Coding bootcamp broke the law. How to get into tech?
“We can’t.” I said, that's illegal. (I live in the US. ADA mandates compliance.)
“OK, we will work on getting you access.” So I paid them.
“lol, kidding! No interpreters - voice-to-text software instead!”
Oh hell no. But I had already paid. & maybe I was wrong?
Nope. First day of class, four hours of this:
"GodzillaYeah crazy Yeah like the class What are you going to Google Good morning Would you park music So I can count fast But just in case Or have an hour and a half two hours I think it's healthy right now near me Safe mode emails or talk to each other on slack make friends you guys help each other out the if you want to talk to me"
Tried two technologies: Google Docs voice-to-text & Dragon NaturallySpeaking. Dragon was a lil better; both were awful for someone relying on them to understand speech.
Other problems:
* Needed to keep window focus on the doc that the software was transcribing into. If tabbed away, software would a. stop transcribing (Google Docs) or b. transcribe into the new window (Dragon). So couldn’t work along w/ exercises.
* The software did not pick up what other students said; they were out of range of the mic. This is a participation-based class.
* Dragon is designed for blind people, so it can execute commands on their behalf. Great for them. Not so great in this situation. Remember how I said we were working in the command line? The instructor was reading out very basic but very dangerous commands such as `rm -rf.` Thankfully, nothing happened, but ugh.
~
tl;dr I had to drop out of bootcamp because no interpreters. Money refunded but I am filing complaints. They’re partnered w/ a university; fairly strict rules around ADA + funding.
Now I'm trying to figure out what to do. Have you ever been in this situation? What did you do? And how the hell can I get into tech?
31 comments
[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 68.8 ms ] thread1) It isn't the bootcamp's fault that speech to text software sucks. 2) What is the state of affairs that would have made the situation better for you? Either (1) they write their own non-sucky speech to text software or (2) they hire a whole new interpreter just for you and only for the duration of the camp. Neither of these things are financially or logistically reasonable expectations. 3) Bootcamps aren't a golden ticket into tech. Build your own portfolio of projects and you will be just as hirable as fresh bootcamp grads.
UC Berkeley had an online public library of lectures but it wasn't subtitled. When someone used the ADA to sue, Berkeley was faced with the enormous cost to either subtitle their entire library or take it down. Of course, they took it down, and now nobody can access the lectures. Don't be the person who burns down someone else's house just because you don't have one.
"For people who are deaf, have hearing loss, or are deaf-blind, this includes providing a qualified notetaker; a qualified sign language interpreter, oral interpreter, cued-speech interpreter, or tactile interpreter; real-time captioning; written materials; or a printed script of a stock speech (such as given on a museum or historic house tour). A “qualified” interpreter means someone who is able to interpret effectively, accurately, and impartially, both receptively (i.e., understanding what the person with the disability is saying) and expressively (i.e., having the skill needed to convey information back to that person) using any necessary specialized vocabulary."
Source: https://www.ada.gov/effective-comm.htm
They could have complied by hiring an interpreter or even simply writing captions for the lecture, but they decided to violate the law instead.
Also,
> Don't be the person who burns down someone else's house just because you don't have one.
is absolutely disgusting. The ADA exists because, as a society, we decided to make life accessible for disabled people. One day you'll get hurt, and you'll learn how important reasonable accommodations are.
It may be reasonable for large institutions to have dedicated personnel for less than one percent of their customers given that their customer base is so large. That calculation becomes financially unworkable in smaller organizations.
The fact that you resort to ad-hominem without addressing the example is telling. It terrifies me that people endorse the de-facto destruction of a commons just because a tiny fraction of the population can't use it.
EDIT: Some have pointed out that saying an argument is disgusting is not ad-homanim. This is correct, and I was wrong to use it in that way. However, I stand by the second part of the last paragraph.
2) "Your argument is disgusting" is not ad hominem
If, however, this is prohibitively expensive then things change. E.g. A quick google search led to the hourly cost of an ASL interpreters being between $50-$145 per hour. Assume $100/hr, 5 hr days, 5 days/week, 4wks/month, for a 3 month program and the cost is $30,000 which significantly higher than bootcamp tuition. I don't think it is a trivial thing to force small companies to take customers that create losses in excess of 10K.
Of course, this also depends on how "small" the bootcamp is. If, e.g. it is a huge machine with thousands of students then this could be a reasonable expectation.
2) Yes you are correct. See my above edit.
