Latest / the ACT OUT podcast / From Quadriplegic to Prosecutor: Finding Purpose After Paralysis

Transcript

From Quadriplegic to Prosecutor: Finding Purpose After Paralysis · the ACT OUT podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome to the Act Out Podcast.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_02: I'm your host, Adam Tomlin.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_02: Today's guest is attorney and also an advocate for the disabled Kenneth Cumpkin.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_02: Let's roll the tape.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_03: Hey, Ken, how's it going?
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_03: Great, thanks.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you for having me as your guest, Adam.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_02: Oh man, yeah.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_02: I no problem at all.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_02: And I I appreciate you uh entertaining uh Camden before the uh before the cameras came on.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_03: My pleasure.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_02: Now, I uh I know that you are uh you're you're a father of triplets is what um what we said.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_02: And you're also an attorney, which uh, you know, uh before took on the noble mantle of podcaster.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_02: I I also practice law.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_02: Uh what do you think is more difficult?
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_02: Being a father to triplets or practicing law?
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I can tell you, being a father of triplets is a lot more pleasurable.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_03: They all have their ups and downs, that's for sure.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_03: Right now I'm happily retired from law, but very proudly being an active father of triplets.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_02: Uh how long did, or uh yeah, how long did you practice law?
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, let's see.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_03: I started practicing law in 1982, and I retired full-time two years ago.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_02: Was being an attorney something that you had wanted to do, like kind of growing up, or was it or did you just kind of fall into it?
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I would say I kind of fell into it.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_03: My brother, my older brother is an attorney.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, he actually was a defense attorney doing criminal law.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_03: I became a prosecutor, but I I had never thought that I was going to become an attorney.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_03: Um I actually worked as a rehabilitation counselor for a couple of years.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_03: And while I was doing that, I was doing uh some speaking before groups and organizations, excuse me, concerning affirmative action and non-discrimination for people with disabilities.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_03: And I I'd often be asked questions and I would do my best to respond appropriately, but I would usually follow it up by saying you should really speak with an attorney about your concerns.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_03: Adam, I guess it didn't take long before I started to think, you know, there's no reason why I couldn't become that attorney.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_03: So I left my job and I went to law school.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_02: My so growing up, my dad was a my dad was a police officer.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_02: And so I, from the time I was maybe um, you know, like six years old, seven years old, I wanted to be an attorney.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but the whole I wanted to be a defense attorney.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I saw that.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, I have to I have to be the opposite of uh that.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_02: So uh whenever I I you know uh went went to law school, uh, you know, like took the oath and uh started out as a defense attorney and my my dad was he was proud, but kind of I don't I don't know where I went wrong.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_02: It's really interesting to me that you kind of have that prosecution background and also like the uh the the rehab uh you know, like kind of the that that coach as well, that those kind of seem uh contradictory to each other.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_03: You know, let me tell you a little bit about how I started.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_03: I I loved being a prosecutor and prosecuting uh people who committed crimes.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_03: But by the same token, I had just come from a background, being a rehabilitation counselor and working with people with physical disabilities.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_03: The first defendant that I prosecuted was a defendant who was hearing impaired and mute.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_03: So my first cross-examination, we had a sign language interpreter interpreting, as I'm cross-examining a person with a severe disability.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_03: My second cross-examination uh was in another case, the defense attorney put on as their character witness, the defendant's father, who was in a wheelchair, a paraplegic.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_03: So my first two cross-examinations were cross-examining people with significant physical disabilities.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_02: That is something that like the if you're not if you're not an attorney, you don't quite uh understand the gravity of what Ken just said.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_02: So uh especially as a prosecutor, whenever you get to cross-examine the defendant, that is something you very rarely get to do that anyway.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_02: And so you only have like a couple of shots at that.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_02: And whenever you uh whenever you're cross-examining somebody, uh, especially a defendant, you want you you want to be aggressive, you want to show them, you want to get you wanna you want to basically beat them up on the stand.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_02: But the jury is not going to be such a big fan of you slapping around someone who is deaf and mute.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_02: So I can imagine that would have been such a a tightrope to to balance on.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_02: It sure was.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_02: How did you how did that case end up?
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_02: Did you were were you able to kind of to walk that line?
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_02: I probably would have failed miserably and either like been like screaming at the guy and like the jury like want to throw me in jail.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_03: Well, it was strange because I had to do it through a sign language interpreter.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_03: But I might add that it ended in a conviction, and I felt very satisfied at the end.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_02: Well, um, how you said that you uh you you said you practiced law since like 19 uh 1982.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_03: 1982, so uh full-time over 33 years, and then another eight years part-time.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_02: Were you uh were you an attorney whenever you uh whenever you had your accident?
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_02: No, I I was uh injured when I was 20.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_03: I was like, but injury while I was in college.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, all right.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_03: Beginning of my junior year.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_02: Do you uh do you mind kind of like sharing what happened with the uh with the spinal injury?
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_03: Sure.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_03: Uh I was playing, I went to Cornell University, and they actually had a lightweight football team.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_03: Uh the league is now called Sprint Football.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_03: And before each game, when I played, you had to weigh 154 pounds or less in order to be able to play.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_03: So it it was a great sport to be able to participate against people who are closer to your size.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_03: And uh, I really enjoyed it.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_03: But I was playing in a game against Columbia, and on a kickoff, when I tackled the ball carrier, I broke my neck and severely damaged my spinal cord.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_03: And as a result, I'm a quadriplegic.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_03: I'm almost totally paralyzed from the shoulders down.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_02: And that so that that happened in college?
