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Separate but Equal?: Reasonable Accommodation in theInformation AgeJennifer S. LightPublished online: 26 Nov 2007.

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Separate but Equal?Reasonable Accommodation in theInformation AgeJennifer S. Light

How can Americans more successfully integrate citizens with physicaldisabilities into society? Planners, policymakers, rehabilitation spe-cialists, and people with disabilities are continually renegotiating the

answer to this question. Since the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the legal con-cept of “reasonable accommodation” has set an important standard forbringing people with disabilities into the mainstream and reducing their de-pendence on the state.

Limitations to integration historically imposed by the design of physicalspace face new interpretations as Americans increasingly work with com-puter-mediated communication (CMC). In recent years, CMC has catalyzeda new discussion about integration. Activists, policymakers, vocationalcounselors, and rehabilitation engineers have converged on CMC as a pivotalmeans to introduce people with physical impairments into the world of paidemployment. Technologically mediated, home-based employment options,adopted by increasing numbers of Americans, have been widely promoted asoffering special benefits to workers who have difficulty navigating physicalspace (Chamberlain, 1992; Crimando & Godley, 1984, 1985; Jarrett, 1996;Perry, 1994; Rosenbaum, 1997; Tazelaar, 1986; Vocational RehabilitationAct Reauthorization, 1997).

A key assumption undergirds the contemporary rhetoric of integration:technologically mediated virtual spaces are continuous with physical spacesin the built environment. According to these perspectives, telecommutingand other CMC options offer time-saving alternatives to transportation andcost-saving alternatives to environmental modification (Senate Committeeon Labor and Human Resources, 1998; Shields, 1999). Testimonials in pub-lications that range from employment bulletins to law journals to the dis-ability press point to the economic and psychological benefits of telework forpeople with physical disabilities (Eaton, 1998; Moskowitz, n.d.; Noble, 1973;Smith, 1995).1 In the most recent formulations, boosters argue that tele-commuting presents a new solution to the old problem of “reasonable ac-commodation” (Goodwyn, 1997; Ludgate, 1997).

Policies of accommodating and integrating people with physical dis-abilities into the mainstream, codified in the Rehabilitation Act of 1973,

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This article points to regressive effectsthat may result from uncritical inter-pretations of technology’s role inachieving the employment goals of theAmericans with Disabilities Act (ADA).Historical perspectives on reasonableaccommodation, the emergence ofnew technologies, and the construc-tion of public problems offer insightsfor planners as we consider how an in-formation society could unintention-ally subvert social policies that now tilttowards reducing physical barriers forpeople with disabilities. This article ex-plores the extent of the phenomenonand urges planners to join the conver-sation about reasonable accommoda-tion in the information age.

Light is an assistant professor in the De-partments of Communication Studies andSociology and a faculty associate at the In-stitute for Policy Research at NorthwesternUniversity. She holds a Ph.D. in History ofScience from Harvard University and is cur-rently at work on a book provisionally titledCities in the Information Society.

Journal of the American Planning Association,Vol. 67, No. 3, Summer 2001. © AmericanPlanning Association, Chicago, IL.

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originally focused on removing environmental con-straints. In this article, I argue that a new technology-centered definition of and discourse about accommoda-tion now threatens to undermine this original goal.CMC has been assigned central status in the restructur-ing of the workplace. But its adoption potentially re-verses policies of inclusion by substituting home-boundlabor for physical and social changes in the workplace.While telecommuting offers superb opportunities forpeople with disabilities to earn a living, it simultaneouslyrisks normalizing their physical isolation.

The design professions, so prominent in debatesabout barrier removal and architectural accessibility,have not addressed the question of how new forms ofvirtual integration interact with older concepts of phys-ical redesign. Despite an expanding scholarly literatureon the relationships between transportation and com-munications, between physical and virtual space, schol-ars and practitioners are nearly absent from contempo-rary discussions that hold the potential to redefine thefundamental ideal of integration (Bennett, 1999; Cranget al., 1999; Drucker & Gumpert, 1991; Graham & Mar-vin, 1996; Light, 1999; Mitchell, 1995; Nilles et al., 1976;Webber, 1964; Willis, 1996; Zatz, 1998). The questionof whether virtual and physical integration are inter-changeable is not merely academic or theoretical. Courtshave agreed in general terms that telecommutingconstitutes a workplace accommodation under theAmericans with Disabilities Act (ADA), although rulingshave split as to the obligation of specific employers tooffer this option (Head, 1999; Weitzman & McKenna,1995).2 Recent amendments to rehabilitation policyare introducing new concepts of integrated settingsbased on CMC. And a variety of employers and rehabili-tation specialists are transforming these principles intopractice. This article thus urges planners to join thedebate.

The sections that follow examine the risk that re-liance on CMC for inclusion of workers with disabilitieswill supplant efforts toward universal access, which his-torically planners have interpreted as requiring the re-duction of physical barriers. The first section summa-rizes data on growth in home-based employment andlevels of unemployment among people with physical dis-abilities. It notes the broad support for bringing peoplewith physical disabilities into the labor force both forhigh-tech jobs and through high-tech means. The sec-ond section describes changing notions of “reasonableaccommodation” for employment as a foundation forgrappling with trade-offs between new technologies andreduction of environmental constraints. Specifically, Ifocus on how rehabilitation specialists think about ac-cess to employment. In the third section, I use insights

from the history and sociology of technology and theconstruction of public problems to explore the conse-quences of applying simple solutions to complex reali-ties. We see how within our existing policy landscape,computer-mediated work poses the risk of exacerbatingthe problem is it being adopted to solve.

Telecommuting on the Rise inTheory and Practice

The idea that communications infrastructure mightoffer alternatives to older transportation networks, cre-ate new spaces of interaction, and transform the homefrom a private space into an information terminal is notunique to the Information Age. Since the 19th and early20th centuries, science fiction writers and technologicalforecasters have explored visions of a future where com-munications and information services bring the worldof work and entertainment to the home (Atkins, 1955;Bellamy, 1888; Canto & Faliu, 1993; Forster, 1947; Las-zlo, 1951; Russ, 1987).

