The U.S. Department of Justice recently sued Uber for refusing rides to passengers who use service dogs. The Americans with Disabilities Act requires ride-hailing services to accommodate riders who use service animals and mobility devices such as wheelchairs. A self-selected survey from the nonprofit Guide Dogs for the Blind found that 83% of respondents had been refused a ride at some point, causing them to miss appointments, flights, job interviews and more.
Kirsten French, community education and advocacy manager at Guide Dogs for the Blind, has had drivers cancel rides due to her service dog. She joins us with more details about the lawsuit, along with Lynn Dubinsky, vice president of client engagement and impact at the organization.
Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.
Dave Miller: From the Gert Boyle Studio at OPB, this is Think Out Loud. I’m Dave Miller. The Americans with Disabilities Act requires ride-hailing companies like Uber to accommodate riders who use service animals or mobility devices. But the U.S. Department of Justice says Uber is breaking that law because its drivers are frequently refusing rides to passengers who use service dogs. A survey from the nonprofit Guide Dogs for the Blind found that 83% of respondents had been refused a ride at some point, causing them to miss appointments, flights, job interviews and more.
Kirsten French is the community education and advocacy manager at Guide Dogs for the Blind. Lynn Dubinsky is the vice president of client engagement and impact at the organization. They both join me now. It’s great to have both of you on the show.
Lynn Dubinsky: Thank you for having us.
Kirsten French: Thanks for having us.
Miller: Kirsten, first – how important have rideshares become for people who are blind or have other disabilities that can make driving impossible?
French: With rideshare, there has been such a gap with public transportation and its availability, even thinking about in the Portland and Vancouver area where we do have such an extensive transit system, there are still gaps, whether an area isn’t served by public transportation, different time of day, frequency, convenience. And that’s in an area that’s good transportation. But when we go to Salem, we go to other areas, that transportation isn’t available and the rideshare companies is a space to step in to create equitable transportation opportunities.
Miller: When these first started popping up, what were your hopes for what they would mean?
French: Universally, when we talk with clients and just people within the blind and low vision community, the hope is that rideshare would create equitable access: “Hey, I’m going to go to a friend’s. Great, I can just call a rideshare, head on over there.” “I have a job interview, no questions asked, I’ll be there.” That clear hope of equity and access.
Miller: What exactly does federal law, the Americans with Disabilities Act, say about how rideshare companies are required to accommodate people with disabilities?
French: The ADA explicitly states that service dog handlers are not able to be denied access for the use of a service dog. Furthermore, the rideshare policies, both Lyft and Uber, further state this is true, and the reminder, that is also bolstered in the ADA, is you can’t be charged a cleaning fee, such as your dog shed a little bit, charged a cleaning fee that wouldn’t be applied to someone else in the same situation.
Miller: Just to be clear here, we’re talking about service animals under federal law, not emotional support animals, right?
French: Correct. The ADA makes a very clear distinction that it is service dogs, which do also cover miniature horses in specific scenarios. A dog that has been specifically trained for a person with a disability and is task trained to mitigate that disability.
Miller: Lynn, what feedback did you hear from clients when you surveyed them on their experiences with rideshares and rideshare denials?
Dubinsky: So when we surveyed our clients, what we found out was that 83% of the respondents reported that they had been refused service and many stated that they had been denied multiple times when traveling with their guide. One of the reasons that we conducted the survey is that we had been hearing anecdotally that this was an experience that our clients were making, but we really wanted to be able to collect data to be able to report on that.
Miller: What did you hear from people about how these denials have impacted people’s lives?
Dubinsky: The three things that really stood out in the report were the psychological impacts, the net loss in social activities and also the economic impacts. The way that we have defined in our survey the psychological impacts were moderate to severe feelings of anxiety, frustration, degradation, demoralizations, stress and tension, and uncertainty. And then 27% of the respondents said they suffered a net loss in social activities and being able to participate in community. One of the things I’m struck by that Kirsten shared was that promise of being able to do things with rideshare that would allow people to have spontaneity that they were excited about, and again, this getting in the way of those social activities.
Miller: Kirsten, can you give us a sense for how this has impacted you? I should say you came here with your own guide dog. What have you experienced when you have tried to use Uber or Lyft?
French: Even in a space that we live in that is often more equitable than other areas, I still face rideshare denials or discrimination based on a driver that’s angry to transport a service dog, someone that tries to charge a cleaning fee, even though she has sat sat on the floor exactly where she needs to be, is clean, overwhelmingly often in this area. On average, no matter where I’m traveling, 25% of the time. However, depending on the area, it’s upwards of 50% to 75% of the time – that’s traveling for work to and from work, for a meeting, for fun, heading to a soccer game, anything that the rest of us are doing … “Hey, this is fun, I’m heading out, I’m living my normal life.” There is a very real possibility, every single time, that I’m going to get denied a ride, and sometimes it’s almost certain that’s going to happen and happen again and again.
Miller: What do they actually say? What do drivers say and at what point do they know that you have a dog?
French: One of the things that the rideshare companies recently added was an option to disclose that you have a service dog, whether it’s right before the ride, as soon as the person drives up or to put in the app, “Yes, I travel with a service dog and I don’t want the driver to know.” So there is that information that they do know. I did personally choose to opt into that, in hopes that it would change the denials. It has not. It’s a mixed bag.
