A VISIT TO THE WHITE HOUSE 
                           by Kenneth Jernigan 
  
I have been to the White House four times during my life. The first 
trip occurred early in the 1960s, maybe 1962. I went with Tim Seward, 
Congressman Walter Baring's assistant, to talk with Larry O'Brien, 
who was an official in the Kennedy administration and a key figure 
in the Democratic Party. 

My second visit was some twenty years later when I spent approximately 
forty-five minutes talking with the then Vice President of the United 
States. I was trying to get him to make a distinction between organizations
of the disabled (particularly, the blind) and officials of
state and federal agencies operating programs for the blind. 
I told the Vice President that the National Federation of the Blind 
was the only large organization of disabled people in the country 
which, to the best of my knowledge, had not at one time or another 
taken swipes at the Reagan/Bush administration but that no Federationist 
had been appointed to any of the national advisory councils or committees 
making government policy for programs affecting the blind. It was 
a spirited but thoroughly friendly conversation, in which the Vice 
President told me that he was not knowledgeable about programs for 
the blind and I replied that I was not talking about programs for 
the blind but about politics a subject on which he was quite knowledgeable.

The Vice President was interested and gracious, and I left with positive 
feelings.  My third trip to the White House occurred shortly after my
meeting with the Vice President. I was privileged to be part of a
delegation that visited with President Reagan in the Oval Office. There
were a number of us there, and I was certainly not the key figure in the 
conversation, which was quite brief--but that in no way diminished 
my sense of the honor of being allowed to be there. Any American who 
is permitted to stand in the Oval Office of the White House and shake 
hands with the President of the United States should, in my opinion, 
feel singularly privileged. My rural upbringing in the hills of Tennessee 
is too much a part of my being for me to feel otherwise. 
My fourth trip to the White House (and probably my last) occurred 
on Tuesday, May 1, 1990, when President Bush invited about a dozen 
representatives of publications which deal with the disabled to interview 
him. The meeting was scheduled for 11:15 in the morning, so Mrs. Jernigan 
and I left Baltimore early to allow for the Washington traffic and 
unexpected delays. The meeting was held in the Roosevelt Room, which 
is near the Oval Office, and there was an air of expectancy as we 
waited for the President. 

We were allowed to tape, so I set up my recorder as we waited. When 
the President came in, he sat near the middle of the table. He said 
he would start at his left and go around the circle, taking a question 
from each of us. Since I was at the end of the table on his right, 
I was tenth in line. I want to print the entire text of my exchange 
with the President, following which I will share with you some of 
my thoughts about it. As you will see, the President had obviously 
been briefed about what I was likely to ask him, and just as obviously 
he indicated that he remembered our earlier conversation. Here is 
how the exchange went: 
 