As technological developments including the explo-sive growth of the Internet have transformed travel bycommunications into reality, a broad base of scholarshipon telecommuting and telework has followed (Baran &Greenberger, 1967; Jones, 1973; Salomon, 1985). Re-search finds broad benefits for both employers and em-ployees (Boghani, 1992; National Economic ResearchAssociates, 1997; Nilles, 1988; Sissine, 1990; Van Reisen& Tacken, 1995; Work and Family Programs Center,1997). Benefits to employers cited include cost savingson reduced office space and parking, energy conserva-tion, increased productivity, and employee retention.Benefits to employees include reduced traffic accidents,roadway congestion, air pollution, and time spent com-muting, as well as flexible work scheduling that facili-tates balancing work and family commitments.

Profiles of America’s workforce indicate that home-based employment is on the rise. According to the May1997 Current Population Survey, over 18% of the 112million Americans in the labor force worked at home,with 60% of these workers making use of a computer fortheir home-based work (Bureau of Labor Statistics,1998). Statistics on the number of active telecommutersvary widely, reflecting differences in assumptions anddefinitions (e.g., number of days per month or weekworked at home, technologies used).3 Margaret Ambry(1988) reported in American Demographics that the num-ber of people working at home in some respect was 25million in 1988, with 35% of these owning a personalcomputer. Morrison and Saveri (1991) estimated a fig-ure of 15 million in 1991. Kisor (1991) reported on 500companies with telecommuting programs in place and

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1 million full- and part-time telecommuters in 1991.FIND/SVP, a New York market research firm, put thenumber of home workers at 11 million in 1997, up from4 million in 1990 and 8.5 million in 1995 (TelecommuteAmerica, 1997). The Midwest Institute for Telecommut-ing Education (2000) cites data that in 1999 nearly 20million were telecommuting at least one day per month,with 80% of those doing so 1–3 days per week. Whatthese inconsistent studies consistently agree on is thatcomputer-mediated employment is on the rise, and thatmore employers will offer remote access work options astechnologies improve (Pratt, 1997).

Special Benefits for People withDisabilities

The trend towards telecommuting for all workers,frequently characterized as a highly progressive innova-tion in work organization, holds special appeal for work-ers with disabilities. If brains, not brawn, are the foun-dation of work skills for the new economy, then peoplewith physical impairments can be competitive with theirable-bodied colleagues. In a robust economy with lowunemployment and such strong demand for high-techworkers that employers want to alter visa restrictions inorder to import a labor force from overseas, people withdisabilities constitute a national resource that remainsuntapped. Figures from the 2000 Harris Surveys bearthis out, estimating that 32% of people with disabilitiesage 18–64 are employed, compared to 81% in the generalpopulation. And this unemployed 68% are a willingworkforce. Two out of three people with disabilities ofworking age who were not working said they would liketo work (Louis Harris and Associates, 2000).4

For people with disabilities, as for the entire Ameri-can workforce, signs points toward the increasing pop-ularity of computer-mediated employment in theoryand practice.5 Programs in business, government, andthe nonprofit sector are pushing to make such employ-ment options a reality (see Table 1 for illustrative exam-ples). These initiatives find increasing legitimacy inchanging conceptions of reasonable accommodation, thelegal term for integrating Americans with disabilitiesinto mainstream society. While individual employers arenot required to offer a telecommuting option in caseswhere no comparable employee telecommutes or if pres-ence is an essential function of the job, courts haveagreed in general terms that telecommuting does con-stitute a workplace accommodation. This suggests thatas more organizations implement telecommuting pro-grams, telecommuting for workers with and without dis-abilities will grow.

A Parallel Debate About Access andEmployment

Why should the trend towards increasing the num-ber of workers with disabilities who telecommute con-cern the planning community? It matters because newaccommodation options emerging in virtual space areaffecting perceptions of barriers in physical space. Overthe past three decades, rehabilitation policy has quietlyintersected with issues of critical concern to the designprofessions. Architects and planners largely understandaccessibility to be a question about physical space. Yetin the rehabilitation community, discussions about newtechnologies have redefined access to include virtual

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TABLE 1. A sample of initiatives to facilitate the use of CMC among people with disabilities.

Sector Sponsor Project

State State of Florida State Employee Telecommuting Act; encourages telecommuting amongemployees

Nonprofit Midwest Institute for Web site <http://www.mite.org>; offers information for employers and case Telecommuting Education studies of employees with disabilities

Corporate Owens Computer Group Operates software development program with telecommuting employees;works with Rehabilitation Training Center at Virginia CommonwealthUniversity

Political George W. Bush Proposed the New Freedom Initiative; $880 million to facilitate job access for presidential campaign people with disabilities through technology

Political Clinton administration Proposed an Office of Disability Policy, Evaluation, and Technical Assistancefor the Department of Labor; FY 2001 budget includes $20.446 million tocoordinate federal programs for people with disabilities

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space. Rehabilitation specialists’ alternative views on ac-cessibility, independence, and accommodation have re-mained isolated from related discussions in architectureand planning.

A Brief History of ReasonableAccommodation from City Space toCyberspace

Reasonable accommodation should be understood as alegal term for the broader ideal of integration for peoplewith disabilities. Institutionalized care and incomemaintenance programs, two predominant policy ap-proaches to disability in the first half of the 20th cen-tury, were reinterpreted in the 1970s as undesirably seg-regating people with disabilities from the rest of thepopulation (Berkowitz, 1987; Scotch, 1984; Stone,1984). The Rehabilitation Act of 1973, also referred toas the Civil Rights Act of the Handicapped, identified thebroad need for American society to begin mainstreamingits citizens with disabilities and created generalizedguidelines on how to do so. Reasonable accommodationfocused, at its origins, on architectural barriers. It soughtto eliminate existing barriers and to prevent new onesfrom being built. In 1973, reasonable accommodationconstituted a middle ground between costly total envi-ronmental redesign and the inaccessible status quo. Fed-eral requirements under this legislation extended onlyto government-funded buildings.6

The same Rehabilitation Act of 1973 that developedreasonable accommodation is also known to the reha-bilitation community for simultaneously launching vo-cational rehabilitation and rehabilitation engineeringinto the electronic age.7 Alongside the architectural pro-visions of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 came technol-ogy- and employment-related legislation. Support foremploying people with severe physical impairments andfor computer-based assistive technologies were codifiedin this legislation. The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 estab-lished a federal Office of the Severely Disabled, openingvocational rehabilitation programs to people with severephysical disabilities who were previously excluded. It alsomoved federal money into university-based Rehabili-tation Engineering Centers (RECs), research centerscharged with creating and evaluating assistive technolo-gies ranging from wheelchairs to desktop robots.

