News Commentary: We Need to Talk About Cheaters
Or: Why We Can't Let Cheating Result in Punishment of Disabled People
Image Description: Photo of a pair of metal handcuffs surrounding a wad of cash rolled up with a rubber band.
I’m afraid it’s that time. We have to address the uncomfortable elephant hulking awkwardly in the room: the disability cheaters. These are the people who know they are not disabled and yet fake a disability to unfairly gain access to an accommodation or support service. These cheaters don’t require these accommodations in order to participate equally in daily life and they are taking away opportunities to do so from disabled people.
It is theft in one of the ugliest ways. They steal from disabled people and don’t have to experience the daily struggle that people with disabilities experience, such as discrimination, ableism, and exhaustion in merely trying to participate equally in society.
In my opinion, three things are all true. Disability cheaters are harmful and should ideally be stopped. However, there will always be cheaters. We should not let the efforts of stopping cheaters harm disabled people. Rather, the focus should be on helping disabled people experience inclusion by more prevalent accessibility all around.
Take this small personal example. Just about everywhere I go and need to use a public restroom nondisabled people frequently take the only accessible stall. I arrive on the scene and have to wait because no other stalls are accessible for me and my wheelchair. It makes me angry to have to wait (often a long time) or knock on the stall door and beg to use the restroom. It’s not right that people who don’t need this larger stall take it when I have no other option for using the toilet. And yet if I consider things, perhaps the problem is less the people than it is the fact that all the stalls are too small. Perhaps we shouldn’t build small restrooms. Perhaps all restrooms should just be accessible for everyone. Why should accessibility be a scarce commodity?
Too Many Stories of Disability Cheaters
Accessibility is vital for disability inclusion, but so are accommodations and services. These are often tailored to the specific disability and traditionally have required “proving” a disability in order to receive them. Below I highlight three examples of where disability accommodation or service have been abused by cheaters and how the blowback has harmed disabled people instead of the cheating villains.
Educational Accommodations Theft
It was only about five years ago that a scandal centered on wealthy people purchasing accommodations during college admissions tests for their children by faking disability. I vividly remember my anger when the news came out, as many years ago when I needed testing accommodations during my school years for my disability (I write slower with my disabled hands) how hard it was to get them even then. After this abuse story came out, I knew it was the disabled students who would suffer the most.
Sure, there were hefty fines (not hard for wealthy people to pay) and even prison time for the cheaters. But the blowback was so swift and severe that disabled students needing educational accommodations were being regularly denied and excluded.
For the cheaters, these accommodations were a way to cheat the testing and do better than they would on their own merits. For people with disabilities who are denied accommodations it may mean not being able to go to college at all, despite otherwise being good students worthy of earning higher education. The punishment and exclusion of disabled students was so harsh that disability rights attorneys had to work on a new framework for accommodation, and advocacy continues to this day to rectify these wrongs.
Disney Accessibility Theft
It may seem frivolous compared to crucial educational accommodations, but disabled vacationers now are being excluded from line waiting accommodations at Disney World Parks. Disney has framed it as cracking down on disability cheaters, but the real possible reason is that the company is charging fees for shorter lines and wants to maximize its profit.
In my case this policy change is not frivolous and significantly impacts my vacations at Disney World. I recently wrote a personal essay about being denied for the physical queue accommodation (also called DAS), which isn’t a shorter line, but merely the option to wait in other locations (such as quieter, cooler, places where I can recover my energy or from heat and sun exposure). For people with disabilities, it isn’t an advantage nor does it save time, it lets them maximize their ability to enjoy the Disney Theme Parks experience.
I question the validity of Disney’s claim that it is cracking down on cheaters and believe it is really about trying to force more disabled people into purchasing the shorter line service. My deepest, darkest fear is that this Disney policy change is also an effort to reduce the number of physically or visibly disabled people visiting the Parks, as this change would be the easiest way to force disabled people to stay away.
While disability advocates have poked enough holes in this policy to sink the logic of it into the Marianas Trench, Disney continues to hold firm on what I believe to be an extremely ableist and discriminatory policy that is negating all of the its efforts to present itself as an inclusive company.
SSD Theft
It feels like every few years we hear about disability fakers who are wrongfully taking Social Security Disability (SSD) payments. Yet a closer examination reveals that fraud in this program is actually extremely low. SSD is not easy to attain with heavy paperwork and proof requirements, interviews and so forth. It also is a very small monthly payment that generally barely (or doesn’t) meets the basic cost of living.
