having a disability which impacts on how they
communicate or socially interact at these events. In our
own recent experiment at TVX 2014, over one third of
the program committee (10 of a total of 29) were
selected by an alternative process of self-nomination
and review (by the conference chairs); for this year
(TVX 2015) it was nearer a half (9 out of a total of
21)v. By contrast, the current situation for most
conferences amounts to indirect discrimination. We
advocate that more open processes should be
employed to allow applicants to be properly assessed,
for example, based on a desk assessment exercise, or
on data generated from their previous reviewing
activities. Both of these could be assessed without the
use of subject specific expertise, and thus independent
of existing hierarchies within the academic community.
This is distinct to what is currently proposed for CHI
2016 (see [8]), where new Associate Chairs need to
have first-authored CHI submissions before or acted as
a chair in a smaller ACM conference. While a great
stride, this still holds great potential for exclusion (i.e.,
even if CHI were to be more transparent, it does not
mean smaller conferences actually are) and to some
degree this approach is still based upon who a potential
candidate is known to within the community.
The natural next step of this process is to
independently assess the performance of individual
Associate Chairs; not only will this improve the quality
and clarity of the review process, but it will make
appointments more meritocratic going forwards.
Similarly, the same overall point should apply to
organizing committees, with people with disabilities
being given first preference on roles that are likely to
be accessible to them and their particular needs.
Conference Accessibility and Inclusion in a Broader
Academic Community
In addition to the barriers identified in the previous
section, we also note a range of changes that ought to
be made to the conference organization processes in
order to make them more accessible and inclusive.
1. SUPPORT FOR BUILDING COLLABORATIVE RELATIONSHIPS
People with disabilities are more likely to have more
limited access to networks of academic peers and
potential collaborators with which to develop their ideas
and, thus, potential research projects and outcomes.
Consideration should be given towards more explicitly
embedding activities such as AccessComputing – which
already offers networking for PGRD’s – more directly
into the SIGCHI community. Additional activities may
include arranging external mentors and funding formal
schemes that welcomes people with disabilities more
directly into our academic community. This would fall
within the ambit of the PSED’s and therefore should be
funded through the conference. This would complement
efforts surrounding the review process, and help
alleviate the wider challenges of accessing networking
opportunities within the community.
2. SUPPORT FOR ATTENDING CONFERENCES
There is also much that needs to be done to better
support researcher with disabilities in experiencing
conferences in the first place. First, while many
conferences provide bursaries and support for students,
this does not necessarily account for the additional
resources disabled students tend to expend in order to
attend. It is typical that travelling internationally to
large conferences can be financially challenging for
some disabled people. A support worker would double
most costs and requires making special arrangements
to address the unusual working hours involved. Under
the PSED’s, disability needs to be a factor taken into
consideration when making assessments of who
receives bursaries and the value of them. There are
also those who cannot attend conferences in the first
place. Supporting attendance via telepresence seems a
reasonable route forwards. Beams - trialed successfully
at Ubicomp 2014 (and subsequently at Assets 2014)
would help reduce the gap for those who are unable to
travel long distances due to their disability. These
services should be prioritized as individual
reasonable adjustments. The important point here
however is that conferences are more proactive in
providing alternate ways for people to remotely attend
and gain from the experience. This work is a starting
point; conferences should evolve best practices over
time and fulfil their obligations to the public interest.
3. PROCESSES FOR REQUESTING INDIVIDUAL REASONABLE
ACCOMMODATIONS
Finally, we call for a substantial departure from the
existing process used to manage reasonable
adjustments by the SIGCHI community, where
conferences either have a volunteer ‘accessibility chair’
role, or otherwise have no route other than the
conference registration form. The low levels of requests
(for whatever reasons) means that it is highly likely
that there is substantial under-recommendation of
reasonable adjustments within the SIGCHI community.