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I had just turned 20.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_02: That I mean, it granted, there is never a good time, you know, for there, there's there would never be a good time to have like a traumatic injury like that.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_02: But I can imagine being 20 years old and that happened, that being a particular, a particularly tough time to be able to uh kind of like mentally and emotionally be able to uh kind of withstand something like that.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_03: Very, very.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_03: And I I spent the next nine months and 20 days in various hospitals and rehabilitation centers.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_02: Was do you remember like do you remember what was like one of your like first thoughts whenever you like you kind of like come to in the hospital?
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_02: Like, is there it was it just kind of like my life is over, or is it like what what okay, so this is bad, what do I do next?
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_03: Well, for one, I never lost consciousness.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_03: So I was conscious the whole time, but I really didn't know what was happening.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_03: Um and not only did I lose my movement, but I lost sensation over most of my body.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_03: I have no feeling, uh, just a couple inches below my shoulders.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_03: So uh when they saw I was injured, they took out a stretcher, and when they lifted me up to carry me off the field, it felt as if I had been decapitated and they were just carrying my head off the field.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_03: Really?
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_03: That was the strangest sensation I ever had.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_02: I can't like I I can't even begin to like, you know, kind of like put my to to put myself in that situation.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_02: I'm trying to, you know, trying to imagine what kind of what that would be like.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_02: I would have to be extremely scary.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_02: I just um not only that, but like I know that in kind of like I I guess a very like ableist sense, like all like the the dreams, the things that I had, like everything I was, you know, I'm like moving like all my limbs.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um I had a very specific vision of the way my life would turn out.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_02: And whenever something like this happens and it completely you know rewrites that, um is that something like how how difficult is that to to explain?
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_03: It is just, you know, words cannot express it.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I before my injury, my whole life seemed to revolve around sports and being physically active.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_03: I remember when I was in high school, uh, I had just graduated high school and I was speaking at a conference.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_03: Um it just happened to be a conference on uh people with special needs.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_03: And I was asked a question to describe myself.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_03: Actually, this was after my injury, but I was asked to describe what I was like in high school.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_03: So this was a few years after my injury, but I was asked to describe what I was like in high school.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_03: And I remember saying, you know, I played on the varsity football team, I competed on the varsity wrestling team, I was in three different softball leagues, I worked during the summer as a lifeguard, and I was a decent student as well.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_03: And it was almost like that was an afterthought about my intellectual ability, you know, that I was a good student as well.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, my first thoughts were everything involved with physical activity.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_02: Whenever you were growing up, like what what did you want to what did you want to do whenever you were, you know, like an adult?
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_03: Well, you know, my best subject in school was math.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_03: So I thought I'd always do something with math.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_03: But growing up, I was always so physically active.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_03: It was tough for me to vision uh doing anything other than being physically active with whatever I was going to do in later in life.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_02: I can you know I can imagine that there's like a lot of uh like physical therapy involved, but was there like therapy involved?
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_02: Because I I can imagine you would you would need something like that to be able to kind of like chart a path forward.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_03: There was both.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, obviously a lot of physical therapy, but you know, I mean with a psychologist as well, and I I didn't find really much comfort in that, you know.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_03: I would talk to the psychologist, and you know, we'd talk about what is bothering you.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_03: I said, What's bothering me?
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_03: I can't move.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_03: I want to be able to move.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_03: And unfortunately, the psychologist was not able to help me with that.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_03: Now, I really didn't understand what a spinal cord injury entailed.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I was injured well before Christopher Reeves' devastating injury.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_03: And he shed a light on you know what it was like to have a spinal cord injury.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I was injured, I think, about 25 years before Christopher Reeve.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_03: Now he became a tremendous role model.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_03: Um but when I was hurt, I didn't know of anybody with my type of injury that I could look to for any type of hope or inspiration.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so it was particularly difficult back then.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_03: I was injured in 1970.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I um I think that there there is something like I whenever you we're talking about Chris Farrear, I I sp I I was a kid, but I I remembered the injury and I remember kind of his advocacy.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_02: And I guess like I've never really like stopped to consider how much the like celebrity spokespeople, so to speak, can actually destigmatize so many things.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_03: You know, Adam, when I was hurt, I had just started my junior year at Cornell.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_03: Coincidentally, Christopher Reeve was a freshman at Cornell at that time.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, really?
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_02: Also very ironic that you're talking about how like uh academics are uh like a secondary thing, and you're talking about being in Cornell.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I uh we I went to uh Oglethorpe University, which is a small private liberal arts school in Atlanta, and uh we would we would call ourselves the Harvard of the South.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_02: So that was just that was like that my only like the only way I'll ever tend to have a connection to an Ivy League school is to be like, oh, we're like the Ivy League of uh Southeastern United States, which I guess is akin to being the smartest kid in the introductory class.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I was fortunate to uh be able to go to Cornell.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_03: And uh, you know, I appreciated it and had a a very good education, but um it was particularly difficult at the time uh because Cornell is on a very hilly terrain in upstate New York.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_03: And after I um was discharged from the rehab facility, I went back to Cornell to resume my studies, and there was not one ramp or curb cut on the entire campus.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Americans with Disability Act was passed in ninety-one.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_02: Something like that.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, early nineties.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_03: I got hurt in 1970.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_03: So I returned to Cornell in '71, and virtually every one of its buildings had steps in front of it.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_03: I want you to picture this, Adam.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_03: My first day back at school, I had to be either pulled up or bounced down close to 100 steps just to attend my first day.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_02: That would yeah, I I I would imagine that that would be distracting at best, and maybe a little like kind of feeling demeaning a little bit too.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_03: So I I remember when I got back to my dorm, I had my attendant lay me down in bed, and I remember staring at the ceiling thinking, I must be crazy.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_03: What was I thinking to go back to Cornell?