90% of appointments booked through interpreting agencies are a two hour minimum. They don't usually have reliable, ongoing, weeks-long, scheduled work for interpreters.
Agencies are businesses. They will wield and deal to lower their price to make the sale. If you go through an agency, you can bet they have interpreters that are qualified. When you have this amount of work, you can strike deals that can lower that rate pretty significantly.
If it turns out that this can be done, I'll concede that the bootcamp was in the wrong and my arguments in this case were incorrect.
The interpreter we'd send would be qualified, but may not be licensed (which is fine and legal under the ADA definition).
You mentioned "reasonable accommodation" earlier, and I think what you're trying to argue is "undue hardship." So, you're the one that gave me numbers...
If a bootcamp charges $15k per student, and they graduate 60 people per year (you mentioned in another comment), that brings a revenue to $900k. Even if the bootcamp needed to pay $30k for one student to have a contracted interpreter, that's only 3% of their yearly revenue. I'm not a tax law expert, but I'd imagine you can also write off the cost of interpreting services as a business expense. It'd be pretty difficult to look at those numbers and see an undue hardship on their business.
I would like to edit my original post to reflect this, but unfortunately it seems like I can't edit it anymore.
Universities receive public funds to operate in the public benefit. Our society has laws to ensure that we don’t just leave people with disabilities behind.
If bootcamps can’t “disrupt traditional education” without providing the same social benefits and complying with the law, then that’s a house that (metaphorically) needs burnin’ down.
> Don't be the person who burns down someone else's house just because you don't have one.
You are not a good person. Look inward before you look out.
Not sure that's warranted, relevant, or complies with HN guidelines.
I accept that arson metaphor was a hyperbolic in the sense that arson is illegal and requesting ADA compliance is legal. However, if the end result of both things is a net social loss, then the analogy holds in that respect.
This is a false dilemma. They could have tried any number of solutions tried by other universities, as mentioned earlier. They could have launched an initiative to give students course credit or other bonuses in exchange for volunteering to transcribe material. And they could have spent a tiny slice of endowment money to permanently achieve this goal; after all, that's what it's there for; the transcription of library material is a one-time cost; the upkeep costs would be minimal.
> I accept that arson metaphor was a hyperbolic in the sense that arson is illegal and requesting ADA compliance is legal
It's not hyperbolic, it's invalid. Requesting ADA compliance almost always leads to a net social gain (whereas arson always leads to a loss) and even when it does lead to a loss, that's not the fault of the requester (whereas an arsonist is always at fault for their actions); rather, it's either the fault of the lawmakers or the fault of a business that made up excuses for not fulfilling their obligations.
It strikes me as strange that the administrators would just take down a library given a bevy of cheap and easy solutions and then lie about it. Is it possible? Sure. But unless I get some kind of evidence of that, my prior is to be very suspicious of claims like 'X is possible, cheap and easy, and the only reason someone doesn't do X is because they are bad.'
> Requesting ADA compliance almost always leads to a net social gain and even when it does lead to a loss, that's not the fault of the requester
Not obvious considering the frequency of [predatory ADA lawsuits](https://www.dailynews.com/2017/05/24/ada-lawsuit-abuse-remai...). In the case of large companies that border on public utilities I would agree with you. In the case of smaller companies the cost of compliance could easily be greater than social gain.
The ADA requires reasonable accommodation by all companies. This means that you create a level playing field where no one company can undercut others simply by excluding a specific group of people.
In your case you’re basically saying that it’s ok for us to exclude deaf people from the tech industry. That’s not hyperbole. If one boot camp doesn’t have to support the deaf, then you cannot require /any/ to support them. That puts any boot camp that does support the deaf (or other disability) at a financial disadvantage to those that don’t. By the wonders of capitalism you either get “deaf people must pay more for the same thing” or “deaf people can’t participate”. This immediately adds an additional penalty to the deaf.
Also, if you’re charging 15k per course you can afford to transcribe lectures. People are talking about how much interpreters cost, but if you just transcribed the lectures, and made good reference material that would probably get you most of the way to compliance. As an added bonus, making those and your slides available would help people who have to use screen readers.
If you put the pressure on right, the university will drop the coding bootcamp partnership as quickly as possible, with a nice letter about how “deeply troubled” they are. Then file suit against the bootcamp and collect your settlement money.
Now, that’s not to say I advocate this approach... but it seems to be the MO of “activists” everywhere nowadays and it clearly works.