Perhaps the most effective case example is In the
Matter of Horan [6] (readers may also want to consider
Mr Horan’s own account of this case [7]), which
concerned a Barrister’s fitness to practice and
demonstrates the perils of allowing non-experts to
make decisions on reasonable adjustments. For the
reasons and arguments stated in that case, decisions
that are taken by SIGCHI in this context are of a similar
gravity; sometimes in refusing certain types of
reasonable adjustments, we are in reality reaching a
decision that means someone cannot continue in their
academic career. This makes a competent and just
adjudication of these matters a matter of the utmost
importance. Moreover, the potential conflict of some of
the adjustments we have suggested with traditional
academic practice and the challenges of those without
expertise in disability law in determining these
decisions fairly or reasonably (or indeed, lawfully)
means this existing route is unviable.
There is also the question of the dignity of those who
need reasonable adjustments, who under the present
system, either do not receive reasonable adjustments,
or have to ask a succession of accessibility chairs who
may even come to entirely different conclusions.
Currently this raises the danger of individuals having to
justify their disability to a wide section of the academic
community, some of whom may well be involved in
subsequent employment or funding applications,
effectively frustrating someone’s legal right not to
declare their disability in that context. This issue is easy
enough to resolve - decisions should be taken by
someone with the requisite legal expertise to do so (at
the expense of SIGCHI) and with the actual power to
ensure that they are implemented, while also exercising
the necessary confidentiality. This is an anticipatory
reasonable adjustment.
Conclusion
While our proposals may be seen as radical (by
academic traditionalists), they remain inherently
reasonable. If our conference processes are to be
inclusive for people with disabilities, then research
communities should more proactively comply with their
moral and legal obligations. If the very logic of our
review process has been determined with disabled
people in mind, instead of having been driven by a non-
disabled plurality, then there would not be decades of
accumulated unsuitable practice to address.
Finally, we note that this submission describes best
practice, and in doing so we hope it will have an impact
upon diversity within, and transparency of, research
communities more generally. This arises naturally from
the nature of the Human Rights Law approach that we
have adopted; which serves as an effective lens for
considering the openness and transparency of
communities and conferences more generally. As such,
we hope to promote discussion and debate that goes
beyond meeting the needs of specific groups or
individuals, but which highlights some of the
assumptions and antiquated processes we all comply
with that limit the potential for HCI to be participatory,
inclusive and innovative as a field of research.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by funding from the UK’s
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
(Doctoral Training Award), and a Google Europe
Scholarship for Students with Disabilities.
References 1. Deal, M. 2003. Disabled people’s attitudes toward other impairment groups: a hierarchy of impairments. Disability & Society. 18, 7 (2003), 897–910. 2. Equality Challenge Unit 2013. Statistical Report in Higher Education 2013. 3. https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/higher-education-student-support-changes-to-disabled-students-allowances-dsa--2: . 4. RCUK Equality Statement: http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/RCUK-prod/assets/documents/skills/EqualityStatement.pdf. 5. Wallach, D.S. 2011. Rebooting the CS publication process. Communications of the ACM. 54, 10 (Oct. 2011), 32. 6. http://www.era-comm.eu/UNCRPD/kiosk/speakers_contributions/412DV02/Horan_review.pdf. 7. http://www.era-comm.eu/UNCRPD/kiosk/speakers_contributions/413DV91/Horan_matter.pdf. 8. http://sigchi.tumblr.com/post/110095003445/ volunteering-to-serve-on-the-chi-2016-program
i Some illustrative extracts of this are available in Box 1, with the convention itself available at http://www.un.org/disabilities/default.asp?id=150 ii All of this discussion is documented at: http://reubenkirkham.com/?page_id=197
iii Consider for example the discussions at http://phdisabled.wordpress.com/ iv For CHI2016 the references are now no longer counted in the age count, although papers must still be 10 pages or less in length. v This approach is now beginning to be adopted by other conferences, for example ITS 2015 and BCS HCI 2015.