While the rhetoric of telecommuting as reasonableaccommodation postdates the ADA, the belief that CMCcan integrate Americans with disabilities into the laborforce is in fact much older. As early as 1973, the sameyear Jack Nilles coined the term telecommuting (U.S. De-partment of Transportation, 1993), advocates of em-ployment for people with physical impairments were

suggesting that computer-based employment at homemight constitute a form of integration. In a special issueof Rehabilitation Record (a publication of the Rehabili-tation Services Administration) focusing on Automa-tion and Rehabilitation, John H. Noble, Jr., Director ofResearch and Evaluation at the Office of Planning andPolicy Development, U.S. Rehabilitation Services Ad-ministration, envisioned a distributed network for dataprocessing that workers plug into remotely: “Time-shar-ing computers and remote-access consoles, of course,make it possible for homebound persons to plug in andbecome part of the data-processing services network”(Noble, 1973, p. 8).

Computer-mediated employment became a popu-lar topic at conferences sponsored by the RehabilitationEngineering Society of North America (RESNA, now theRehabilitation Engineering and Assistive TechnologySociety of North America) and the Institute of Electricaland Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in the 1980s.8 For ex-ample, in her keynote address to a 1980 meeting, Mar-garet Giannini, Director of the National Institute ofHandicap Research, praised interactions through tele-phone, fax, and computer:

Far from the traditional homebound activitiessuch as sewing or doing craftwork, the handi-capped individual today can be engaged in suchfields as data processing, accounting and book-keeping where there is greater outside contactthrough telephone, telefascimile and computer ter-minal as well as the chance for gainful professionalemployment. . . . In early work done at the GeorgeWashington University Research and TrainingCenter by Dr. Irene Tamagna and Thomas Shwor-les, it was concluded that given a job, the handi-capped person increases his human contact gain-ing a sense of worth and some extra dollars whichactually lead to greater mobility. (Giannini, 1980,p. 3)

Telework entered the common vocabulary in theearly 1980s. The impact was significant enough that by1984, proponents were able to argue that CMC hadchanged the way many workers, not just those with dis-abilities, conceptualized the boundaries of the work-place. According to Wilfrid Race (1984) of the Commu-nications Division of the Workers’ Compensation Boardof Ontario:

Perhaps the most dynamic aspect of the develop-ment of sophisticated electronic aids is not merelythe vocational opportunities that they afford, butrather the equalizing affect [sic] that they have byhelping to diminish the social gulf that exists be-

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tween disabled and non-disabled people. Comput-ers and other electronic equipment are changingthe employment patterns of large numbers ofworkers, and some sociologists foresee the daywhen the home will also become the office. Havingall employees “on the premises” will no longer besuch a firm requirement. (p. 180)

While testimonials from the 1970s and 1980s didnot use contemporary terms such as virtual office or virtualcommunity, enthusiasts like Noble, Giannini, and Racestressed that technologically mediated interactions ex-panded social networks and increased a person’s mobil-ity. Giannini and Race suggested that home-based em-ployment was becoming increasingly destigmatized, andpointed out how its very expansion to the commonplacemade it a form of integration as opposed to isolation.Requiring an employee to be physically present was nolonger necessary for many jobs (Smith, 1995).

Lawmakers further expanded reasonable accommo-dation in 1986. Foreshadowing later debates aboutwhether telecommuting reasonably accommodatestoday’s workforce, a set of 1986 amendments to the Re-habilitation Act stretched the definition of reasonableaccommodation beyond a specifically architectural con-text. Section 508, Public Law 99-506, declared that fed-eral funds could not be used to purchase any nonacces-sible electronic office equipment. Technologies such ascomputers, software, fax machines, telecommunicationsdevices, and other data processing machines becamesubject to reasonable accommodation provisions. Sec-tion 508 emphasized the growing importance of tech-nology for people with disabilities, a focus on technologythat was further strengthened by the $36.1 million in al-locations of the 1988 “Tech Act,” the Technology-Re-lated Assistance for Individuals with Disabilities Act, de-signed to develop state-centered assistive technologynetworks.

Most recently, the Americans with Disabilities Actof 1990 has widened regulations about accessibility. Pri-vate businesses now must demonstrate reasonableefforts to make their sites and services accessible to peo-ple with a wide array of impairments. Financial incen-tives such as tax credits are intended to stimulate com-pliance with a law that lacks formal inspections (Kear-ney, 1995). In the workplace, reasonable accommoda-tion now remains a flexible, if vaguely defined, concept.9

It explicitly includes physical barrier removal (such aswidening doorways and aisles or building ramps) andchanges in how work is organized (e.g., timing of workhours), and it encourages the use of assistive technology.While the law extends far beyond the boundaries of theworkplace, a central focus is bringing more Americans

with disabilities into the country’s labor force (Null,1996).

Virtual IntegrationA legalistic approach focusing on reasonable accom-

modation is one major stimulus for promoting CMC useamong workers with disabilities. Yet it is not the only ap-proach. Expressions of virtual integration that explicitlyavoid legal jargon are prominent alternatives that matchup equally well with the history I have described. For ex-ample, in conjunction with the President’s Committeeon the Employment of People with Disabilities, the Na-tional Telecommuting Institute in Boston, an organiza-tion affiliated with MIT and Boston University, aims toconvince employers to hire homebound individuals(Moskowitz, n.d.). State vocational rehabilitation pro-grams will pay for the necessary computer equipment,and through universal service agreements, it will not costthe company extra—cost being a frequent fear that im-pedes employing people with disabilities.

