I King Jordan: Meaning of ADA for Deaf Americans

Today's episode of Disability Matters has been previously recorded. Please enjoy today's episode.

Welcome to Disability Matters with your host Joyce Bender. All comments, views, and opinions expressed on this show are solely those of the host, guest, and callers. Now the host of Disability Matters, here's Joyce Bender.

Hi everyone, welcome to the show and Happy Disability Pride Month. Happy birthday, ADA. What a great celebration for all of us living with disabilities, such as me with epilepsy and hard of hearing. What a great month. And you know, we've had Maria Towne, we've had Senator Harkin, and now we have another legendary leader. I can't wait. I'm so honored and excited that I finally got him on the show. But first, I want to thank all of my listeners around the world, from China to Australia. Thank you so much, all of you. You're helping me pass the news of quality of life for people with disabilities. So keep it up, keep telling people. For example, my good friend Richard Roberts, who is now in Brazil, I met first in South Korea, then in Okinawa, and he is a great disability rights leader. I love him so much. Gang Young Cho in South Korea, another disability rights leader. Cheryl Harris at the State Department right here in the United States, I first met when she was in Tunisia. And not to leave out Venyamin in Kazakhstan. Hello to all of you. And here we go. Here's my special shout out every show for years, every show for years. Hey, Yoshiko Dart, special shout out to you, Yoshiko. This is your month, Disability Pride Month. What a time for you Yoshiko is the wife of the late, great Justin Dart. I bring this up on every show because I want to make sure we, people with disabilities, value our own history. Thank you, Highmark, for making me be able to do all of this by being our lead sponsor. What a great company you are. Okay, I'm so excited. I'm going to tell you, I'm so excited. I have a real, real ADA person, a great star, a great leader, someone that fought the fight for people with disabilities, especially from the deaf community. It is such an honor to have I. King Jordan, the past president of Gallaudet University, as my guest today. Kang, welcome to the show.

Thank you, Joyce Bender. I have to say that while you were naming all these disability rights leaders, you, uh, yourself are one of the most important people in the disability community. So I want to make sure that people who are listening to your show understand how much you mean to the disability community.

Well, thank you so much, King. I appreciate it. But right now, we have listeners around the world, new listeners, and I want them to know you, who you are, and your history, like where you grew up, you know, what was like for you as a young man who was deaf., and what caused you to pursue an education at Gallaudet? You know, your story. I want everyone to know who you are, so go ahead.

Okay, I'm happy to do that. The first thing I probably need to tell you is that I was never a young man who was deaf. I grew up with normal hearing, and I became deaf suddenly in an accident when I was 21 years old. So I'm what people call late deafened adult, and it was quite a shock to me. For 21 years I had normal hearing and all my family and all my friends were hearing, and then suddenly I woke up in the hospital totally deaf, and boy, it's a different life. So interestingly, I was in the Navy when I became deaf. Navy doctors don't have any experience working with people who are deaf, so they really didn't know what to do with me. And after I recovered from my accident, they kept me in the hospital for a long time because this was 1965, and that was when the Vietnam War was just taking off. They thought I was malingering because I spoke. They thought if I could speak, I should be able to hear, too. So they really thought that I was faking it and that I wasn't a deaf person. The good news is that I became deaf in Washington, D.C., and that's where Gallaudet University is. Gallaudet College at the time. And in brief, Gallaudet saved my life. I had no idea what to do as a deaf person, and I learned about Gallaudet and enrolled there and met deaf adults who were very successful and met people who came from deaf families and were very successful, and it really opened my eyes and opened many doors for me.

Wow. Well, see, I have a question then. How did people treat you after you first became deaf versus before?

So that's, that's really a very good question. The, uh, the people who were my close friends and family treated me exactly the same way that they always treated me. And that was a very positive thing for me. Communication was difficult, but relationships all stayed the same. Some of my very best friends today were my very best friends before I became deaf. But I have to tell you that it was really interesting at Gallaudet. They, uh, they're The people at Gallaudet communicate in sign language. When I got there, I didn't know any sign language, so there were some people who were very short with me and were not willing to try and communicate with me because I was such a poor signer and I couldn't understand signs well. But there were some people who were really wonderful. I mean, really, really wonderful and reached out to me. And I can think of one woman, for example, who was my classmate who came from a deaf family. And so her native language was American Sign Language, and she reached out to me and we became really good friends. She and I are still very good friends today. Both of us are retired, but we communicate on email.

