No Surprise: ASHA Board Member Liberal Progressive Politician; Gay/Transgender Rights Proponent

ASHA board of directors member Tom Hallahan is also a liberal progressive politician and proponent for transgender rights. This is from his failed 2010 Massachusetts campaign.

Many ASHA members wonder why ASHA seems so determined to shove irrelevant radical progressive causes (such as transgender rights) down its member's throats.
ASHA board of directors member Tom Hallahan's campaign literature describes him as an "advocate for social justice." He ran a failed campaign for the Massachusetts district one governor's council in 2010. He has described himself as a "vocal proponent" for gay and transgender rights.

ASHA board member Tom Hallahan is a liberal progressive and a vocal proponent for gay and transgender issues

The website "transgender news" ran an article about Tom called "Gay dad runs for governor's council" You can read that story by going here.
Included in the same article:

...Hallahan calls for more focus on transgender rights. “I have been a vocal proponent for passage of (ENDA) only if it includes all people,” he said. “The (national gay and lesbian) task force have always said, ‘this is the last line of civil rights, and we will all cross it together.’ And I could not agree with that more.” Link

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ASHA recently revised its code of ethics to include transgenders  (if you're scratching your head right now trying to recall the groundswell of ASHA members demanding that ASHA become an advocate for transgender rights, it could be because there was none). Now that ASHA has "more focus on transgender rights," board member Tommy - a "vocal proponent" for the same - might be pleased; members aren't.

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ASHA's sole purpose for existence should be to promote the professional interests of slps and audiologists. That means that ASHA has no business getting involved in any divisive social/political advocacy that is not directly related to our professional interests.

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In response to a request for a statement from ASHA, Marty Rome, chief staff officer for communications, sent the following:

Members of ASHA’s Board of Directors are elected by ASHA members. In their roles as Board members, they have well defined responsibilities delineated within  the position description for the position they hold on the Board. Board members are not paid for their service, have professional and private lives outside of their Board service, and have the right to their own personal views. ASHA does not comment on the personal views or opinions of Board members.

Martin J. Rome

Chief Staff Officer for Communications

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A note on comments:
I've received several comments/emails from individuals who make statements such as the following:
"As a lesbian SLP, I want ASHA to stand up for our gay clients so that they will not be denied speech services because of their sexual orientation."
I won't publish these comments because they are delusional. Crazy. And I mean Jared Loughner - the-government-is-controlling-our-minds-with-grammar - batshit crazy. There is no epidemic of clients being denied speech services because of their sexual orientation. I'll go even further: this has NEVER happened (and if it has happened, The ASHA Leader has been derelict in its duties by failing to report such incidents). The only place this is happening is in the paranoid fantasy life of the people who write me. Think of it for a moment: this SLP (and several others who have written me) actually believes that SLPs somewhere someplace (and they are always short of all specifics, of course), are refusing to treat students for their /s/ problem because they are gay. What is any SLP doing questioning a client about their sexual orientation? Who does such a thing? In the case of school children, what school would tolerate such an SLP working for them? I can see it now: a school based SLP assessing her third graders to find out if they are gay before deciding if she can work on their speech sound disorders. "Sorry, Mary, but your hairstyle is short and frumpy, you're obese, you have no fashion sense, and you like to play softball - no speech services for you. I'll just note this in your IEP: eligibility denied due to possible lesbian orientation."
If you claim that there is a problem with clients being denied speech services because they are gay, let's see some facts. Put up or shut up. I won't waste any space here letting you promote a self-serving myth.

UPDATE 8/13/13: It's been two years since I issued a challenge to provide documentation that any gay client has ever been denied speech services because of their gayness, and the silence has been deafening. The reason? It never happened! It was nothing but a lie and a slander, fabricated out of thin air. When challenged, not one person could prove the charge that slps are denying lgbt clients services and that ASHA had to become advocates for the lgbt cause in order to correct the (mythical) injustice that (never) took place. Why would they lie about something like that? It was a way to hijack ASHA and use its resources to further their agenda. Now that they have been exposed as nothing but vicious liars and slanderers willing to fabricate ethical violations in order to intimidate ASHA into even more politically correct madness than it already practices, no one who cares about this profession should take them seriously.