In a similar spirit, 1998 Amendments to the Reha-bilitation Act specifically mandate increasing access toinformation technology. The Senate’s version of theamendments included Projects in Telecommuting andSelf-Employment for Individuals with Disabilities asPart A within Title VI, Employment Opportunities forIndividuals with Disabilities. The bill authorized a $10million appropriation for fiscal year 1998 and projectedits viability through fiscal year 2004. While the final ver-sion of the bill omitted Part A, it is worth noting how theCongressional authors rhetorically characterized tele-commuting as a transportation issue:

Telecommuting is one of the most rapidly expand-ing forms of employment. . . . It is in the best inter-est of the United States to ensure that individualswith disabilities have access to telecommuting em-ployment opportunities. . . . It is in the interest ofemployers to recognize that individuals with dis-abilities are excellent candidates for telecommut-ing employment opportunities. Individuals withdisabilities, especially those living in rural areas,often do not have access to accessible transporta-tion, and in such cases telecommuting presents anexcellent opportunity for the employment of suchindividuals. (Senate Committee on Labor andHuman Resources, 1998)

The reasoning behind this legal provision is clear.According to the Congressional authors, telecommut-ing offers an alternative to physical transportation. No-tably—particularly because it is a revision of the very Actthat created the terminology of reasonable accommoda-tion—the document judiciously employs the synonym in-

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tegrated setting and avoids the use of the original expres-sion. The Congressional authors of this statute explainthis word choice as follows:

The term “integrated setting” as referencedthroughout the statute, is intended to mean a worksetting in a typical labor market where people withdisabilities engage in typical daily work patternswith co-workers who do not have disabilities; andwhere workers with disabilities are not congre-gated. It is the committee’s intent that this defini-tion include telecommuting or other home-basedor self-employment. (Senate Committee on Laborand Human Resources, 1998)

So we see that by defining integrated setting in non-physical terms, it becomes possible to support telecom-muting as reasonable accommodation without specifi-cally talking about reasonable accommodation. Thisword play may have been a strategic option in today’slegislative landscape where this issue is being adjudi-cated in a series of court cases.

A New Challenge for Planners in theInformation Age

Understanding these historical transformations inthe broad concept of integration and in the legal defini-tion of reasonable accommodation is important becausethey raise the possibility of telecommuting and CMC asoptions for accommodating workers with physical dis-abilities in the Information Age. Planners and designprofessionals should understand this as a parallel intel-lectual tradition with an alternative construction of the“problem” of disability and its solution. At present, theseare parallel discussions which do not intersect. Yet plan-ners and design professionals with expertise in the “me-dium” of physical space and an environmentally focusedconception of disability have much to offer the engi-neers, policymakers, rehabilitation specialists, and busi-nesspeople who create and promote the use of these newmedia for interaction, particularly when discussions oftelecommunications characterize technologically medi-ated work options as virtual meeting spaces, alternative

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FIGURE 1. Key federal legislation regarding reasonable accommodation.

Architectural Barriers Act (1968)Requires facilities designed, built, altered, or leased with federal funds to be accessible to people with disabilities.

Rehabilitation Act (1973)Origin of “reasonable accommodation.” Prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities in federalagencies and in programs receiving federal funds. Established partnership between federal and state govern-ments for vocational rehabilitation. Its five titles include Vocational Rehabilitation Services, Research and Train-ing, Special Federal Responsibilities, Administration and Program and Project Evaluation, and Miscellaneous.

Amendments to the Rehabilitation Act, Section 508 (1986)Expands reasonable accommodation to electronic and information technology. Requires that when federalagencies develop, procure, maintain, or use electronic and information technology, employees with disabilitiesand members of the public with disabilities seeking federal information must have access.

Technology-Related Assistance for Individuals with Disabilities Act (1988)“Tech Act” facilitates the development, evaluation, application, and delivery of assistive technology devicesand services. Provides funding to develop statewide, consumer-responsive information and training programsdesigned to meet the assistive technology needs of individuals with disabilities.

Americans with Disabilities Act (1990)Expands reasonable accommodation to prohibit discrimination on the basis of disability in the private sectorand in state and local governments. Its five titles include Employment, Public Services, Public Accommodations,Telecommunications, and Miscellaneous.

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means of transportation, and ways to integrate a diversepopulation.

Contemporary discussions about virtual integrationand telecommuting as reasonable accommodation inthe rehabilitation field offer a compelling case for thiskind of intervention. Architects and planners are wellaware that inaccessible buildings and inaccessible trans-portation remain the norm, despite 11 years since pas-sage of the ADA and a history of barrier removal legis-lation that dates back over 40 years. Discrimination isillegal, but enforcement is difficult and often requiresparticipation from the courts.

Assumptions in the rehabilitation communityabout the architectural qualities of virtual space cur-rently stand apart from any debate about how well theADA and other barrier removal mandates have been im-plemented. But planners who recognize communicationtechnologies as important, if oftentimes invisible, com-ponents of urban and regional infrastructure under-stand that innovations in virtual environments mayexert effects on the physical environment (Graham &Marvin, 1996; Handy & Mokhtarian, 1995; Widmayer &Greenberg, 1998). For example, groups such as the Na-tional League of Cities have expressed concern about theeffects of tax-free e-commerce on the bricks-and-mortarshops of less glamorous downtowns. Recognizing thesepotential effects is the first step towards effectively deal-ing with them. The following sections focus on teasingout the potentially negative effects of the trend towardstelecommuting among workers with disabilities.

The Construction of PublicProblems

The built environment has historically served as aprimary stage for defining social interaction. Yet com-munication technologies present alternative opportuni-ties for interaction, offering virtual transportation andcreating virtual meeting spaces. The changing legal def-inition of reasonable accommodation, alongside a pop-ular understanding of cyberspace as “space,” has thus farled to many gains:

Technology has also played an important role inanother trend—the emergence of the disabled en-trepreneur. Urban Miyares, the blind businessowner and founder of the Disabled Businessper-sons Association, says it has helped to level theplaying field. Increasing technology means lessface-to-face contact between companies and theirclients, so disabilities matter less. “If you’re talkingwith me on the telephone, you don’t have a cluewhat my disabilities are, so there’s no way you can

make a judgment based on an observance of me,”says Miyares. “This can be a tremendous advantagefor those with disabilities.” (Mergenhagen, 1997,p. 42)

It is easy to focus on the clear benefits of this ex-panded definition. Government policies and individualemployers promote telecommuting as a cost-saving ac-cessibility modification. Individual workers with dis-abilities testify enthusiastically about the option ofworking from home. Decisions about reasonable accom-modation proceed on a case-by-case basis, made jointlyby employer and employee. This broad-based support isinspiring, yet it merits some critical reflection.

How might increasing the number of people withdisabilities who telecommute to work alleviate publicand private sector commitments to altering the built en-vironment? What is the interaction between implemen-tation of architectural barrier removal or improvedmeans of accessible transportation and support forworking from home? Policymakers need to think explic-itly about the trade-offs between telecommuting andCMC as opening a new world of virtual employment op-portunities for citizens with disabilities, and the possi-bility that these new virtual opportunities will derailbroader goals for modifying physical space.