Generally, cheating SSD is a high effort, low reward proposition. Yet, it happens even still. However, Social Security also has a very strict enforcement program to catch fraud. They report: ”Our zero tolerance approach has resulted in a fraud incidence rate that is a fraction of one percent.” This is an extremely small number and indicates the serious vigilance of the program.
In fact, recent news indicates Social Security is too vigilant and actually was wrongfully accusing truly disabled people of fraud and fining them many more times their means of ever paying it back. The investigation revealed an agency more focused on punishing and finding cheaters than actually helping the disabled people who need assistance. See the related story about how backlogs for claims drags on and leaves disabled people struggling without support.
In my opinion, SSD cheating is extremely heinous. People who manage to do it are literally stealing essential funds from people who are trying to survive (not even thrive) with a bare minimum of food and shelter. It is a responsibility of programs to find and eject cheaters, but not at the cost of helping the disabled people who need it.
The Impact of Overreacting to Cheaters
While I disdain disability cheaters, I really am more concerned about unfairly punishing disabled people for the actions of others. Disabled people rightly need access and accommodations for inclusion. We cannot survive nor thrive without appropriate supports. We add value to society when we can participate in it.
Perhaps it may seem silly to present an economic argument, but Disney World was my place for an accessible vacation because I knew I could and would be accommodated. I enjoyed spending money there at the shops and dining, splurging on a nice hotel with a pool, and so forth. Deny me the accommodations I need for my disability and I will instead leave and spend my hard earned dollars elsewhere — where I am both appreciated and included. These economic arguments work in other cases as well. Disabled people who can fully participate in society due to accommodations become a net gain in more ways than one. We cannot let the overzealous desire to stop cheaters (no matter the good intentions) get in the way of inclusion.
The bottom line is that we cannot be ruled by cheaters because cheaters will always exist. We must instead do what’s best for people, in this case the disabled people who honestly need accommodations and supports.
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I don't know who said it first, but rights are not pie! Someone getting something they need does not take away anything from you. But that's how dumbasses see it. I kept my trap shut when you wrote about not policing disability (because kind of guilty), but I know so many people that take advantage of getting a disable parking placard for a short-term matter...then milk it. Or use someone else's car with the disabled placard to park and then able-bodied amble into the store. Or request a wheelchair in an airport when it's not needed. And, yes, I know not all disabilities are visible, including heart ailments, etc. But sometimes you can spot the cheater. And I give them the stink-eye when I do. Also, Disney sucks. The only thing that will change their policy is a lawsuit and/or bad press. Cheers, Kelly. xo
I agree entirely that disability cheaters abuse the trust that organizations place on the public when they offer accommodations.
Disney’s experience with unscrupulous entrepreneurs offering vacation packages that included use of the queue for disabled people opened us, bona fide disabled people, to up to accusations that we are faking it as well. It also led some theme parks to use third party organizations, which was not only a marjor inconvenience or forced disabled people to provide personal information that we had no control over its use.
Sidebar: To their credit, Universal Studios has recently announced that they severed their relationship with such a third party agency.
Disability cheaters trying to access SSD and/or other disability related programs has had the same effect on disabled people. Government programs created extensive intake processes intended to weed out those frauds and that creates frustration for our people and delays in receiving benefits that we are entitled. For example, the Ontario Disability Imcome Supports Program (ODSP) offered the Province of Ontario (Canada) has a complicate adjudication process to verify the the claim of having a disability is valid before providing social assistance to the applicant. It is unfair to make those who need that support to wait for weeks before they have been deemed disabled.
One area that the disability cheaters does really concern me is in the area of employment. I once lead a dedicated recruiting initiative to reach out to disabled people for job opportunities with a major Canadian bank. I was always vigilant for those who would fake a disability to gain special access to those jobs I recruited for.I reviewed thousands of resumes and interviewed hundreds of applicants for that the supports my program offered. It’s been my experience that the suspects were few. Less than 1% of the overall applicants that came through my door. Even then, most those suspected “cheater” had some condition that was embellished rather than being an outright lie. I assume that most people who would cheat at theme parks or government programs find it harder to say “I have a disability” when trying to become an employee because they, inherently, are ableists and don’t want that “stigma” to follow them throughout their employment.
The bottom line is that regardless of the area, there are able-bodied people who make disabled people lives even less rosely because of their selfishness or out of desperation.