[access-uk] Re: action for blind people employment officers

I asked the RNIB for help which they started to give which was fantastic. Then 
they stopped communicating with me. It will be 2 weeks tomorrow since the RNIB 
were to get back to me but they will not answer my e-mails or return my phone 
calls. They could be on holiday of course! I understood their solicitors were 
looking to see if they would take on the case. Obviously they have not amd are 
too busy to let me know.

-original message-
Subject: [access-uk] Re: action for blind people employment officers
From: william lomas <lomaswilliam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: 30/07/2009 7:35 pm

sue the university

On 30 Jul 2009, at 07:08, Eleanor Burke wrote:

> I an very interested in this discussion on difficulty with access to  
> employment for disabled people. As a disabled student at the Open  
> University people might be interested to know that I was suspended  
> from the university on 17 July 2009 amd effectively thrown out. Did  
> I get a Hearing? Certainly not! I got a letter throwing me out. I  
> also got a letter from the Regional Director of the Open University  
> in London who gave me a final warning amd cut off my access to  
> communication with Open University law students. Where was the prior  
> warnings? There were none. This person is going through my file with  
> the aim of dicipling me. All of this flies in the face of natural  
> justice. My offences are as follows:
> I want to know the number of students who have sat 50 per cent of  
> the third level law course W 300 since its inception 9 years ago.
> I want to know why Special Arrangements were not made for me as a  
> disabled student in the last course I did in 2008 which I failed  
> despite having done very well throughout the assessments over the  
> year.
> I an firmly of the opinion that the university threw me out because  
> they wanted to silence me on the issue of 50 per cent re-sit of an  
> examination. I discovered that students had been allowed to do this  
> which was hush hush.
> I an not now going to be able to sit an exam amd pass it this year  
> as I an currently out amd the way the Open University works is that  
> assignments have to be put in every month. My next one is due on 12  
> August but I will still be out!
> I have Appealed to the Senate of the University for lifting of my  
> suspension. Meeting not until 1 September. There are going to be 2  
> students on the panel. I wrote today saying that one of these  
> students should be blind, female amd the same age as myself. What do  
> others feel? In terms of information technology I communicate with  
> fellow students over the university website but they have stopped me  
> being able to do this. I have been unregistered amd isolated. I an a  
> disabled student amd thrown out amd not one staff member within the  
> university has given me an opportunity to speak. So from 17 July  
> until 1 September I an being punished without a hearing amd my  
> chance of doing amd passing my course this year are gone. I managed  
> to obtain my course material electronically but only after much ado  
> amd a written apology from the university. Someone wrote to the  
> university on my behalf about the course material in alternative  
> format. This was before I managed to get the material in alt
> ernative format. The university wrote back to this Professor telling  
> him that 2 senior members of the law faculty visited me in my home!  
> I had to get the Open University to write back to the Professor to  
> say the information that 2 staff members visited me in my home was  
> not true. A total case of discrimination. I can assure everyone that  
> I have not had gross misconduct which I have been temporarily if not  
> permanently removed for from the university. There is no guarantee  
> that my suspension will be lifted.
>
> -original message-
> Subject: [access-uk] Re: action for blind people employment officers
> From: "martin wilsher" <m.wilsher@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Date: 30/07/2009 6:04 pm
>
> HIBarbra and all.
>
> I am in a similar situation to will, and have gone for job  
> interviews and
> also have gone on govt schemes to help get into work.  Now let me  
> relay aa
> few stories.  I went on the new deal for disabled people.  The DEA  
> basically
> threw me at employers and said, the law says you cannot  
> discriminate, so
> employ him.  Most employers were enthusiastic until they actually  
> had to do
> soemthing to help me over and above their usual, then they binned  
> me, after
> about three days in one case.  Then I went on another scheme that  
> afbp told
> me was accessible to blind.  Turned out they weren't, and that they  
> were in
> it for the EU money.  I went in dressed in a suit, with laptop, copy  
> of jaws
> on pendrive, for SATOGO and SA weren't known to me then, and with  
> NRA in
> hand.  I was first asked, where's your carer, then when I told them  
> I'd
> lived on my own for years, they dropped that question.  I explained  
> about
> jaws for windows, and about what it was.  They wouldn't let me  
> install it.
> In the end, I had to jobsearch with my own computer.  They could not  
> even
> make the course amterials in accessible format.  About the only  
> thing this
> place did was give me funding to do voluntary work with a riding  
> stable.
> Now they were meant to come to the stable to check I was actually  
> doing the
> work, and did they?  No.  They were meant to get in touch with my  
> boss, but
> tdid they?  No.  I spent six mmonths doing my part of the thing,  
> while they
> did nothing.  This was another govt scheme btw, and at one point,  
> they tried
> to claim that giving me an ethernet cable to allow me to connect to  
> their
> intrnet was accessibily, and they'd complied with the Dda because of  
> this.
> Hmm, no.  AFBP blew hot air at this company, but that was it.  And  
> yes, this
> was new labour.  I am going for an nvq this september, and I wonder  
> if AFBP
> will help me if I get into trouble with access?   Probably not.
>
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