Historical and sociological studies of technologybring to the table nuanced appraisals of technology’s so-cial effects. They enable us to unpack enthusiastic testi-mony from people like Urban Miyares, as quoted above,illustrating that how one defines a problem simultane-ously locates responsibility for where to intervene. Thisjuxtaposition illuminates a key idea identified by schol-ars who study the construction of social problems—thatproposed solutions can fundamentally redefine theproblem they are adopted to solve (Gusfield, 1981).

Voices from Historical and SociologicalStudies of Technology

In their portrayals of technology, historians and so-ciologists of technology generally diverge from the pos-itivist assumptions that dominate medical and engi-neering practice. Particularly relevant here is researchinvestigating the mismatch between utopian fantasiesabout technology and the actual effects of technologi-cal devices and systems. Historians and sociologistschronicling Americans’ attitudes towards new deviceshave identified several common threads that endureacross time and several different technologies. Whetherthe technology is telephone, cinema, television, Internet,train, automobile, or airplane, time and again observersproject the same optimistic claims onto new devices(Segal, 1985). The belief that telecommuting can inte-

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grate people with disabilities into the American laborforce aligns with key narratives in this tradition.

For example, forecasters of technology’s social ef-fects often stress how a new device will bring together di-verse individuals in new forms of association (Corn,1983; Douglas, 1986; Fritzsche, 1992; Kramarae, 1988;Rheingold, 1993; Sproull & Kiesler, 1991). Another pop-ular interpretive framework focuses on a particular tech-nology’s ability to liberate disadvantaged groups, or todemocratize experience for people with different levelsof resources (de Certeau, 1984; Haraway, 1991; Marvin,1987; Scharff, 1991). Similarly, technology and inde-pendence is a connection easily made (Adam, 1994; Din-widdle, 1984; Horton, 1993; McConnel, 1986; O’Neal,1992; Seelman, 1993; Sheldon & Hager, 1997; Varghese,1995). Communications and transportation technolo-gies are especially frequent mirrors for these desires.

Historical and sociological studies of technologymake us aware that this enthusiastic reception revealsfar more about the assumptions of technological en-thusiasts than about the realities of any single technol-ogy. Technologies are complex artifacts, and an array ofinteractions makes it difficult for any technology to haveunidirectional or uniformly positive effects (Fischer,1992). The extensive literature that examines the impactof new technologies strongly suggests we should pausebefore quickly assuming that social divisions rooted inspace will be eliminated or even mitigated by increaseduse of CMC.

Indeed, the repeated reappearance of such utopianperspectives reflects a tendency to disregard failed pre-dictions about past devices. Simultaneously it reflects adisregard for an equally prominent, and parallel, dysto-pian tradition with radically different constructions oftechnology’s social role. For each claim about how a newtechnology will enhance independence, we can findcounterbalancing claims about how that technology willtransform workers into deskilled automata working atthe mercy of their machines—or replaced entirely by ma-chines (Bix, 2000; Chaplin, 1936; Hounshell, 1984; Mar-tin, 1987). For each claim about how technology will en-hance community, a competing interpretation describeshow new technologies will increase social fragmentationand technologically-mediated isolation (Adorno,1990/1934; Cowan, 1983; Lasch, 1995; Lynd & Lynd,1956; Nie & Erbring, 2000; Putnam, 1995; Slater, 1970;Slouka, 1996; Zimmerman, 1986). For each claim thatnew technology will enhance democratization, one canfind fearful accounts of an increasingly authoritarian,surveillance-based society (Lyon, 1994).

The rhetoric that portrays computer-mediated in-teractions as helping people with disabilities to simulta-neously achieve greater equality, independence, and in-

tegration into society revisits these optimistic narrativesabout technology while avoiding other, darker ones. Inpointing out the omission of the dystopian tradition, Ido not intend to suggest it is correct. Indeed, I welcomethe way CMC presents new work opportunities for peo-ple with disabilities. Instead, I want to stress how know-ing something about this alternative tradition high-lights how the rhetoric surrounding telecommutingrisks oversimplifying the consequences of this technol-ogy. As historical sociologist Claude Fischer (1992)points out, the effects of one technology may be miti-gated by second-order effects based on the number ofpeople who use it, or by other technologies or policieswith opposing effects. This intellectual tradition sug-gests there are better questions to ask about technology’ssocial role. A key one here is this: To what extent do tele-communications, like other assistive technologies, “re-define the disability they were meant to mitigate” (Tan-enbaum, 1986, p. 140) as they redefine the meanings ofaccessibility and independence to suit what technologycan offer?

Keeping in mind the balance of concerns raised inbroad discussions of new technologies, when we ask thisquestion we find something striking. Discussions oftechnologically-mediated work for people with disabili-ties and generalized literature on technologically-medi-ated experience come to remarkably different conclu-sions. Concerns about the potentially negative conse-quences of technology raised in broad discussions oftelecommuting and telework are not part of the conver-sation when the workers have disabilities. Three exam-ples here illustrate how such omissions implicitly rede-fine the disability they were meant to mitigate.

One omission concerns the authenticity of techno-logically-mediated interactions. Both popular and acad-emic literatures have questioned the authenticity anddepth of interactions in a virtual community, particu-larly when not reinforced by face-to-face interactions inphysical space (Foner, 1993; Turkle, 1996; Van Gelder,1985). Yet the literature on computer-mediated interac-tion for users with disabilities enthusiastically trumpetstelepresence (Vanderheiden, 1998): “With the right as-sistive technology, we can ‘stand’ in line, telecommuteto school or work. But the Information Age means more.. . . there will be many more jobs for people who processand transfer information. We don’t need to be able-bod-ied to do that!” (King, 1996, p. 9). The implication of thisperspective is that we allow technology to redefine theconcept of integrated setting.

A second omission is how the increased use of CMCrisks creating a nation of electronic hermits. Anxietiesthat technology will isolate people inside their homes, acommon warning cry in literature on technology in gen-

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eral and computer-mediated interactions in particular,almost never surface in discussions of telecommutingand disability. Rather, the same technologies that po-tentially isolate, and make invisible, able-bodied usersare precisely those portrayed as potentially expandingthe interactions of users with disabilities (Price & Kerr,1978). The critical point here, as above, is that expandingvirtual interactions does not imply expanded personal,physical interactions, either at work or at home. Ex-panded physical interactions will require engagementfrom planners and architects.