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_03: But I had no plan B.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't know what else I was going to do if I didn't go back there.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_02: So and you said that was it your junior year whenever this happened?
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_02: Right, the beginning of my junior year.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_02: Junior year, yes.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_02: You still had the whole junior year and your senior year to go as well.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_03: And that was particularly challenging.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_03: I had uh difficulty with my engineering courses before my injury, but following it, um, it it just seemed like an impossible task.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, keep in mind this was well before the age of laptop computers.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_03: So it was even more difficult back then.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_02: You're you you also studied engineering too?
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I was studying engineering.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I can't, I I officially don't like you.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_02: You're too smart, man.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_02: I don't.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just so like for me, uh I was terrible in math, science, all those things.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_02: Like I the only thing that I really I love social studies, history, like politics, things like that.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_02: And so like my it felt like law school was a very natural kind of progression for me.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_02: But it seems like you have like so many different skill sets and like, you know, like different kinds of things that you're good at that like law school like could have been there, but it could have been, you know, it could have just as easily been like engineering or something.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I was always good in math, but I did not do well in engineer.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_03: I was struggling with it.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_03: And as it turned out, I was actually seriously considering possibly becoming an actuary, uh, because that involved a lot of math.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_03: And I was actually scheduled to take the first of a series of actuarial exams three days after my injury.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_02: An actuary, isn't that like risk assessment assessment essentially?
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_02: Like if you're I don't know, if I'm trying to get uh health or life insurance or something, an actuary would like look at my stats and be like, ah, well, it seems like he would be, he's not going to like jump out of an airplane and die or something, right?
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_03: Is that kind of yeah, it was a lot of probability and statistics.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_03: And as it turned out, see, my father was a life insurance salesman.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_03: So he was the one that suggested that.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_03: And uh I thought, gee, that sounds like a great field.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_03: And lo and behold, you know, I was injured just a few days before the first exam that I would have needed to take.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_02: There uh what's what's crazy is like it seems like the the probability of that of that accident happening to you is so was so like infinitesimally small that even you being an actuary would not have helped you like uh avoid that uh avoid that accident.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I I actually would say that I felt the same way, but you know, strangely, Adam, I actually had a premonition at the beginning of the season that I was gonna get injured that year.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_03: It's really difficult to explain.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know why that premonition came about.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_03: I had never had that feeling before, but it was such a strong feeling that I actually verbalized it to my roommate.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_03: I said, I don't know what it is.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_03: I just have a feeling I'm gonna get hurt this season.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_03: And I broke my neck the first tackle I made that year.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_02: I've so you know, I've I've heard stories like that where um I think it was um like a a woman was pregnant and uh and kept having like I don't know if it was vision, but like premonition, so to speak, that like uh she was gonna bleed out while uh delivering, you know, uh delivering her baby, and uh was kind of discounted by by doctors the whole time.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_02: And uh like I think they're like the anesthesiologist happened to like hear her talking, uh, you know, and like, oh, she seems like really upset.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_02: And like so they had like a couple of uh extra like blood, you know, bags.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_02: And sure enough, whenever like uh she was delivering something happened, started losing a lot of blood.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_02: And if it weren't for for those blood bags there, that she would have that she would have um you know died.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so it's so fascinating to me that humans can sometimes have this have these pre premonitions.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and you know, when I told this to one of my aunts years later, she said, Did it ever occur to you not to play that year?
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_03: And I must say, it never occurred to me.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_03: It just never occurred to me.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_03: I hear I was an athlete.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_03: It was my, oh man, I'm probably gonna get hurt.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_03: It just never occurred to me not to play.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_02: I I'm gonna sound like a very corny ad, but there you can't just live your life in fear.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_02: You know, if you if you would have been like, ah man, I'm I'm I'm nervous, I'm gonna get like hurt this year, I'm just not gonna do it.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_02: That is very like that that becomes an out for anything, you know.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_02: Like, oh no, I better not.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_02: I I shouldn't do this.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_02: Like, there's a chance that you know something goes wrong.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_02: So kind of, I don't know, you if you if you kind of have that mindset, you maybe tend to live life on the sidelines a little too much.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_03: Adam, let me let me tell you what made it even stranger.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_03: The night before my injury, uh, I happened to be getting together with a few of my teammates, um, and we all went together and shot for some groceries and came back to a friend's cabin, uh, and we decided to cook dinner.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_03: And since nobody seemed to know how to cook, I volunteered.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, and I put uh we had bought some steaks, I put the steaks into the oven, turned it to broil, uh, checked on the meat a few minutes later, and it wasn't heating up.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_03: So I called in my friend, I said, there's something wrong with the oven, it's not heating up.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_03: He asked if I had lit the pilot light.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_03: What's a pilot light?