So when you first went there, there, there would have been a segment of the student population that maybe treat people differently that go there and don't know sign language. Would you say that's true?

Yes, yes, that's right. It's really interesting. If you went to the cafeteria, for example, people self-selected where they would sit. So one of the things we talk about in American Deaf culture is capital D Deaf and small d deaf. And people who were capital D Deaf were people who were very, very infused in Deaf culture. People who were small "d" Deaf were either not yet a part of the culture or might never become a part of the culture. They sat separately at the cafeteria. It was really an interesting dynamic. So there were some people who at the beginning were standoffish who became friends. And there were some people who at the beginning were standoffish and just stayed that way. We just lived in different worlds, so to speak.

You know, some people who were hearing and then became deaf later in their life the way you did would still want to go to a mainstream college. What made you decide you wanted to go to Gallaudet?

Oh, that's right, that's right, a hard decision. One thing, I mean, a hard question, and it was a hard decision. But one thing that played an important part was that it was very close. I was living in Washington, D.C., and my family lived in Philadelphia, and it would be easy for me to go there and visit my family and continue to visit my friends. And I just thought it would be a good opportunity, and it was a great opportunity. It was difficult at first because many of the teachers I had were deaf, and I can think, for example, I'm sitting here remembering my first day in class. My very first class was an 8:00 AM chemistry class. And back then, I wasn't really much of a morning person anyway. But I walked into this 8:00 AM chemistry class, and the professor walked to the front of the room in a white lab coat, looking very much like a chemistry professor. And then he just started signing. And what I do when I communicate is called SimCom, which is short for simultaneous communication. I sign and speak at the same time. So that's really not American Sign Language, that's mapping signs onto speech. And I can talk more about that later because that was an important thing Throughout my time at Gallaudet, and still is important now. But back to that professor, he walked to the front of the room and he didn't even move his lips. I mean, he just started these big, fast signs, and I didn't have a clue what he was saying. Not a clue. So I can tell you that my first semester was a real experience. Because I had some teachers who were hearing whose signs were not great, and the deaf students didn't like the way they communicated, but I liked the way they communicated because they signed and spoke at the same time. There are other deaf professors who were very fluent signers but didn't speak and didn't move their lips. So it was quite an education.

Tell me more about what is the difference for people who sign and speak simultaneously.

So there are really— I'm really not an expert on this, but I can tell you that American Sign Language is a completely separate language from English. So spoken English and American Sign Language are two different languages, and it basically would be impossible to speak and sign American Sign Language at the same time. So people who do what I do, they basically degrade their signs a little bit and they degrade their speech a little bit. So there's a little bit taken off of the communication methods when you combine them. And there are people in the deaf community who are very, very strong in the opinion that you use one or the other. You either sign or you speak. So So people tell me I should turn off my voice and just sign. And other people tell me if I want to speak, then I should use an interpreter. Speak, then use an American Sign Language interpreter. Does this help?

Well, would you say for someone listening to the show right now, if they speak and sign, Will they have a problem today with the deaf community?

With some people in the deaf community, yes, they will have a problem with some of the big D deaf people are very, very strongly opinionated about the one language or the other. And, you know, I need to say, I don't think your listeners know this, But I'm using a sign language interpreter right now. I called in using a video relay service, so when you speak, I can't hear you, but a sign language interpreter interprets for me what you say.

Which is awesome. That is so great.

So, interesting thing, because sign language interpreters have a whole register of the signing they do. So a good sign language interpreter can sign in straight ASL and can sign very much like English. So when I use video relay service, the first thing I do is tell the interpreter that I prefer signs that look like English. And ask them to move their lips to copy what the speaker says. But I have good friends who ask the interpreter to sign straight ASL.