                       Press Conference, May 1, 1990
 
President Bush: Ken, I have never thought of you as a reporter, 
but here you are.  (laughter) Delighted to see you.   
Monitor Editor: Well, I edit the Braille Monitor, Mr. 
President, which is the largest circulation magazine in the blindness 
field. 
President Bush: You do head that? 
Monitor Editor: Yes sir, I edit that.  
President Bush: I take back my attack on you. (laughter) 
Monitor Editor: We circulate over 30,000 copies a month of 
it in Braille, print, and recorded form. Mr. President, I had the 
pleasure to meet with you on an afternoon when you were Vice President. 
President Bush: I remember that. 
Monitor Editor: You were most helpful then. I appreciate that. 
We have a problem, I think, in this country about who speaks for various 
groups of persons with disabilities and, specifically in our case, 
who speaks for blind people. Now, I still find government officials 
who can't distinguish (or won't distinguish) between listening to 
government agencies who say they speak for the blind, on the one hand, 
or listening to elected leaders of the blind who are chosen by the 
blind themselves, on the other. That's all very well except that it 
impacts on all kinds of things.  
Let me give you an instance and then ask you a question about it.  Members 
of your Administration and you personally have strongly advocated 
for equal rights for persons with disabilities. The Air Carrier Access 
Act of 1986 prohibits discrimination against disabled persons in air 
travel. Yet, ironically (citing this law as a reason) the Federal 
Aviation Administration has just issued rules restricting our seating 
on planes. The rules say that discrimination is not permitted.  They 
go on to say that a passenger must be able to see to sit near an exit. 
Now, there is no evidence of a safety problem. In fact, blind persons 
have, on more than one occasion in emergencies, helped with evacuations 
during times when lights were out on planes.  
My question to you, Mr. President, is this: Is it possible that some 
persons responsible for airline regulations haven't got the message 
that you oppose discrimination--and, more to the point, is it too 
late for another look to be taken at that situation?  
President Bush: Ken, in the first place, I have the blessing 
of having a Secretary of Transportation who, on this subject, is about 
as sensitive as anyone I know. He went down, I am told, and actually 
tested the doors (aside: Is that right?)  
Unidentified Voice: Yes. 
President Bush: On this kind of situation, and I think they 
have formulated regulations that obviously you disagree with. And 
it is almost like sitting next to this one exit door is almost like 
an additional member of the crew in that that person has a responsibility 
to be able to open the hatch, or whatever it is, in event of an accident. 
And whether the regulation can be changed so as to have flexibility 
in instructing a nonsighted person who sat there, I don't know, and 
I'd be glad to talk to Sam Skinner about it. But the door, the opening, 
for example--It's not just  (as I understand it) against... aimed 
at disqualifying nonsighted people from sitting there. I believe that 
there has to be some evidence that the person is physically able to 
open that hatch, 'cause it's almost like an additional safety factor 
for the airline. I will ask Sam, given this interest that has been 
brought to my attention before this meeting, as to whether there can 
be some flexibility in terms of a person, you know, "Look, here 
is where this handle is. If something goes wrong, reach over and open 
the damn thing."  I think it was done on a basis, not to discriminate, 
but really to try to save lives, and by being sure that whoever sat 
there was totally capable of (without instruction) knowing where you 
grab, reading the instructions--and I think that is where the dilemma 
comes from.  But if there is some other way to handle it, Ken, why 
I think we're in the nondiscrimination business, not the discrimination 
business.  So let me see if we can talk to Sam about it. What is your 
answer if he said, "Now wait a minute; there's a safety function 
here." 
Monitor Editor: Mr. President, if it is truly a question of 
safety, we want to ride as safely as anybody else. Of course we don't 
want to sit next to that door. I don't think we're really dealing 
with that. I have personally evacuated one of those planes, participated 
in a test evacuation--and I know a number of other people who have. 
And it's not a question of whether you feel better sitting next to 
that seat or not. Often blind people have been assigned to those seats, 
and then a great row has occurred--public humiliation follows.  My 
answer, I guess, is this:  If there is the slightest evidence of a 
safety problem, that ends it. We think there is not, and we evacuated 
and took video tapes of that and presented them in evidence.  There 
is, as you may know, a bill that is now before Congress that has
thirty-seven 
Senatorial sponsors, including the ranking Republican member of the 
Aviation Committee of the Senate. It has already passed the Senate 
Committee. 
It has 180 co-sponsors in the House, where it is now stuck, and it 
simply says that you can't discriminate on the basis of eyesight in 
seating on a plane. So I guess, Mr. President, that my answer is: 
We think we have evidence that it is not a safety problem, and if 
there is, that ends it.  
President Bush: All right. Well, that's a very broad view of 
it--and if there isn't evidence, then I'll end it if I have the 
power so to do. Because, as I say, we are trying to get out of the 
discrimination business and into the business of nondiscrimination. 
I appreciate your phrasing it that way, but the way it was presented 
to me is strictly in terms of almost an extra attendant in the cabin 
for that one seat and for safety. 
Monitor Editor: Can somebody then be assigned to look into 
it or talk? You know, that's all we ask? 
President Bush: Yes, Boyden Gray will look into it. He's an 
expert on regulations per se and has a very close relationship with 
Secretary Skinner. So we will, and we'll get an answer to you on it. 

That is how the conversation went, and I came away with mixed feelings--for
while I feel honored to be allowed to be in the presence of the President 
at the White House, that does not diminish my capacity to reason or 
my concern that blind people receive fair treatment from the government. 
Whether the exchange with President Bush was positive or negative 
will depend on what was meant and what follows. 
When, for instance, the President says that Secretary Skinner "went 
down and actually tested the doors on this kind of situation," 
one has to be a bit troubled. Secretary Skinner is not knowledgeable 
about the techniques of blindness. He has not had training in those 
techniques, nor can he make informed judgments as to what a blind 
person can or cannot do. It would be like my trying to make a decision 
about what a surgeon can do by going to the operating room and
experimenting with the instruments--good for public relations but not much
else. 