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_03: I said, I I had never cooked on a gas stove before.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_03: So while he's laughing at me for not knowing what a pilot light is, he lit a match and lit the stove that, you know, had been, you know, uh having the gas coming out for a few minutes.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_03: Boom, there was a big explosion, a bright flash of light coupled with a thunderous boom.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_03: I looked down to see if I'm hurt, and incredibly I was not injured.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_03: You know, it seemed like there were flames that were darting out, but I was not injured.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_03: I was not burned, I was not even singed.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_03: And I remember lying in bed that night thinking how lucky I was.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_03: I remember thinking if I can survive an explosion like that, I can survive anything.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_03: Nothing can happen to me.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_03: I must be.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_03: Invincible.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_03: And the next day I broke my neck.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_02: You know, but ironically though, I think you were right.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um, because yeah, I mean that that did that that took you down, but that's that injury certainly didn't take you out.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_02: Uh if it did, you wouldn't be here talking to me.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_02: So you mean kind of go back and you know, give it, you gotta give uh 20-year-old uh Ken his flowers because I mean he was absolutely right.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_02: If he could, if if he survived that, he wouldn't survive anything.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, yeah.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, very much.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I the I was I was in a fraternity and uh had kind of the first taste of freedom that I'd ever had in my life, and I can't tell you how egocentric that kind of like mentality is, and you think that you are always gonna feel the way you do, look the way you do, everything is gonna be just like it is right then.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_02: And man, you uh life uh life life will teach you uh different really quick.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_02: That's for sure.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_02: It seems like now you have uh a great um you know, great attitude, and uh, you know, like uh pretty uh you know, like so open about it.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_02: Were you always uh have you always kind of been so open and uh you know like this positive about the injury, or was this something that took time?
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_03: Well, it it certainly has taken a lot of time to adjust to it, but I never had a problem talking about it, um, you know, trying to deal with it.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_03: Nobody was really sure, you know, what this type of injury entailed.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_03: So it was difficult to not only get suggestions, but to see anybody who had this type of injury that was out in public and doing well.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, before the Americans with Disabilities Act, you didn't see a lot of people out in public who used wheelchairs because they couldn't get around.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_03: And you certainly didn't see people who used electric wheelchairs because without curb cuts, um, you couldn't even cross the street.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_02: So uh well, I I'm just now kind of um piecing this together that like you didn't have that that resource, uh the the oh the uh you know you can still live a life even if uh you know you have uh traumatic uh traumatic spinal injury.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_02: So you kind of became you you became that example that you never had.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_03: Pretty much.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, pretty much.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_03: In fact, when I was in the rehab facility, um the medical professionals didn't seem to want to answer my questions.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_03: I had a lot of questions.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, but they put out a brochure describing all aspects of spinal cord injury.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_03: They talked about what type of movement you may have, depending on the level in the spine you're hurt, where your level of sensation would be, uh, how it would affect your other bodily functions.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_03: But they also had a page on what type of careers you could go into.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_03: And the only career I saw for my level of injury, I'm hurt very high up in the net, between the fourth and fifth cervical, the only career they listed would be to someday sell magazine subscriptions over the telephone.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_03: And I was devastated when I saw it.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_03: Here I was studying engineering at one of the most prestigious schools in the country for engineering.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_03: And now they're talking about selling magazine subscriptions over the telephone.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_03: And the more I thought about it, I started to think I may not even be able to do that.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_03: This was before they had touch tone phones.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_03: So I couldn't even dial a telephone or take notes or write anything.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_03: So I was devastated when I read that.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, granted, it was the 70s, but you would think that there would be better brochures than that.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_03: There weren't.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_03: Well, you know, a lot of people with my type of injury didn't survive.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_03: I was told that after I was injured when my family uh consulted with uh, you know, an expert in the field, a specialist, he told them that I probably wouldn't survive the week.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_03: And he said if I were to survive, my life expectancy would be between five and nine years, that I would have no movement, would not be able to do anything, and would probably end up living that time in a nursing home.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_03: That was the attitude back then.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_03: That's what my family was told.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_02: Whenever I was in like my early 20s, if a doctor told me what uh, you know, what what you were told, I think I would have taken that to heart.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_02: I just kind of knowing how I wasn't, I I would have that would have probably um killed any kind of motivation that I would have had to try to try to get better and try to prove them wrong.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_02: Uh for you, were you like, F you, I'm just gonna, I I am going to do this out of spite, or was it you kind of like uh took you took it a little bit longer to kind of get out of a get out of a punk?
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_03: Well, it was a little of both.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, first of all, the doctor didn't tell me that specifically, but they told my family.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_03: But I could tell everybody was keeping things from me.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and eventually, when I saw that the medical professionals thought that I was not going to recover, I was convinced they were wrong and I was gonna prove them wrong.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but you know, people asked me, um, how did you become motivated after your injury to do what you did?
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_02: Man, you're still in my job.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_02: I was about to ask you that.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_03: Ha.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_03: Well, you know, my response was basically I was very motivated before my injury.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_03: You don't go to Cornell, study engineering, play a sport at the same time, and not be highly motivated.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_03: But I had to work really hard to stay motivated after my injury, and that was not easy.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_03: But I was really fortunate that I had a very supportive family who was by my side every step of the way, and they really helped me a lot, encouraged me, motivated me, kept my spirits up as best they could, and I could never thank them enough for that.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_02: I think you uh you just touched on a really big point there.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um whenever whenever we talk about motivation and like being in a dark spot and needing to get out, I think there is a lot of times such a focus on what the individual does.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_02: And like, hey, it's that it's that person in the in the rut there.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_02: What are what are they gonna do?