The only problem for some people who are deaf that only know ASL, and let me just say, one time I spoke at Gallaudet, and I did not want to offend anyone, so I said, when I tell you this story, Remember, if I went to China and I was going to school, I would fail because I do not know Chinese. So if you do not know English, you're going to have a hard time getting a job because, you know, companies don't only use ASL at a corporation. Because sometimes the person can't write well in English because just as you said, American Sign Language is a separate language. And I have people who work for me who are deaf, and I have people who are placed who are deaf, because I always say, you know, it's not right that so many people who are deaf are left out of the equation when it comes to employment. The people try to use, oh, the cost of interpreters, "oh, that would be too much," you know, and it's just total ableism in so many cases. But what do you think about that, King, that if you only know ASL, it would be hard, like, to write an email in English?

That's an interesting point, and I understand exactly what you're saying. One of the things that is helping with accommodations workplace accommodations for people who are deaf as advances in technology. So for me, for example, I live in Washington, D.C., and I'm a jogger. I go out and I jog, and almost every day I will have tourists ask me questions. The, uh, where is the White House? Do "Where is the Vietnam Memorial?" "Where is the National Gallery of Art?" And if they ask me questions just like that, most of the time I can understand them, lip read them. But if their question is more complex, I just take out my phone and I tell them to talk to my phone., and my phone translates their speech to text. So employers could do that fairly easily. The meetings that employers have where there's a deaf person there, they might not need an interpreter in the meeting. They might be able to use speech-to-text to allow access to that.

Well, that is a good point, and I want to say When people say to me, employers, "Oh, we can't, you know, use a sign language interpreter all the time," I tell them, "Do you know how many other options there are?" What you just said, speech-to-text, email. I don't care if you have to write something on paper, but a lot of this technology is free with video relay. The companies don't even have to pay for But I want to tell you, if you're listening to the show, I have placed people who are deaf that work at the National Security Agency, the NSA, and they excel just the same as anyone else hearing excels. So don't, don't judge people, because as I said, it's a form of ableism. Well, King, I was so excited because I have a major civil rights leader and champion that is part of our disability rights history, uh, for the whole world, uh, and you— I just think so highly of you, but I would like you to tell that riveting, exciting story of what led to the protest at Gallaudet and what happened?

Oh, I love to tell that story. I just hope I don't talk too much and too long. The president of Gallaudet at the time in 1987 announced that he was going to step down, that he was going to go from running the university through the private sector. And that was a time when deaf rights were increasing. People were more aware of the abilities of deaf people, and deaf people, many, many people were joining the faculty who before had not joined the faculty. Many people were earning law degrees and PhDs. And so when he announced that he was stepping down, the different groups of deaf people started to talk about, hey, it's time we had a deaf president. Let's get together and rally for a deaf president. So there was talk about a deaf president in 1987, and the protest and the revolution that happened, that was in the spring of 1988. So it wasn't spontaneous. It was something that was a long time coming. And I decided to throw my hat in. I was the dean at the time. I was the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. And I thought, what the heck, I have some administrative experience. I have a PhD. I'm deaf. I think I might be a good candidate. So I applied. And to get down to March, I understand that there were more than 70 applicants. And so there was a search committee that the Board of Trustees had put into place Interestingly, the search committee was chaired by a deaf man, and he had deaf children, and he had deaf parents. He was one of those people who was from a multigenerational family of deaf people, and it was clear that he was encouraging deaf candidates to apply. So they screened the candidates, and they got down to 12. And I was one of the 12. And then they did interviews with 12 and went down to 6. And the 6 they invited to campus for a day. So 6 of us candidates came and spent all day on campus. We met with faculty groups and student groups and alumni groups administrators, and we had lunch with the board. It was really a pretty intense interview experience. 3 of the final 6 were deaf and 3 were hearing. Then the board narrowed it down to the final 3, 2 of whom were deaf and 1 was hearing. The hearing woman Her name is Elizabeth Sincer, and she is currently a good friend of mine. She lives in Oregon, and she was at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro at the time. And she applied because she aspired to be a university president, and she really didn't know a whole lot about Gallaudet, and she doesn't know much about the backstory. So she was the one hearing candidate of three finalists. They brought us back to campus and we had very intense interviews with just the Board of Trustees. And then they announced their selection. And their selection was the hearing president. The campus was really alive at the time. Everybody was expecting that one of the deaf people would be named president. So what happened was a staff person walked to this big group of alumni, students, and faculty who were waiting for the announcement. And she just handed out a press release, and the press release said, "Cal State University names first woman president." And so the students and the faculty and alumni people who were there really erupted, and they decided to march to the hotel. Where the board was staying. And it's really interesting because the university is located in Northeast Washington, D.C., and they were going to march to Northwest Washington, D.C. So they just started out the front gate, and the police came right away. And I wish you could see me when I tell you the story because it's very funny. If you can see them. But when the police came, a policeman jumped out of his car, and he opened the trunk, and he pulled out a megaphone, and he started to instruct the people who were by now marching down the street, using his megaphone. And of course, it's laughable that he would think to do that. But of course the students and everybody who was there was deaf. And they just ignored what he was showing and kept on marching. So what happened in the end was that the police realized they're going to go. So they put one squad car in front of the marchers and one squad car in back of the marchers. And instead of stopping them, they gave them a police escort. And it was really, really something. Well, that was the first day of a week-long protest.