Key Words: Key Words: The ASHA Blog, ASHA blog, ASHA, ASHA fees, ASHA CCC's, ASHA ccc's

ASHA Develops Its Agenda Based On Worthless Online Survey With Laughable 1.9% Response Rate

ASHA is not listening to you. Just shut up and pay your dues!

The Government Relations and Public Policy Board (GRPPB) developed the 2011 agenda in consultation with committees, staff, and members (2,700 of whom responded to the survey seeking input). Link (bold and italics added) The ASHA Leader 1/18/11

ASHA has over 140,000 members. If ASHA developed its 2011 agenda based in part on the response to an online survey with only 2,700 responses, that means that the response rate was only 1.9%. This is worthless data - total crap (ASHA might as well be doing tarot readings to divine what members are thinking - they would probably be more accurate). ASHA - and anyone who has ever taken a statistics 101 course - knows this but that doesn't stop ASHA from charging ahead.
What are acceptable response rates?

High survey response rates help to ensure that survey results are representative of the target population...A survey must have a good response rate in order to produce accurate, useful results...Acceptable response rates vary by how the survey is administered:

• Mail: 50% adequate, 60% good, 70% very good
• Online: 30% average
• Face-to-face: 80-85% good. International Assessment Resources

Eric Graig, Ph.D., writes:

Would you make an important decision based upon only 10% of the available information out there? I hope not, but that’s just what you’re doing if you accept such a small response rate. The key to a strong survey response rate is a well written invitation to participate and, most important, follow-up with non-respondents. With ‘friendly’ respondents, that is those who know your organization and have made some kind of commitment to it, it can take three or more follow-ups to get response. We typically see 15% to 20% with the first invite and then upwards of 60% or 70% by the final round...without follow-up to non-respondents you just can’t get the response rate you need to make solid business decisions. Eric Graig, Ph.D. Principal Usable Knowledge, LLC Link

Note that Graig is criticizing a 10% response rate.
ASHA's miserable 1.9% response rate means that their online surveys are beneath being considered by any intelligent person. It is more evidence that ASHA has no serious interest in listening to its members. Keep in mind that ASHA declared that it had total assets of $93,966,900 in 2008. The cost of contracting with an independent firm to do a reliable and valid survey would be chump change for them.
Let me put ASHA's bs surveys in perspective:
Since this blog started, I've received (well) over 5,000 emails from SLPs who strongly disagree with ASHA (some of the letters contain so much heated outrage and anger that they are almost radioactive). This blog has received close to 50,000 visitors since it started. That gives this blog a response rate of 10% - and I'm not even running a survey! 

ASHA's online surveys are statistically worthless

You may ask:
"Why not just send all those emails to ASHA and let them know what members think?"
Answer: I have forwarded letters to ASHA's boss - Arlene Pietranton - and what I usually got in return were dismissive and self-rationalizing responses - which appears to be ASHA's standard coping strategy for dealing with criticism of ASHA. ASHA will never admit that it is wrong about anything. Writing ASHA is a pointless exercise in futility because ASHA's philosophy is that it is always right and the members are always wrong. Always. ASHA is going to do whatever it wants to do - and the members exist for no other reason than to foot the bill. Get in line, sheeple! And ASHA will continue to use worthless data to justify their escalating power and money grab of our profession.
This is the organization that has the audacity to claim that it stands for high quality evidence-based research data.
Sure. Whatever. When it comes to members, ASHA demands that we use high quality evidence-based research data. When it comes to itself, however, ASHA settles for worthless garbage. ASHA's rules don't apply to itself - only to YOU.
Anyone who loves this profession should be alarmed that an organization like ASHA controls our future.

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Paul "ASHA Rocks!" Rao
Another Rah-Rah

News item: Paul R. Rao is ASHA's new president (no telling how many votes he got in that online election. What was it? A thousand? Five hundred? Fifty? Maybe a single Twitter tweet to the board of directors?) I hope he enjoys being a rubber stamp for ASHA's board of directors as that is pretty much the only function of ASHA's presidents. The president of ASHA is little more than window dressing for ASHA - ASHA's answer to hare-brained Vanna White's job on Wheel of Fortune. Paul's new job description requires that he:

 ...make sure that Board resolutions are carried out Link

Thanks, Paul. Anyone hoping for change in the next year is in for disappointment. I expect Paul "ASHA Rocks!" Rao to be yet another ASHA rah-rah cheerleader - out of touch with both the membership and the reality of what ASHA is really about.