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_02: But oftentimes, what helps people get out of rut more than anything else isn't necessarily what they do, but who they're with.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_03: And my family was with me every step of the way.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_03: It made all the difference in the world.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_02: Whenever you graduated uh from Cornell Unsa after that time, did you jump straight into like, uh, studying for the L set?
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_02: Time to time to become a lawyer, or did you uh what did you do?
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_03: I took quite a detour in my career.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_03: Um, what happened was I really did not like engineering.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_03: I was not going well.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_03: But while I was studying, I took an elective in psychology, and I really enjoyed that.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_03: And based on the recommendation of a psychology professor, I decided to change my career goal after I graduated and pursue a career where I'd become a counselor.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_03: So I stayed at Cornell and I earned a Master of Arts degree where I majored in counseling and student personnel administration.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_03: And then they increased my counseling credentials.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_03: I then went to Columbia University.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_03: Coincidentally, that was the school I got hurt playing against or my injury.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_03: And I earned a second master's degree.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_03: This was a Master of Education degree where I majored in psychological counseling and rehabilitation.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_03: So I decided to look for a job as a rehabilitation counselor.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_03: And Adam, I guess I was fairly confident now that I had two degrees from Cornell, one from Columbia, three prestigious Ivy League degrees, two master's degrees, that I shouldn't have too much difficulty securing a job.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_03: But even when I went to Columbia, my advisor told me, you know what, despite what we teach, people are going to be reluctant to hire somebody with your type of disability.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_03: And he was right.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_03: Nobody wanted to hire me.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_03: I looked for a job for a year.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_03: I mailed out more than 200 resumes.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_03: It seemed everybody felt I was just too disabled to work.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_03: I was even turned down when I wanted to volunteer my services.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_03: I knew I could work and make a significant contribution to some company, but nobody would even give me that chance.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_03: Finally, I found one organization willing to give me that opportunity.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_03: That organization was called Abilities Incorporated, which is part of what's now called the Viscarty Center, after its founder, Dr.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_03: Henry Viscardi Jr.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_03: They're located on Long Island and they're dedicated to helping people with disabilities.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_03: They hired me to work as a vocational and rehabilitation counselor for other individuals with disabilities.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_03: And I love that job.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_02: So people don't even see folks in wheelchairs or that that have disabilities out as much.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_02: And so there was a lot more of a stigma around it.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_02: Is that kind of what it was?
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_03: But in addition, that the few people that they did see at least had the use of their arms.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_03: See, I'm a quadriplegic.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_03: I don't have the use of my arms either.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_03: I have a little bit of movement in my left arm and nothing in my right.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so you know, I I need help with all my activities of daily living.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I cannot dress myself or roll over in bed or feed myself or do so many other common activities most people take for granted.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_03: I need somebody even uh to wipe my nose or scratch an itch.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so the thought of somebody hiring me to work was beyond a lot of people's imagination.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but when I was finally hired to be a rehab counselor after many years, this was uh 1977 now.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_03: I had been injured um six and a half years by then.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_03: And for the first time, now I had the opportunity to help people as a rehab counselor.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_03: And that changed my life.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_03: It changed how I felt about myself.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_03: It increased my self-esteem and my self-confidence, and made me just feel so much better about everything.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and I owe them a lot.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_03: That's the Viscotty sentiment.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_02: It's so interesting to me that whenever there is uh like a like a trial or you know, like a tribulation that someone goes through, there's sort of two different ways that you can kind of verge off.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um you can kind of either uh do this kind of like woe is me and just get really dark, you know, really, really fast.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_02: Or you can take it and say, like, I I hate the way, you know, I hate the way I feel right now.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_02: I want to make sure that no one else has to has to feel this way again.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_02: What do you think the difference is between between the people that kind of go down that depressed route versus go through the the route that like motivates and inspires others?
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_02: And why are you the motivator?
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_03: You know, the difference for me is my family.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_03: They kept me motivated.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_03: They kept me having a positive mindset.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_03: They did everything they could to keep me going.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_03: You know, when I was in the rehab facility, uh, the other roommates that I had had spinal cord injuries, but they all had more movement than I had.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_03: And they'd all been injured longer than I had been, but none of them seemed to be doing anything with their lives.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_03: They all seemed to be just sitting home.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, and of course, how could they work?
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_03: They have a spinal cord injury, seemed to be the attitude.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_03: That was not my family's attitude.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_03: And I was fortunate they kept pushing me to do more.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_03: And the problem was expectations for somebody with a physical disability were so low at the time.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_03: And unfortunately, people's performance often rises or falls based upon what others expect of them.
• 35:48
  unknown: Yes.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I was fortunate, my family still expected a lot from me.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_03: And they basically assured me that they would act as my arms and legs if need be to make sure I could still do everything I wanted to do in my life.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_03: And they actually did just that.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_03: And it got to the point that they were giving me so much help, I felt like I'd be disappointing them if I didn't do everything I could do to make something productive out of my life.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_02: Isn't it incredible how powerful your brain is at crafting reality?