Sometimes the driver, as soon as they realize maybe where I’m coming from or where I’m heading to, “hey, I’m picking someone up from Guide Dogs for the Blind, I bet that person’s traveling with a service dog,” they’ll drop the ride. They receive that notification, even though they’re notified “this is illegal,” they’ll drop the ride. Or they’re standing there, our hand is on the door, we’re standing by the back, we’re ready to hop in and that person starts yelling, “no dog, I can’t travel with the dog.” I’m trying to explain the rules, and they drive away while my dog and I are standing in a really unsafe position.
Miller: Lynn, rideshare companies were already sued about this. What happened in 2017?
Dubinsky: Well, one of the things that’s so tricky about litigation against the rideshare companies is that when you engage with them, you are signing an arbitration agreement. So it makes it very difficult to pursue legal action. It is one of the reasons why we are particularly excited about the fact that the Department of Justice has finally conducted this suit.
Miller: In other words, a civil rights suit from the government as opposed to a civil suit from private individuals.
Dubinsky: Exactly. Kirsten, I know, has some of the history about the two suits that have happened.
French: In 2014, Uber was sued because of the same discriminations. That was settled outside of court in 2017. The result of that was that the rideshare companies needed to increase their education policies around service dogs and they also needed to remove drivers from the platform when the discrimination happened.
Miller: Well, that does remind me of some of the language we got from Uber. Let me read this to you because we said we’re going to have this conversation. They provided us a statement that had these lines: “Riders who use guide dogs or other assisted devices deserve a safe, respectful and we experience on Uber, full stop. We have a clear zero tolerance policy for confirmed service denials and we fundamentally disagree with the DOJ’s allegations. Every driver must acknowledge and agree to comply with our U.S. service animal policy and all applicable accessibility laws before using the Uber driver app, and we regularly remind drivers of these obligations. When we confirm a violation, we take decisive action, including permanent account deactivation.”
Kirsten, your response?
French: I appreciate you bringing it up because it has been such an abject denial, that isn’t happening. Each time I report a denial that happens, the response that I’m given from either of the major rideshare companies is “we’re reeducating the driver, we are going to let them try again, they won’t do it again and you won’t have to ride with this person ever again.” That does three things: one, our education policies aren’t enough, because if we’re having to reeducate someone, that’s saying what we’re currently doing isn’t enough.
The second one is saying, “we’re letting them try again.” That’s going against their policies and against that statement that says, “we will remove them from the platform.” They are not removing them from the platform. They’re saying, “try again, don’t do that next time.”
And then the third one saying, “we won’t match you with that driver again,” that’s fulfilling what that driver wants. That driver wants to be let out of ever having to travel with a service dog. And by saying, “you deny someone, we’ll make sure you never have to travel with someone with a service dog,” that’s giving me less access as a service dog handler, and only fulfilling the driver’s desires by discriminating.
Miller: Lynn, how much has what we’ve been talking about influenced your client’s decisions about whether or not to even get a guide dog, the whole idea of which is it can provide more freedom and more flexibility to move?
Dubinsky: I’m so glad that you’ve asked that because the fact is that it really is impacting guide dog handlers’ decisions to get a successor dog or even to get a first dog. It is an existential threat to the guide dog industry because people are deciding it is not worth the headache. Because again, one thing that your listeners’ takeaway we really want them to have is that it’s not an anomaly. This is something that happens regularly and guide dog handlers are very much aware of this landscape. And while we’re celebrating the lawsuit, the denials are continuing.
Miller: It’s interesting because we’ve heard a lot recently about the politicization of the U.S. Department of Justice. In addition, we’ve had a lot of conversations in the last two or three weeks about federal cuts that have impacted various disability communities. Lynn, were you at all surprised that this DOJ went forward with this suit?
Dubinsky: I was surprised about the timing, knowing that the DOJ had been collecting the information for the last number of years. And again, to go back to our study, was one of the things that prompted it to be able to provide that kind of data. So the timing was interesting and I think it speaks to the current administration that maybe it was rushed through.
One thing I also do want to say apropos of what you asked, is that during the government shutdown, guide dog handlers and service drug users are not able to put in their complaints onto the DOJ website. It is shut down for them to be able to do that.
Miller: The portal is shut down. Even though it’s just a website, you think the website could still do federal work … it’s not a person.
Dubinksy: One would imagine.
Miller: What does the timeline of this lawsuit look like?
Dubinsky: I’m not sure what the timeline looks like. I imagine it will take a while, but we have not gotten that information, how long they’re looking at.
Miller: Kirsten, what advice do you have right now for people who have guide dogs, who also want to use these services? And it’s worth just saying again, because we’ve been talking a lot about Uber and they are the focus of this particular lawsuit, but you did mention that you’ve experienced this with Lyft as well. The lawsuit singles out one of these prominent companies, you’re talking about both of them. But what advice do you have? We have about a minute left.
French: That is correct. One, know your rights. And also know that if you’re going into having a guide dog, decide if it is worth it to you to have that fight. For me, that decision is yes. I have so much more access, so much more independence. I’m able to do my job so fully because I have a guide dog, and we have that right. So I do encourage people to keep fighting, keep those notes, take every action. And also, especially if you’re a client of Guide Dogs for the Blind, reach out for that support, because we are here to fight as a team.
And also, outside of guide dog clients, is to remember that this is a community issue, it impacts the community of where you’re getting those services. Every person needs to care about this.
Miller: Kirsten French and Lynn Dubinsky, thanks very much.
French: Thank you.
Dubinsky: Thank you so much.
Miller: Kirsten French is manager of community education and advocacy at Guide Dogs for the Blind. That is where Lynn Dubinsky is the vice president of client engagement and impact.
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