April 4, 2006

Dear Presidents and Faculty Advisors of the Recognized Student Organizations,

We, the BCCC (Beyond Compliance Coordinating Committee), are a student disability advocacy group on campus. In the past years, we have hosted various public events that aim to raise awareness around the issue of disability and diversity (most notably our annual BCCC Film event s). Through attending and observing various events on campus that are open to public as well as interacting with other organizations whose events we have enlisted ourselves as a co-sponsor, we couldn’t help realizing how the accessibility aspect of event planning is often time ignored, forgotten, and left out of the event planning discussions. When the lack of accessibility is pointed out and the necessity to install accessibility measures is raised at a last minute of event planning, emotions tend to lead us to blame and see those who are deemed as needing of those accommodations as a “burden,” when in fact it should have been a right to be ensured from the beginning.

Thus, we have developed a list of what we consider as minimum standards for public event accessibility (Please see the BCCC Public Events Minimum Accessibility Standard) so it can become a part of event planning from its start, not add-on.

We are sharing our accessibility standards statement with you:

• To affirm our commitment to inclusion and accessibility ;
• To inform you of our policy not to support any events that are open to public and that lack the listed accessibility measures ; and
• To urge you to pay attention to the question of who you are including/excluding from the events you host, and to think about the accessibility aspect of event planning right from the beginning.

Please take the time to review this statement and share it with the members of your organizations. If you have any questions, ideas, or suggestions regarding our accessibility standards, please feel to contact us. Our contact information is listed on the statement.

We thank you for your attention.

Sincerely,

The BCCC (Beyond Compliance Coordinating Committee)
http://bccc.syr.edu/