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_02: Where you have the exact set of circumstances where it would be so easy to just be like, I be like the other people that were that, you know, that you were rooming with, uh, you know, like not doing anything.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_02: But the reality that you were able to develop with your support system was such that you were able to surpass them with the more with an injury that happened like in a you know sooner and also like more, you know, quote unquote devastating.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_02: It's uh that that's just so fascinating to me.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_03: Well, you know, I tried to make up my mind I was gonna do as best I could to just ignore my injury and try and pick up my life where it had been before I was hurt.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_03: So that's one of the reasons why I went back to Cornell.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_03: And there were so many naysayers out there, so many people were telling me you can't do this or that it's just too difficult.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_03: And fortunately, with everybody's help, you know, I had to work hard to convince myself and then others, I could still do a lot if I'm given that opportunity.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_02: There is a uh like a graduate, I think it was like a commencement speech that Arnold Schwarzenegger uh gave one time.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_02: And he was like going through like his rules of uh you know life or whatever.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and one of the things he said, I love when someone tells me that I can't do something, that that it can't be done, and that no one's ever done it.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_02: Because all that means is I'm gonna be the first one to do it whenever it you know whenever I do it.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_03: Well, you know, I don't when it comes to that.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_03: Uh I feel the same way.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_03: And uh I'm the first quadriplegic to ever graduate from Cornell University.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm the first quadriplegic to ever earn a graduate degree from Cornell University.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm the first quadriplegic to ever work as an assistant district attorney on Long Island.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_03: So, you know, it's happened a number of times in my life.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_03: And um as it turned out, um, while I was still in the rehab facility, I was asked to testify before a United States Health Senate subcommittee chaired by Senator Edward Kennedy.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_03: And eight days after my testimony, Senator Kennedy sent me a glass paperweight in the mail that had an inscription on it that the senator said his late brother Robert Kennedy liked very much.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_03: And the words of that inscription have always been very meaningful to me.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_03: The inscription read, Some men see things as they are and say why.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_03: I dream of things that never were and say why not.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_03: And that's the philosophy I've tried to guide my life by.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_03: I dream of things that never were and say why not.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_03: That's really beautiful.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_02: And you got to like talk to Senator Kennedy, too.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's how have you seen uh society's views on uh on the disabled like evolve over time?
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_03: Well, the Americans with Disabilities Act helped a lot because now you see more and more people with disabilities out in public.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_03: And when you do that, more people recognize we are just like everybody else.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_03: We may have some physical limitations or other limitations.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_03: Everybody has their own limitations.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_03: Some more so than others.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_03: But if given the opportunity, there's an awful lot people can do.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_03: I might add that um I, you know, I ended up working at the district attorney's office for many years.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_03: And when you leave the district attorney's office, you go through an exit interview with the head of personnel where they want to find out, you know, what you like best about the job, what you thought could have been improved.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm so happy and proud to say that I was told on a number of occasions, the ADA, the assistant district attorney was leaving, said the best part of their job was meeting, working with, and getting to know me.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_03: And the reason why I want to comment on that, Adam, I know what they meant was meaning, getting to know, and working with somebody with a significant disability.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_03: Because unless they had a close relative with a disability, most people never came in daily contact with somebody with a disability.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_03: And that was a real eye-opener for many people.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_03: One, I mean, their big concern initially was that it would mean more work for them, and it didn't, and they'll be the first to say that.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_03: In fact, I was promoted a number of times in my job where I eventually became a supervisor.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_03: But in addition, they found, you know, that working with me helped inspire and motivate them to do a better job.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_03: And that really was an eye-opener for them.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_03: So when I hear our current administration talk about diversity, equity, and inclusion, and have a very negative impression of it, that really upsets me because I think they're really missing the boat on that.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_03: That's not what uh the founding of America was all about.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_03: And, you know, being more diverse, being more equitable, including more people in everything you do, whether it be in recreation, in school, or in the workplace, helps us all.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_03: And that's one of my missions now is to spread that word and to show people DEI is a good thing.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_03: It's not a helps so many people.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_03: When given the opportunity, people will see that.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_02: So first thing first things first.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um before you became uh before I became an attorney, I had to pass the bar.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_02: It were or it was a two-day exam, uh, eight hours, uh, both days, friggin' hated it.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um I passed that though, and also like a um, you know, like an ethics thing.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_02: Took an oath, and I, and that made that meant meant that I was qualified to be an attorney.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_02: Did you pass the bar exam?
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_03: You bet I passed it the first time that I took it.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_03: Let me tell you a little bit about that.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_03: Out of, you know, one, it was very difficult because I had to dictate my answers to somebody, which obviously took more time.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_03: And while they gave me a little extra time by allowing me to start earlier than the other test.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_03: And by early, I mean, you know, while most people started at nine, I may start it at eight.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_03: But it took so much longer for me to dictate my answers.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_03: It was a real challenge.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_03: But I had to finish the same time as everybody else.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_03: Since I took it, they've now given a person with a disability the opportunity to take the bar exam over a period of four days, not just two days.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't have that opportunity.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_03: But let me tell you what happened.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_03: I went through law school in the standard three-year time period.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_03: I passed the New York State bar exam the first time that I took it.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_03: I began my work in the district attorney's office by participating in a very intensive four-week training program where they taught us all aspects of trial techniques from a prosecutor's perspective.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_03: And I was so proud to go to court my first day, only to find I couldn't fit through the swinging doorways in the courtroom to get to the prosecutor's table.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_03: That's how I started my job.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_03: Can you believe that?