Likewise when President Bush says that he will ask his legal counsel, 
Boyden Gray, to look into the situation, it depends on what will actually 
be done. The President said that Mr. Gray "has a very close relationship 
with Secretary Skinner" and that he will get an answer and get 
back to us. If this means that Mr. Gray will simply talk with Secretary 
Skinner (and perhaps with FAA officials) and then tell us what they 
say, it will be an exercise in futility. If it means that Mr. Gray 
will ask Secretary Skinner to talk with us and consider our evidence, 
then we are dealing with something else entirely. I hope it will be 
the latter. I fear it will be the former. 

I believe the President approached my question with good will and 
sincerity, but I also believe he got his briefing from people who 
were opposed to our position and did not give him all of the facts. 
Perhaps they did not have the facts to give. For example, surely anyone 
who has observed the normal configuration of exit row seating would 
not argue that the people who sit in those seats have special training 
or competence. And obviously the people who sit there should be able 
physically to open the "hatch" or window, but that is exactly 
the point. Blind people can and have, and many of those who routinely 
sit there can't and haven't. Moreover, no one has ever said that the 
blind are the only ones at whom the discriminatory regulation is aimed. 
Again, that is exactly the point. We are lumped with small children, 
the frail elderly, the extremely obese, and a variety of others--but 
the facts are that those others (whether they should be or not) are 
not ordinarily barred from such seats. As we have so often said, this 
issue runs much deeper than who sits in an exit row, and it is very 
hard to get people to deal with it with their minds and not just their 
emotions. 

I came away from the interview feeling that President Bush is perceptive 
and truly concerned to do the right thing, not just about our issues 
but about anything he approaches. I think he will do the right thing 
if he gets the facts. To set this matter in perspective we are printing 
the editorial which appeared in USA Today on June 14, 1989. 
It capsulized in fewer than 300 words our position about the airlines. 
Here it is: 
 
                       Face-Off: Seating Passengers
                           Near Emergency Exits
                  Stop Airlines' Bias Against the Blind 
                           by Kenneth Jernigan 
                              Guest Columnist 
 
Kenneth Jernigan is the Executive Director of the National Federation 
of the Blind. 

BALTIMORE - Today no blind person can board a plane without fear of 
harassment and possible arrest and injury. The problem involves attempts 
by airlines to impose special rules and travel limitations on us. 
Typical is the requirement that blind persons not sit in exit rows. 
 
If as airlines say we are a hazard in exit rows, it is not civil rights 
but safety. If we can function as well as others in exit rows, it 
is not safety but civil rights. Forget the mush about compassion. 
It is either safety or it isn't. Here is a pilot's sworn statement: 
"I have been a pilot for many years. I currently fly 727 aircraft, 
and I have been employed to do so since 1974. I am familiar with a 
number of blind people, and I am generally familiar with the capacities 
of the blind. In an emergency there are circumstances in which it 
would be helpful to have an able-bodied blind person seated in an 
emergency exit row with a sighted person. In those cases in which 
there is smoke in the cabin, an able-bodied blind person, being used 
to handling situations without sight, would be able to assist with 
more facility in the evacuation. An able-bodied blind person would 
not hinder an emergency evacuation." 

In the early '80s, a member of the National Federation of the Blind 
proved the theory. As his plane approached San Francisco, the landing 
gear stuck. They landed on foam. The lights went out. It was night.  There 
was near panic. It was the blind man who found the exit and helped 
the sighted evacuate. 

If safety is the issue, why serve liquor to exit row passengers or 
allow carry-on luggage in exit rows? Sighted passengers with hidden 
problems (heart, back, feet, emotions, removing 70-pound exit row 
windows) sit unmolested in exit rows. But our argument is not that 
others are unsafe, so let us be unsafe, too. It is that we should 
not be held to a higher standard than others, that no blind person 
has ever contributed to a problem in an airplane emergency, and that 
in the name of safety we are suffering massive daily abuse. 
To another generation Martin Luther King was quibbling and nit-picking, 
a troublemaking radical.