You mean they marched every day for one week, or what do you mean?

Well, they marched to the hotel where the board was staying one day. They marched to the White House one day. They marched through the Capitol building one day. They stayed on campus. They basically took over the campus. One of the things they did was they hotwired school buses, and then they drove the school buses to all of the gates and parked them in front of the gate and blocked the campus. Gallaudet campus has a fence that surrounds it all the way around the campus, and so access is only by gates, and the students blocked the gates. Then they had student volunteers who were at the gates every day, 24 hours a day, telling the people who were screening the people who they let in and who they wouldn't let in. There was a group that they called the DPN, that's Deaf President Now Council. The DPN Council was made up of faculty, alumni, students and staff. And they met in the old gym and they had many volunteer interpreters. So people were calling from all over the country supporting the protest and people were sending them money to support the protest. So the DPN Council was really instrumental in the protest. And of course, the four student leaders who were really instrumental in the protest. And they were also visible on television and in the media. I think The protest was on the front page of the Washington Post every day for a week. It was on the front page of the New York Times 2 or 3 days that week, and it was on newspapers all over the world. And you may know that one time they had an interview on the TV program Nightline, and There were 3 guests on Nightline. One was a young man named Gregory Leibach, and Greg was the president of the Student Government Association at Gallaudet. The other guest was Elizabeth Sincero, who was president-elect at the time. And finally, they had Marlee Matlin, And for the life of me, I can't figure out why they had Marlene Matlin, except that she was a star and would be a media draw. But during that interview, Greg Leibach was just terrific. He interrupted her— he interrupted Dr. Zinthrer from time to time. He spoke very forcefully and articulately. And at one point Ted Koppel, the host, said, "I have two Deaf guests here. One is a man whose interpreter is a woman, and one is a woman whose interpreter is a man." So both Greg and Marlee didn't speak, they just signed. And when Greg signed, a woman's voice spoke for him, and when Marlee signed, a man's voice spoke for her. And Ted Koppel said that because he thought it was confusing to everyone. Well, it wasn't confusing to people in the deaf world. People in the deaf community thought it was a wonderful TV show. And I think after that show, that was probably Thursday, and the protest started the prior Sunday. After that show, Dr. Zinsser saw the intensity of the feeling and the depth of the feeling, and the next day she stepped down.

She stepped down. Okay, so how did you move up?