A third observation flows from alternative perspec-tives on work technology. From Marx and the factorysystem, to Henry Ford and the automobile assembly line,to email in hierarchical organizations, observers havebeen quick to characterize the introduction of new tech-nologies mitigating or exacerbating social divisions.Alongside claims about technology streamlining workprocesses are fears that efficiency measures turn work-ers into deskilled automata. Alongside narratives of lib-eration and freedom through work technologies are de-scriptions of worker enslavement and isolation (Berg,1980; Davies, 1982; Hounshell, 1984; Noble, 1984). Forreaders inclined to emphasize the potentially excitingnew employment opportunities that CMC offers, it isimportant to remember that the caveat about automataapplies. It is noteworthy that in several rounds of legis-lation full of good intentions, finding an opportunity towork is said to be synonymous with psychological andeconomic satisfaction. Yet the fact that all work is notsatisfying is not mentioned. Planners in particular willnotice that what is missing entirely from the rehabilita-tion technology literature are references to the largebody of research on telework, research that repeatedlyreports how both home-based work and group settingssuch as electronic cottages frequently maintain workers’invisibility (Dangler, 1994; Gattiker, 1994; Roulstone,1998). Indeed, the business advantages Miyares (in Mer-genhagen, 1997) describes accrue based on continuinginvisibility.

People with physical disabilities may approachequality in on-line interactions since they “leave theirbodies behind,” but the increasing push for telecom-muting has potentially contradictory outcomes. Work-ers with disabilities are just like other workers in thesense that some are highly educated and may telecom-mute in relatively high-status occupations, while othersare able to perform only repetitive, low-skill jobs. For themost highly educated, these technologies can offer op-portunities to find self-actualization and even a degree ofsocial fulfillment through employment. Yet for workerswith disabilities carrying out repetitive tasks in theirhomes, the risk of new communications technologies is

that workers’ isolation in marginal jobs may render themsocially invisible. While offering benefits of virtual mo-bility and of increased economic independence, com-puter-mediated access simultaneously redefines accessand mobility. In this way, it avoids responding directly toa serious challenge central to the work of disability ac-tivists for the past half century and a now basic defini-tion of disability according to environmental designers—that for people with disabilities, insuperable physicalbarriers create disability, and that homes, in particular,are not castles but prisons (Murphy, 1987; Rusk & Tay-lor, 1946; Weingold, 1972). Such technological band-aids allow forces that created the problem to continueexerting their effects.

ConclusionJuxtaposing these varied perspectives on technology

highlights how the conceptual glasses that academic dis-ciplines and professional fields wear occasionally obscurea larger picture. Just as planners and environmental de-signers have not yet played a role in the accessibility de-bate among rehabilitation engineers, this rehabilitationcommunity appears unaware of what is common wisdomabout disability in planning. Bringing together theseways of thinking reveals the contradictions that simpli-fied solutions generate when public problems are com-plex, and highlights how a range of solutions are appro-priate. I conclude with a few final observations aboutpublic policy, for our policy environment plays an equallycritical role in defining and redefining disability. Ongoingtensions among ways of seeing physical disability andhow to mitigate its effects are the heritage of disabilitypolicy, and it is important to understand where the en-thusiasm for telecommuting fits within this history.

Disability: An Individual or a SocialProblem?

Planners and environmental designers take a broadview of disability sensitive to its social and environmen-tal dimensions. A basic assumption is that inaccessiblespaces, both public and private, have historically main-tained the inequality and invisibility of people with phys-ical disabilities (Berkowitz, 1987; Bowe, 1973).10 Accord-ing to this view, only by fundamentally redesigning theexisting physical world will it be possible to mitigate dis-ability. This critique stands in sharp contrast to voca-tional rehabilitation’s model, an individualized, med-ically-focused view that has dominated disability policythroughout the 20th century.

It is clear with hindsight that the concept of “rea-sonable accommodation,” in its broad architectural for-mulation, grew from the belief that disability is socially

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created. By contrast, the workplace reasonable accom-modation that rehabilitation engineers describe today isfocused on individuals and case-by-case decisions. In thiscontext, CMC risks narrowly redefining the way em-ployers and the courts think about mobility, access, in-tegration, and independence.

Indeed, consider the concept of an “integrated set-ting” outlined earlier. This legislation makes virtual en-vironments accessible, yet does nothing about accessoutside the home. It defines “integrated setting” in a waythat excludes warehousing workers in a sheltered work-shop but includes isolating those same workers at home.Certainly there are some homebound, even bedbound,individuals who cannot or prefer not to work away fromhome. Yet they do not constitute the entire populationof people with physical disabilities.

There is a long history of isolating workers with dis-abilities (Weiss, 1986). Technically, sheltered workshopsare contrary to the aims of the ADA. Yet it is worth not-ing that alongside its promotion of home-based tele-commuting, the Department of Labor created and fi-nanced a telecommuting center for employees with dis-abilities at the Division of Employment Security in St.Louis. The center, which opened in 1999, hires workerswhose employment options are limited by existing pub-lic transportation infrastructure. The center provides ac-cessible transportation to its workforce (“Adults withDisabilities,” 1999).

Is it possible that the invisibility of case-by-case de-cisions on reasonable accommodation, even if each caseis resolved in a satisfactory way for an individual, will inthe aggregate result in the negative collective conse-quences of exacerbating invisibility and perpetuatingmobility problems of more people with disabilities? Thisquestion is rarely raised. I hope planners will begin toraise it. Modifying access to the workplace by encourag-ing telecommuting does little to improve the visibilityof people with disabilities in the public sphere—a long-standing goal of both design professionals and peoplewith disabilities.

In 1976, the American Society of Landscape Archi-tects Foundation emphasized the value of disability poli-cies that stress both vocational rehabilitation and phys-ical barrier removal:

If the handicapped cannot enter and use publicbuildings, they cannot easily vote, obtain govern-ment services, conduct business, or become inde-pendent and self-supporting. Efforts to enhancetalents and market job skills become meaninglesswhen the job site and usual places of business areinaccessible. (American Society of Landscape Ar-chitects Foundation, 1976, p. 10)

This insight remains remarkably relevant for the infor-mation age.

