You want to know exactly how this went down? Let me tell you a tale.
I was visiting the museum with friends. They went on around the corner while I finished looking at the previous exhibit. I then followed them around the corner only to find I couldn’t get up to the exhibit because the museum AS PART OF THEIR POLICY had illegally locked the lift. My friends didn’t know the lift was locked (why would the lift be locked?) and had no idea that I couldn’t get to them.
Now I, the disabled person, am forced to travel halfway around the building to the front desk to find someone to unlock the lift for me, wait for them to finish what they’re doing, and then travel all the way back to the lift. This was bad enough in a wheelchair. Who else uses lifts? Oh yes. People who struggle to walk. Can you imagine, as a person who struggles to walk, being forced to walk halfway around a building, and then back again, just to access an exhibit? You wouldn’t do it. You’d skip the exhibit. You’ve just been completely denied access.
So finally the museum employee unlocks the lift and then operates it (because yes, they’ve made it so I can’t operate it myself, which is also illegal). I finally get to the top probably ten minutes later, only to find that my friends have finished looking at the exhibit and are heading down again, wondering what has happened to me.
After I’ve gone to all the trouble to get up there, fuck it if I’m not going to look at the damn exhibit. So I look at it, then head back to the lift to go back down, only to find they’ve locked the lift with me at the top and gone back to the front desk.
If one of my friends hadn’t stayed up there with me, I’d probably still be up there. As it was, my friend had to go down the stairs, back around to the front, find an employee, and get them to come back and let me down. Leaving me sitting up there. Alone. For another five minutes.
Now imagine if I had gone to the the museum by myself. Or what if there had been an emergency? You think if there was a fire some museum employee who couldn’t be assed to leave the damn lift unlocked until I had come back down would really have run back into the building to unlock the lift so I could get down? I think not.
Locking an accessibility feature is never the right solution. It is denying access to an entire class of people. Which is ILLEGAL and a CIVIL RIGHTS VIOLATION.
Disability law is civil rights law.