Well, that's really an interesting question because at one point prior to the, uh, prior to that Nightline TV show At one point, I went to the front of the campus and I had a brief press conference with reporters. There were a lot of reporters and TV trucks on the campus. And so they wanted interviews and they knew that I was a finalist, not a candidate. So they asked to interview me and The day before that, I was at the National Press Club, and I was really sandbagged at the National Press Club, because I had been in the car with Dr. Sincere. She flew up on Wednesday to meet with the students, to try to explain to them that she was only going to be a temporary president. That she would work hard to groom a deaf person to succeed her and that she would only be president for a couple years. So the provost at the time— remember, I was a dean, so the provost was my boss— and the provost at the time asked me to meet Dr. Zinser and have her meet with the students. So I went to the DPN council and the students said, "Sure, we'll meet with Dr. Zinser, but we won't meet her here. We'll never let her on the campus." So they arranged to rent a motel room and we went to a motel room. There were the 4 student leaders, an interpreter, Dr. Zinser, and me. Picture a Motel 6 room. There was the bed and one chair, and we were all crowded into this room. And the four student leaders were very, very polite and very friendly and very, very determined. They said, "There is no way ever that you will be president of Gallaudet." Period. We're not letting you on campus today. We'll never let you on campus in the future. And she kept trying to reason with them, and they would not reason. They said, nope, that's it. So that meeting was shortened because of their steadfast determination that they wouldn't accept her as president. So I left the meeting with Dr. Zinsser and we got into a car that was a Gallaudet vehicle driven by a Gallaudet driver. And she and I were sitting in the back seat and I couldn't understand a thing she was saying. And we didn't have an interpreter in the car. And she was on the phone most of the time. Ultimately, we pulled up to the National Press Club, and she said, "Your provost is in there, they want you to go in." So I went in, and the National Press Club had Dr. Zinsser, had the former president, Dr. Lee, who had stepped down as president, and they were all talking about how They understood what the students were saying, but that it was a board decision and the board has the right to select the president and they were going to stay with that decision. And then all of a sudden they had me up on the podium and I can't remember exactly how it unfolded, but I was a dean, remember. And I said, okay, it's a board decision, then I will have to support the board. And that was not the best thing I could have done at the time. The people in the deaf community who were watching that really felt betrayed, and that probably When that happened, the driver took me back to campus, and I walked on the campus, and at the time I walked on, the faculty was having a meeting, and the faculty was divided. There were many hearing faculty people who said, "We have to support the board. We have to end this protest." And there were many deaf people who were saying, "No, we have to support the students." and we have to continue the protest. So I decided to go into that meeting, but before I could go in, one of the deaf faculty people happened to be coming out, and he saw me, and he said, "I saw what you said at the National Press Club, and I know that you were not speaking from your heart." And he gave me a big hug. And at that point, I thought, okay, I'm DEAN, but I'm also DEAF. So I really have to support students. And that's what I did at the press conference. I called a press conference and I gave a really good and a really strong statement saying that, well, it's a board's right students elect the president, this is really a big mistake, that the leader of Bogotá, that has to be a deaf person. So I support the students and I support all the people who are protesting. So I said that, and then they had Nightline, and then Zinsser stepped down, and everybody agreed I had shot myself in the foot by making that statement. And there was no way that the board would appoint me. But to my surprise, they did.

You know what? When I hear this story, King, it is so just exciting. I mean, actually, I had to stop for a minute because, well, it's overwhelming. It is overwhelming. It's so exciting. You know what? I only wish one thing. I wish I was there. I wish I was there. What did it mean to you? How did you feel when they made you president? The first deaf president.

Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy. So let me tell you how that happened. Back then we didn't have cell phones and we communicated on TTY. So we put a telephone on a TTY and typed messages back and forth. And the chairman of the board was a friend of mine. And I'm sorry, the chairman of the search committee, not the chairman of the board. He was a friend of mine, and we had had a few conversations, and we were very careful with what we said because He was on the board, he was on the search committee, I was a candidate, so we had to be careful with what we said. So on Saturday, one of my dear friends was flying in from California. And he was flying into BWI, that's Baltimore Washington International Airport. So I decided to drive up and pick him up. And, uh, I might have the day wrong. It might have been Sunday, whatever, whatever day. Yeah, okay, it was probably Sunday. I decided to drive up and pick him up at the airport, and, uh, my wife and I were there and we were walking through the airport and she said, wait a minute, my wife can hear, okay? So she said, wait a minute, she said, they're announcing your name. They, uh, they want King Jordan to go to the information center. So I went to the center and they told me that I had an urgent call. And, uh, I said, okay, you know, and I said, I will be home in about 1 hour and I'll return your call. That day they told me that the call was from Philip Raven of the Board of Trustees down at university. So I picked up my friend and we drove home and I said, "Geez, I wonder what's going to happen with this." And sure enough, he called and told me on the TTY that the board had named me the president and that they were staying in the Mayflower Hotel, and they were scheduling a press conference for that evening. And basically he said, get your butt over here so you can be part of that press conference and we can announce you as the new president. So word spread really fast, and, uh, my wife and I and our children and our good friend from California all drove over to the Mayflower. And we parked in an alley behind the Mayflower because when we drove over there, we saw there were scores, hundreds, maybe 1,000 people milling about outside. So there were lots and lots of press people there, but there were also lots and lots of people from Galveston. Who had come over to see what the announcement was. So interestingly, the board's PR person drafted a statement for me. And it wasn't a bad statement. You know, I went up and met with the search committee chairman and with the board chairman. They told me that they would introduce me as the next president of Gallaudet. Dr. Spencer, who stepped down, had been president for a couple of days, so they called her the 7th president of Gallaudet and called me the 8th president of Gallaudet and the first deaf president. So I went out and read the statement that the board gave. I remember that one of the words in it was reality, you know, when this becomes a reality. And I remember reading it and saying, "Reality," and I was so embarrassed that I made it sound like real estate instead of a strong fact. But I don't think anybody else really noticed. And I still think about that sometimes and laugh. But that happened at the Mayflower Hotel, and then everybody went back to Gallaudet and celebrated. There was a pub at Gallaudet that was called the Rat's Keller, and when people went back to Gallaudet, they jacked up the music on the jukebox so loud that the floor vibrated, and people danced and people celebrated, and the hearing people who were there held their ears because the music was so loud. And my kids at the time, let me see, in 1988 were 18 and 16, and they just had a wonderful time at that celebration. That was the first day, and now that I think about it, I know it was Sunday because the next day was Monday, and Monday morning I went to the office, the Office of the President, and for me, life changed from deaf president now to first deaf president, and after that, it was really, really an amazing experience. I was the first deaf president, and I was very much in demand in the deaf community and the disability community because I'm sure you know the relationship between DPN and the ADA, right?

That's right. Yep.

I'm telling you. So when I became president, right away people in Congress reached out to me. And Justin Dart, who was very, very much a leader for the Emergency Preparedness Act, reached out to me. And I spent some time testifying before Congress. And I spent some time traveling and advocating for the ADI, and for the rights and abilities of people who are disabled.

Well, I'm going to tell you something, uh, Kang, that you don't know. When I first, in 1995, founded Bender Consulting Services, when I first got into the field, I saw you somewhere in D.C. speaking. I was so in awe of you. I thought, "I wish I knew him." And look at this, I got to know you. And I will tell all of my listeners, he is the most wonderful human being. He is the most wonderful, kindest, brilliant person. I'm just so thrilled we became friends.

Wow, wow, what a generous and nice thing to say, Joyce Bender. I'm grateful that we became friends too. I have one more quick story for you, if I may. And one of the things that happened, it turned out that I really had two jobs, if you will. And one job was I had to run a university. and that was a lot more demanding than I ever knew. And the other job was I became a spokesperson for disability rights, so I had many, many more invitations to travel and speak than I could possibly accept. One of those invitations was to go to the Rhode Island School for the Deaf. And so I made a decision early on that I was going to visit every state school for the deaf during my time as President. So I went up to Rhode Island and I was in this meeting and somebody came into the meeting and said, "Excuse me, Dr. Jordan, but you have a phone call." I said, "Well, I'm in a meeting." And they said, "Well, it's Congressman Major Owens." And I said to myself, "Well, I'm in a meeting, but if it's Congressman, you know, I'll take the phone call." So I went out to speak with Major Owens, and, you know, they had an interpreter there, and I had this short but very, very positive conversation with him. And he was inviting me to become vice chair of the Task Force on the Rights and Empowerment of People with Disabilities. And the chair of that was Justin Dart. Oh, I was thrilled. I said, oh, absolutely, I'll do that. I'm thrilled. Thank you very much. So that, that task force was really, really important and really helped with advocating for the ADA. And one other little factoid that I think is very important is the ADA had been introduced in 1987, and then, as Congresses want to do, they assigned it to many subcommittees. And so it probably would have died in committee. But then when DPN happened and there was so much attention to disability rights and to what was happening at Gallaudet, then Tony Coelho and Tom Harkin pulled it back and put it back on the floor, and they voted on it. And I, you know, there's a little time lag there, but when they finally voted on it, I was in the gallery of the House. And if you have ever sat in the gallery of the House, they have a scoreboard that shows the votes as they happen. So ayes and nays, and there's an electronic scoreboard. And when they started to vote, oh, one aye, two ayes, three, four, five, six. Pretty soon it looked like a gas pump. The numbers were changing so fast, going up so high that it just passed by an overwhelming margin in the House. And then I went to the Senate, and it was introduced in the Senate by Tom Harkin. And— excuse me, Senator Tom Harkin. And Tom Harkin has a deaf brother. So he could sign. And he introduced them to the House in sign language. He stood up there on the floor of the House and signed. And boy, that was really just an amazing experience.