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Second news item: I want to thank the SLPs who nominated me to be ASHA's president next year. I am humbled by your vote of confidence. I have declined, however, due to the fact that ASHA's president has so little power. He does little more than show up at meetings, make a few speeches, and write a few articles. The type of serious reforms that ASHA needs won't be accomplished by doing any of that.

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Third news item: ASHA is apparently doubling down on its commitment to the gay rights agenda. ASHA states that it is called to do this because it is "a leader in human rights." Hmm, that's not what its tax exempt application with the IRS states. ASHA will be shocked to learn that it is supposed to be a professional business association serving the professional interests of slps and audiologists, not the Rockville branch of the lavender political action committee. 

Actually, ASHA is very selective about which human rights they are for. Has anyone ever heard ASHA say a peep about the rights of the unborn? Of course not. Does ASHA care about the rights of Christian and Jewish ASHA members not to have association resources (which they pay for) used for purposes that they consider to be immoral? Of course not.

Attention ASHA: two can play that doubling down game. Cross the legal line that the IRS has laid out and you lose. 

ASHA's Gay Caucus Parties At Sleazy Bar

Another contribution to ASHA's rich multicultural tapestry: ASHA's Gay Caucus' 2010 convention week event schedule included a visit to a bar that features "wack off Wednesday," "a night of hot boys, hot bodies," and "Philly and NYC hottest male dancers." 

ASHA is apparently involved in two types of activities: 1) those that it lets its membership know about via prominent coverage in The ASHA Leader, and 2) those that are done with little or non-existent coverage in The ASHA misLeader.
It's no surprise that among those activities that are done with as little fanfare as possible and which The ASHA misLeader fails to report on are some of ASHA's dealings with/or on behalf its LGBT Caucus - the only "multicultural" caucus in ASHA that has a political objective (the caucus very clearly states in its bylaws that one of its objectives is"

 To provide a...political....platform for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender issues within the professions and within training programs.)

So much for ASHA's ludicrous protests that nothing it does has a political agenda. Maybe the people who run ASHA have a reading comprehension problem. Either that or they have become so immersed in multicultural language projects that simple English sentences now befuddle them.This blog previously reported how The ASHA misLeader failed to report a revision in ASHA's code of ethics related to transexuals and transvestites. A search done on ASHA's website search engine suggests that The ASHA misLeader has yet to print a single word about ASHA's latest move on behalf of L'GASP.
Ever hear of "Partners In Infusion"?  Of course you haven't. That's why this blog exists: to tell you what ASHA is really up to since The ASHA Leader doesn't. Vicky R. Deal-Williams, ASHA's chief staff officer of multicultural affairs (this might just as well be called ASHA's "No Drag Queen Left Behind" program), wrote what amounts to being a gushing love letter to L'GASP on L'GASP's website. She made no mention of the fact that L'GASP's schedule for convention week  included a visit to a gay bar that advertises "Wack Off Wednesdays" and "hot boys" (perhaps the "hot boys" had some swallowing disorders L'GASP members were treating?). Miss Vicky (at this moment, Tiny Tim fans are turning nostalgic and misty-eyed at the mention of that name) used her official ASHA title to sign the letter, so does this mean that ASHA knew and approved of Miss Vicky's action? If so, why wasn't this reported in The ASHA Leader? If not, why isn't she being fired? 
So, which is it, ASHA? Did Miss Vicky do this on her own? Or was ASHA doing something as clandestinely as possible?

Miss Vicky used her official ASHA title in her letter published on the L'GASP site. Was this done with the knowledge and approval of ASHA? If so, why didn't The ASHA Leader report it? If not, why isn't she being fired?

clan·des·tine adj. Kept or done in secret, often in order to conceal an illicit or improper purpose. (courtesy of The Free Dictionary www.thefreedictionary.com)

So, when was ASHA planning on getting around to informing its members about this?
Try two weeks after the apocalypse.

Play The ASHA Game With These Game Cards!

Now you can play your favorite board game with these nifty ASHA game cards! Just cut out, laminate, and enjoy!