Disability: An Economic or a Civil RightsIssue?

Historically, economic concerns have shaped gov-ernmental response to disability (Bowe, 1978; Fein, 1996;Gritzer & Arluke, 1985; Maliken & Rusalem, 1969;Oliver, 1996). Rehabilitation policies and practices priorto the 1970s took a vocational emphasis, training indi-viduals with disabilities to work. This vocational em-phasis persists in policy today. For example, state spon-sorship for assistive devices requires that they fit anarrow framework of medical or vocational necessity. Inthe 1960s, challenges from activists in the IndependentLiving Movement (ILM) began to demand more fromthe public sector. They argued it is appropriate for gov-ernment to help people with disabilities lead successfullives beyond just earning a living in isolated physical cir-cumstances. The ILM focused its political efforts on re-shaping the rehabilitation paradigm so that even peoplewith the most severe physical disabilities could live out-side institutional settings.

Policymakers have brought together such economicand civil rights concerns in recent legislation such as theADA, which pleases both economic conservatives favor-ing reduced social spending and social liberals who seedisability as a civil rights issue. It is striking that theADA, hailed as revolutionary civil rights legislation, is si-multaneously an economically conservative policy.11

While observers argue as to exact figures, agreement iswidespread that the U.S. loses billions of dollars annu-ally when potentially productive citizens, eager to be-come employed, are excluded from the economy (Berko-witz, 1987; Berkowitz et al., 1988; Imrie, 1996; Kemp,1991; Null, 1996). Both the Republican Administrationand the Democratic Congress that passed the ADA rec-ognized that losing productive output from people withdisabilities was costly to taxpayers (Berkowitz & Hill,1986).

Understanding this historical context highlightshow CMC addresses the issues of independence and mo-bility in a limited way. The rhetoric of computer-medi-ated employment for Americans with disabilities is re-plete with descriptions of self-actualization and psycho-logical independence (Bowe, 1984; Heckathorne et al.,1980; “IMPART,” 1981). Yet while CMC offers access toe-commerce, virtual libraries, and friends via email, ulti-mately its primary contribution to Americans with dis-abilities is economic. Telecommuting is an individual-ized, cost-saving, workplace accommodation that makesa great contribution to an individual’s vocational par-ticipation in society. Yet viewing it from a civil rights per-

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spective reveals its less examined downside—that tele-commuting contributes remarkably little to opening upenvironments beyond the workplace. Promoting poli-cies such as Title VI-A’s integrated settings ignores thattransportation or a reengineered physical environmentcan be used for far more than getting to work. An un-spoken risk of increased telecommuting, particularlygiven its comparatively low cost, is the potential diminu-tion in reshaping physical spaces to transform the livesof citizens with disabilities and to integrate them morefully into American life.12 Independence for citizens withdisabilities will not equal independence for the able bod-ied when there is a whole world outside individualhomes that is only minimally accessible.

Final ThoughtsAccording to the law, physical disabilities present

multifaceted dilemmas, requiring a range of solutions.In this context, whether an employee telecommutesshould be independent of whether a business has an ele-vator and widened doorways or a ramp to get inside.Telecommuting has great potential to supplement ex-isting laws and provisions for architectural barrier ac-cessibility. Yet without explicit efforts from design pro-fessionals to articulate its benefits in the context of—notas an alternative to—architectural strategies, economicconcerns may lead to substitution (See Buchen et al.,1998; Roulstone, 1998). A potential consequence of thisstate of affairs is that workers with disabilities broughtinto the labor force through CMC may remain separateand unequal.

Certainly it is not an active intent of employers orusers with disabilities to promote isolation, but it is apotential consequence of the decision to use these tech-nologies. Settling cases individual by individual, as theADA mandates, we may end up with many telecom-muters and reduced pressure to prompt swift physicalredesign. This fear becomes real when we consider thehistory of how much, or rather how little, barrier re-moval legislation has been enforced (Collignon, 1986;De Jong & Lifchez, 1983; Gray, n.d.).

Laws for architectural barrier removal and accessi-ble transportation systems date back several decades. Yetthese laws were often little more than guidelines with noregulatory agency enforcing them, making implementa-tion highly uneven. ADA is civil rights law and is not en-forced by an inspector but rather by the Equal Employ-ment Opportunity Commission. Numerous cases can befound of businesses not changing until forced to do soby a lawsuit. For example, by 1999, Greyhound Bus hadnot purchased a single bus with a wheelchair lift.

This persistent history of loopholes and lax enforce-ment demonstrates the continuing unwillingness of pri-

vate industry to budget for environmental changes andthe collusion of the existing public policy framework.The upshot is that theoretical equality in American so-ciety does not match up with practice (De Jong & Lif-chez, 1983; Farber, 1975; Effectiveness of the Architec-tural Barriers Act, 1976; U.S. General Accounting Office,1975). Following decades of barrier removal legislation,surveys of people with physical disabilities have contin-ued to rank mobility at the top of their list of barriers toequality.13 With buildings and busses still not equippedfor their needs, severe physical disability remains, in largemeasure, a private, individual matter. Thus the push forvirtual mobility may integrate workers in some respects,but they remain segregated in other important ways.

Insights from the history and sociology of technol-ogy and the construction of public problems enable usto see how policies that encourage the adoption of tech-nologies are redefining the problem of mobility to be anonphysical one, when in fact physical disability is itselfconstituted at the interface of the environment and thehuman body. By redefining reasonable accommodationand integration, telecommuting may unfortunately re-lieve some of the pressure on the enforcement of what islegally required under the ADA and other laws in termsof environmental barrier reduction. It is critical that theplanning community not allow new CMC to displacebroad definitions of mobility, access, and independence,or efforts to alter physical spaces. Planners must join thediscussion about CMC so we do not forget older goals ofcollective physical integration as we move towards an in-formation-based society.

As planners reflect on the increasing use of CMC bypeople with disabilities, I believe the key to understand-ing its impact is to remember that while it provides im-portant benefits, such technological solutions have po-tentially contradictory effects. The risk is that an excitingnew technology, with genuine benefits, will take our eyesoff the broad purpose of the ADA, which is to increasethe mobility and visibility of people with disabilitieswherever possible.