Well, he is truly a wonderful man. He is. But I know we're coming to the end of the show. I just want to thank you, Kang, for just taking time to be with us today on the show.

I need to apologize to you because an interview means questions and answers, and my answers were so long that you didn't get to ask me enough questions. But next time we see each other, we'll continue this conversation.

Oh, that's a deal. But to me, this was history. I love this, and I will be advertising this everywhere, and so will Voice America. We end every show, King, with a quote. Here's my quote today: Deaf people can do anything except hear, said I, King Jordan. This is Joyce Bender, America's Voice, where disability matters, at voiceamerica.com. Talk to you next week with Tony Qualo. Remember, in the words of Mary Bragger, choose joy.

Voice America would like to thank you for tuning in. Please join us next Tuesday at 11 AM Pacific time and 2 PM Eastern time for another installment of Disability Matters right here on the Voice America Variety Channel. We are the leader in live internet talk radio. VoiceAmerica.com. Because no matter how you do your job, no matter what title you embrace, no matter where your career is taking you, your role is important. Highmark knows that every ability and background can bring a new perspective to the world. We're proud to support the Disability Matters Show. Its listeners, and our employees of all abilities. Highmark is always looking for people of all abilities to join our team. Visit highmarkhealth.org to join us.

At Highmark, we believe what makes us different makes us better. Our differences broaden our perspectives and foster diverse skills which complement each other, creating a stronger and more vibrant workforce. It's this belief that earned us recognition by the by the USBLN and the American Association of People with Disabilities as a 2014 Disability Equality Index Best Place to Work. So we'll continue to celebrate diverse individuals because inclusion benefits us all. To find out more, visit highmark.com. Are you currently receiving SSDI or SSI and wanting to work? Did you know there is a free Social Security program called Ticket to Work to help you try work without risking your benefits My Employment Options is an authorized SSA Employment Network specializing in work-at-home and local job placement in 47 states. Our clients receive a personal counselor to help find the best job fit and a staff-certified benefits counselor for help with Ticket to Work protections. Ready to try working? Apply for free job placement help at myemploymentoptions.com. For those in leadership positions with corporations, governments, nonprofits, and educational institutions, please pay attention. Are you aware that 10 to 15% Did you know that 90% of your potential clients are unable to use your websites properly? At AudioEye, an advanced technology has been created that eliminates accessibility issues and levels the playing field for all. Make the internet a meaningful resource for millions of more people. Go to audioeye.com. More accessible, more usable, more people. Call on AudioEye today. Visit audioeye.com. Since 1985, Bender Consulting Services has served as a national leader in advancing employment of people with disabilities including veterans with disabilities, with private sector companies and federal government agencies. Bender assists customers with achieving their diversity and workforce inclusion initiatives by tapping into a talent pool of individuals seeking professional positions, including those in the STEM fields. In addition, Bender services include disability employment consulting, training in technology accessibility through their HI-TEST line of service. For more information, please visit www.benderconsult.com.