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Harold says: >I realize the posting >being discussed doesn't fall under the same laws, but I would expect the >appropriate effort would be made to define and state requirements. To >just say the candidates MUST ONLY be PWDs is degrading unless you >indicate why--what skills and 'abilities' are we asking for here? Are we >saying we can't compete with the rest of the population?? >I don't believe this. Since the posting being discussed is NOT as you say subject to the same laws, I've changed the topic of this debate because Harold and Bill persistently talk as if the job in question IS subject to the same laws. The job in question is for a 'Disability Equality Trainer'. In the UK, there is an established training programme for DET's developed by the disability movement for disabled people, and that is the primary qualification FOR THIS JOB. Also this is a job ADVERT and the details included in the advert will often reflect the amount of money that the employing organisation has for advertising, or the amount of space available in the advertising site. I suspect that the criteria you refer to will be in the job description and person specification which are the 'further details' that can be requested. However, I have another question for you. Given the point I have repeatedly tried to make about institutionalised inequality and the backlog it has created in terms of skills and experience, many disabled people start from a position of inequality and so even the most (apparently) egalitarian job descriptions discriminate. Bill and Harold haven't really taken up this issue beyond saying that they know it's a fact. So, I have a question. The system you are describing assumes equality, when it doesn't exist. The assumption of this 'ideal' is the only way that one can generate a job description and person specification that is open to all. For many disabled people it will ensure only low-level, unskilled employment because they will only be able to apply for certain jobs equal to their unskilled non-disabled peers. That is surely more degrading, and not so different from sheltered workshops. Why then is it not possible for employers to acknowledge this backlog by reserving positions for disabled people and providing training to make up the backlog? You know the answer, I suspect, but that is part of the discrimination too. Further, since disabled people are not *people* in UK law - they are their 'disabilities' (i.e. impairments) as defined by the government's definition. Therefore, it seems to me that the British government is itself setting the role model you so despise - the 'job criterion' is implicitly that you must fit the disability exactly as described by the legislation before we can consider the possibility that you might have been discriminated against in making a job application (no points for someone with HIV or severe hay fever there Bill!). This is another reason why some jobs need to be disabled people only. Mairian Mairian Corker Senior Research Fellow in Deaf and Disability Studies Department of Education Studies University of Central Lancashire Preston PR1 2HE Address for correspondence: 111 Balfour Road Highbury London N5 2HE U.K. Minicom/TTY +44 [0]171 359 8085 Fax +44 [0]870 0553967 Typetalk (voice) +44 [0]800 515152 (and ask for minicom/TTY number) ********* "To understand what I am doing, you need a third eye" ********* %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%