Relationships between civil rights and economicsare complex. Yet a warning bell should sound whenchampions of telecommuting promote it as a cost-sav-ing alternative to office redesign or to accessible trans-portation. That warning bell should sound especially forplanners, architects, and environmental designers. Itwould be tragic if the clear short-term economic bene-fits of CMC led to a diminution in long-term physicaland environmental planning for people with disabilities,with the consequence that CMC exacerbates part of theproblem it was originally adopted to solve.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks to Peter Buck, the editors, and four anonymous refer-ees for their comments on an earlier version of this article.

NOTES

1. Thomas Schmokel, himself a person with a disability andhead of home-based ADA Consultants/Network Con-sulting, cites a quadriplegic whose morning preparationsand commute take 4 hours a day. In addition to timesaved by replacing the physical commute with a virtualone, he argues, “If more people with disabilities were hiredand allowed to telecommute, costs of office renovationscould be reduced tremendously” (Shields, 1999). See alsopraise from the editor of Mainstream, a magazine for peo-ple with disabilities, in Perry (1994). Audrey E. Smith(1995) has argued in favor of telecommuting as reason-able accommodation, suggesting that employers who donot meet this criterion are discriminating against peoplewith disabilities.

2. According to the jury in one California case, telecommut-ing one day a week could be considered reasonable ac-commodation for a Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) em-ployee with a back injury (Faircloth v. BART, 1997). Bycontrast, another case found that working at home for aparaplegic with pressure ulcers could not be consideredreasonable accommodation (Vande Zande v. Wisconsin De-partment of Administration, 1995). Yet another case, Carr v.Reno (1994), seemed to make the assumption that tele-commuting constituted reasonable accommodation. Seealso Anzalone v. Allstate Insurance Co. (1995), Langon v. De-partment of Health and Human Services (1992), and Whillockv. Delta Airlines (1995).

3. For the purposes of this essay, I use telecommuting tomean that information and communications technologiesare applied to enable work to be done at a distance fromthe place where the work conventionally would be done.

4. These statistics come from surveys by NOD/Harris Asso-ciates (see <http://www.nod.org/hs2000.html>). For spe-cific numbers, divided by occupational categories, see<http://www.icdi.wvu.edu/disability/ustabl3.html>(Louis Harris and Associates, 2000). Note that the surveysdo not make a distinction between physical and cognitivedisabilities.

5. While some have argued that information technology re-mains inaccessible in design and in cost to people withdisabilities (Kaye, 2000), other evidence presented heresuggests that the number of people with disabilities usingtelecommunications in employment is in fact on the rise.Exact statistics are unavailable, since present statistics onthe aggregate workforce of telecommuters do not sepa-rate workers by disability, and employment figures forworkers with disabilities do not identify employees whouse telecommuting to conduct some part of their job.Many employers require signed agreements from em-ployees who telecommute, but this valuable data sourcehas yet to be mined.

6. Individual states approached the issue of standards de-velopment quite distinctly, and these differences in stan-dards persist (Baker, 1967; Michigan Center for a Barrier-Free Environment, 1976; National Commission onArchitectural Barriers to Rehabilitation of the Handi-capped, 1967). State codes override federal legislation onlyif they are more stringent.

7. It also provided impetus for the changing self-definitionof people with disabilities as a class. Previous political ac-tivism focused on individual diseases or impairments.

8. The coalition of research and advocacy in this area wasand continues to be extremely broad. In the 1970s andearly 1980s, groups devoted to advancing outcomes at theintersection of computers, communications, disability,work, and independence included researchers at federallyfunded RECs; industry groups, such as the Electronic In-dustries Association (which formed the Electronic Indus-tries Foundation in 1975 to help businesses hire workerswith disabilities in computer related jobs); and advocacygroups for people with disabilities, such as the Associa-tion of Rehabilitation Programs in Computer Technol-ogy, founded in 1978 to promote the employment of peo-ple with disabilities in the U.S. and Canada. Conferencessuch as the First National Search for Applications of Per-sonal Computing to Aid the Handicapped, which debutedin 1981, brought these organizations together.

9. Like its predecessors, rather than mandate specific acces-sibility requirements, the ADA has Accessibility Guide-lines. While written like a building code, they do not havethe same power. There is no simple explanation for thelax enforcement of such a variety of laws. Fears of peoplewith disabilities are one reason; fear of cost is another.While the Independent Living Movement and vocationalrehabilitation programs offered potential cost savingsthrough deinstitutionalization and reduced demands onincome maintenance programs, the broader demands ofbarrier removal seemed prohibitively costly.

10. Such perspectives, which first emerged in the 1950s,reconceptualized the very notion of disability. Proponentsstressed that while individuals may be impaired, disabilityis socially created—the environment itself defines who is aperson with a disability, and spaces could be more or less“disabling.” Early advocacy for architectural barrier re-moval and accessible transportation came from the Na-tional Easter Seal Society for Crippled Children andAdults, which established an Architectural Barriers Com-mittee in 1954. In cooperation with the President’s Com-mission on Employment of the Physically Handicapped,this group helped to develop American National Stan-dards Institute guidelines 117.1 in 1961, Specificationsfor Making Buildings and Facilities Accessible to, and Us-able By, the Physically Handicapped. The ArchitecturalBarriers Act (1968) was the first requirement for accessiblepublic buildings.

11. This is possible in a society where work can be conceivedof both as an individual good and a social good across thepolitical spectrum. Enthusiasm for computers in an em-ployment context, particularly in America, has broad psy-

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chological and social implications. For people with dis-abilities, often unable to hold a job and widely perceivedas dependent on the state, employment spells economicindependence and improved self-esteem in a society wherethe answer to “So, what do you do?” is important to socialstatus. Studies find people with severe disabilities to haveamong the lowest turnover in employment. For an his-torical account of how Americans have equated work andcitizenship, work and good character, and work and in-dependence, see Rodgers (1978).

12. Does access to the virtual mall for e-commerce equal ac-cess to its physical equivalent, the shopping mall? Willthis be the next step for reasonable accommodation? Ifwe redefine work access accommodation, what’s next?Will the rise of online shopping and home delivery meanthat it is a reasonable accommodation for shoppers withdisabilities? This would cost stores a great deal less thanwidening store aisles and reducing profit per square foot.

13. According to the Fourth Annual Independent Living Con-sumer Survey, people with disabilities rate “mobility” asthe most significant barrier to independent living (Imrie,1996, p. 18).

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