who is being unreasonable? disabled person 'over sensitive'

[amazeandastonish]

Person A has multiple disabilities and asks if everyone in a group can do something as a reasonable adjustment.
Person B refuses to do so. Person A asks again and explains why adjustment is needed. Person B tells person A they are 'woke', 'over sensitive' and that they (person B) will not be 'dictated to' by someone who doesn't even work here.
Person A complains to me (D&I advisor) and head of HR (my manager).
Neither me, nor manager were present.
Person A is an external disability awareness trainer and the group are a group of staff we had asked them to train on disabilitiy awareness as we had identified a need for it (as you can see!).
We struggled to get sign ups - expecting 30 but only 10 signed up. All other 9 people were positive about the session content.
Head of HR thinks Person A should 'let it go' because we are paying them, they are meant to be teaching us right from wrong, so should have expected that reaction and just dealt with it.
Head of HR thinks Person A was rude to 'single someone out' although neither of us were there to witness it (cause we had 'other things to do' - I did protest!)
I think we should action this but as you can see, my job isn't an easy one!

YABU - the trainer should have expected this / dealt with it themselves
YANBU - the trainer was right to complain and we should do something

oh and I missed the most important part (duh) - we're a law firm

Impossible to tell without a lot more detail!

How can anyone know without more detail?

Really does depend on the specifics before we can decide.

What were they asked to do as a "reasonable adjustment"?

Person B tells person A they are 'woke', 'over sensitive' and that they (person B) will not be 'dictated to' by someone who doesn't even work here.

If this is correct (what do the other 9 attendees recollect?) then person B was rude. It might have been reasonable for person B not to make the adjustment for person A, but they should have said so politely - even a simple 'I'm sorry, but I'm not willing to do that' would have been OK - there was no need to personally attack the trainer.

You're a D&I advisor for a law firm and you need MN to tell you what's okay?

Very hard to say without specifics, a reasonable adjustment is made for an employee in a business.

If it was something that needed to be done while person A was in the building then yes it should be done but wouldn’t need to be done while they weren’t there.

Really need to know what the ‘reasonable adjustment’ is before deciding if you are unreasonable

Sorry! Visually impaired trainer with a cane and other disabilities. Don't distract guide dog and describe your appearance. Person B kept patting dog and didn't want to describe themselves. I think she also said "you can tell I'm a woman".

The trainer was right to complain and you (the company) should do something.

Disaed people have a right to request reasonable adjustments and by law these should not be refused without good reason and an explanation of why the adjustment is not reasonable - "I will not be dictated to" is not a good enough reason why.

Furthermore, Person B is representing your company and has brought it into disrepute with their behaviour. At the very, very least a discussion of concern in line with stage one of your disciplinary process should be held. It should be made clear that their attitude is not acceptable and further complaints of this nature will result in an escalation of disciplinary action.

Not distracting the guide dog, yes perfectly reasonable (unless the dog came for attention) but no to describing yourself - I don't see the need for that. It's not a reasonable adjustment as no-one needs to know.

I’m finding it difficult to follow with the person A/B thing and without context.

But I tend to agree with person A.

Plus, I’m surprised that disability awareness training is optional if needed (unless I’ve misunderstood)

This is absolutely outrageous and I don’t understand why you’re even asking if it was ok.

Person B is rude and disrespectful, of course they should’ve followed those instructions.

Why are you even questioning that?

Sounds to me like the Head of HR urgently needs the D&I training.

Patting dog not ok, not describing self ok. Describing A as “woke” seems incongruous.

Person A wouldn’t leave a guide dog alone when asked and describe their appearance to a blind person?

Person A is a prick.

Is your firm hiring? Because I could answer that without platering it all over some random forum

other participants positive about the trainer and found their training style very helpful, content very informative etc (I gathered feedback).

I was brought in 6 months ago to improve D&I and I'm realising I have a tough job ahead of me.

Reasonable adjustments apply to visitors too and I think the request was reasonable.

Now we have the detail, person B's behaviour was despicable and they should be disciplined.

B was wrong to say what they did though. A simple no thanks to the describing should have been enough.

Obviously they shouldn’t have been patting the dog.

But I’d probably feel uncomfortable describing myself, because I have quite dying hang ups about my appearance that my colleges don’t (and don’t need to) know about.

Assuming she had a woman’s voice and name - I’m sure you can see where that comment came from.

Another one bemused that a professional in this area need to ask this stuff on MN….

Well, person B was wrong to carry on letting the guide dog when asked not to. The description bit, not so much.

Sorry Person B