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_03: I moved, what more do I have to do?
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_03: No, but that's that's what was happening.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, it takes me a couple of hours just to get up in the morning between having somebody bathe me, dress me, you know, get me up in the wheelchair.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_03: So the fact that they gave me little very little time, you know, to start before the other test take is really was not very fair.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_03: But, you know, given the opportunity, there's a lot somebody with a disability can do if given that chance.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_03: And that's the problem.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_03: A lot of times people are not given that opportunity.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_02: That's yeah, that's uh exactly where I was going with.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that uh a lot of people or the people who are against DEI are like, uh it's not fair, we're lowering standards, and all of a sudden just everybody can get in.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_02: And why I asked you if you pass the bar exam is you literally have the exact same qualifications as anyone else with the use of four limbs.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_02: So it has absolutely nothing about lowering standards at all.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_02: What DEI is all about is finding talent in unexpected places, places that we haven't traditionally looked at.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_03: And once I was given that opportunity, um, I actually did more trials, grand jury presentations, free trial hearings than most of my colleagues.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_03: So I was promoted before most of them, and I actually became a supervisor in the DA's office, where I was in a position where I was helping supervise more than 25 other assistant district attorneys.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_03: So, you know, not only did they not make any special uh accommodations for me in terms of lowering any standards, uh, I was going above them in the work I was doing.
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_03: And I remember when I met with the director of personnel years later, and I I told him I thought it took a lot of guts on your part to hire me when you didn't see somebody in my position uh in the courtroom before.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_03: And he looked at me and said, no, it really didn't take that guts at all.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_03: You were more than qualified, in fact, more qualified than most of the other individuals.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_03: Um so I felt it was only appropriate to give you that opportunity.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_02: I think a lot of times people don't realize that whenever you see uh someone, especially like you know, years ago, like someone with a disability in the position that they're in, what that means is they've probably had to work five times harder than I would if I were trying to get into into that position because people would be a little bit more apt to look at me uh favorably than they necessarily would uh would someone else.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_03: And uh, you know so arbitrary.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, people don't always appreciate.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_03: And when I was working as a rehab counselor, uh one of my jobs was to place other individuals with disabilities in competitive employment.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_03: Um and that was very difficult back then because a lot of people were very, let's say, hesitant to give people that chance because they just didn't know.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_03: They just weren't sure whether somebody could actually do the work.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_03: And once they gave that opportunity, people were very surprised and impressed how much somebody can do actively, and also how motivated they were and how it helped others around them to get even more motivated to do the right thing and do a good job.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_03: And um, you know, it was a real eye-opener for so many people.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_02: That's uh as as you're saying that, like I whenever I think about think about uh diversity or uh let's say that you and I worked at the uh worked at the same law firm.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um what what I would see there is that you and I would be in a non-zero sum competition.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_02: Where what that meant, where if you had a if you had a trial or a brief that you wrote, and I'll either watch you in trial or like read that brief, dang, man, that is a pretty that's that was a really good argument uh Ken just made.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_02: That you know, Ken Ken won that.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_02: That's a victory for you.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_02: And like, man, I wonder if I could maybe ask a question that way or frame the argument that way.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_02: All of a sudden I can learn from you.
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_02: And so your win also becomes my win because I'm gonna get better because of what you did.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_02: And I why do I love diversity so much?
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_02: Because I like getting better at things, I like that competition.
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_02: And to me, it's just a natural thing to have as many different types of folks from as many different types of places together working on it.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_02: To me, that that makes the most sense.
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_03: And, you know, a lot of people are again, I'll use the word hesitant to try something new because they're just not used to it.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_03: And they're afraid what it what it would be like because they just don't fully appreciate or understand um that everybody is really the same when it comes down to it.
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_03: If they're just given the opportunity, and if you spend more time with them, you begin to realize that, and you lose your fear of what may be the unknown when you're just not used to dealing with somebody.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_02: That is one thing uh that is one thing that I've noticed um where uh with this podcast, I've had the um the opportunity to talk to all different types of uh folks and some from uh traditionally uh marginalized communities.
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_02: And what is just so like fascinating and heartbreaking at the same time is that the crux of any type of civil rights movement is like, hey, we just want to be treated like human beings, please.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_03: And, you know, once you give it the opportunity, they're gonna find a lot of people with disabilities excel because they've had to be better than most just to get to the position they're at.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_03: And they've they've had to be motivated every step of the way and work that much harder to get to the same position.
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_03: Um so, you know, I might add that every time I've been given the opportunity, um, I've received a lot of praise for how hard I've worked and what I've done.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_03: Um, you know, I told you I graduated Cornell.
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_03: I'm now serving on the Cornell University Council.
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_03: I told you I was eventually hired to be a rehab counselor.
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_03: I'm now on the Viscarty Center's Board of Directors.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_03: I told you that I worked at the District Attorney's Office for a lengthy period of time.
• 51:06
  SPEAKER_03: They now named an award after me.
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_03: It's called the Kenneth J.
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_03: Cuntin Award.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_03: It's the only award the NASA County District Attorney's Office gives out on an annual basis.
• 51:17
  SPEAKER_03: They've given it out now for the last three years, and they named it after me.
• 51:22
  SPEAKER_03: So all we are asking is the opportunity to show what we can do.
• 51:27
  SPEAKER_03: And once given that opportunity, I think everybody will be very pleased and impressed uh with the results.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_02: Uh yeah, I I definitely agree with that.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_02: I have a small favor to ask.
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_02: I I heard you're still you you still have ends with uh Cornell.
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_02: I would really like to uh have my name on some type of honorary degree from an obviously school.
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_02: You you you think you could put in a good word for me?
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_03: Well, right now I'm pushing my son to get his name on.
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_03: So I one of my children is actually starting his senior year at Cornell, and I am so proud of that.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_03: So what's he studying?
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_03: He's studying mechanical engineering.
• 52:05
  SPEAKER_03: I was an industrial engineer.
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_03: He's studying mechanical engineering and doing great.
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_03: So that's now my biggest connection with Cornell is watching him proceed with his education.
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_02: Well uh, and what are your uh other two studying?
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_03: Uh well, they actually all studying different different uh majors.
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_03: My son James is going to the State University of New York at Morrisville.
• 52:30
  SPEAKER_03: He's studying renewable energy, doing great there.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_03: Um, working this summer on wind turbines.
• 52:38
  SPEAKER_02: And my son Donald Trump probably hates him.
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_03: Uh my son Timothy is beginning his senior year at Syracuse University.
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_03: He's got a dual major in communications and political science.
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_03: He wants to be a journalist, and he's actually going to be doing a semester aboard in Chile this next semester.
• 53:01
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, that'll be awesome.
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_03: He'll be leaving soon first for Argentina to be there for a few weeks, then to Chile.
• 53:08
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, and he wants to immerse himself in the Spanish language.
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_03: So they're all three are doing great.
• 53:14
  SPEAKER_03: They're all pursuing separate majors at separate colleges.
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_03: I could not be more proud.
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_02: I and I I could tell.
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_02: Like as you were talking about them, you were you were lighting up.
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_02: Uh it's it's it's fun to see to see someone like kind of have that much uh not not just love, but uh passion for you know for their kids, where they're uh you you can you can see that the support that your family gave you kind of rubbed off and you're able to give that support to other people.
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_02: I I think that's really cool.
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
• 53:47
  SPEAKER_03: Well, you know, I I think people question whether somebody with a disability could go back to school, you know, and complete their education.
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_03: And I've done my best to show that could be done.
• 53:58
  SPEAKER_03: I think people would question whether somebody with a significant disability could work at a job and do well, and I've tried my best to show that could be done.
• 54:07
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I think people also question whether somebody with a disability could actually get married and become a parent, let alone two triplets, and live uh a happy, useful, productive life like anybody else.
• 54:21
  SPEAKER_03: And I'd like to think uh my life has shown that's very doable.
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_03: I live a very regular, happy life, you know, with my wife and three children, uh, and life is great.
• 54:35
  SPEAKER_03: Life is great.
• 54:37
  SPEAKER_02: You may be a little bit of a mind reader.
• 54:39
  SPEAKER_02: This is the second time you've uh like answered a question that like before I could even uh ask it.
• 54:45
  SPEAKER_02: I was just gonna ask you, what do you want your legacy to be?
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_03: Uh well.
• 54:50
  SPEAKER_02: It seems like it kind of did.
• 54:52
  SPEAKER_03: My legacy is my three children right now, and they're making the legacy come true.
• 54:57
  SPEAKER_03: But what it is is to show people that if we're all given the opportunity, there's a lot everybody can do.
• 55:03
  SPEAKER_03: And if we include people rather than exclude them, that DEI is a good thing.
• 55:10
  SPEAKER_03: You know, that we all benefit by it.
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_03: I would love that to be part of my legacy, to show that.
• 55:17
  SPEAKER_03: If uh if people want to find out more about you, where can they do that?
• 55:21
  SPEAKER_03: Well, they can go to my website, which is kencumkin.com.
• 55:26
  SPEAKER_03: It's my name, kencumkin.com, and that will tell them more about me.
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_03: But if they really want to know about me in depth, I actually wrote a book about my life.
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay.
• 55:36
  SPEAKER_03: My memoir, which I named I Dream of Things That Never Were, the Ken Cumpkin story.
• 55:43
  SPEAKER_03: Uh the website will tell them where they can purchase it, but I'll I'll tell you now, it could be purchased on Amazon as well as other areas.
• 55:51
  SPEAKER_03: Uh and I've gotten very favorable comments about my book and how it's opened a lot of people's eyes as to what it's like to have a spinal cord injury.
• 56:03
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, I've made it, you know, I've actually narrated it to be an audiobook, too.
• 56:07
  SPEAKER_03: I did the narration.
• 56:09
  SPEAKER_03: My son Timothy did the recording for me.
• 56:12
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, and it's also available in an e-book form.
• 56:15
  SPEAKER_03: So my book is available hardcover, ebook, and an audiobook.
• 56:19
  SPEAKER_02: I may have to check that out.
• 56:20
  SPEAKER_02: It seems it seems really interesting.
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_02: I've really enjoyed getting to know you.
• 56:25
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, Ken, I really appreciate it.
• 56:28
  SPEAKER_02: I hope you uh are thank you so much for acting out with me.
• 56:31
  SPEAKER_03: It's been my pleasure.
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_03: I've really enjoyed it as well.
• 56:34
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you, Adam.