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ADAPT (603)
Weekly Reader Edition 4 Volume 71, Issue 7, October 27, 1989 PHOTO (-(c) 1988. Paralyzed Veterans of America, by permission of Paraplegia News): A metrobus (city bus) is stopped at a bus stop. A man in a wheelchair is sitting on the lift that comes out from the front door of the bus. He's wearing a sports coat, tie and has a neat beard and laptray with something like a brief case or computer resting on the lap board on his chair. He is up at the level of the floor of the bus and he is talking with 2 women in business attire who are standing on the sidewalk at the bus stop. There is an tall, modern office building across the street behind the bus. Caption reads: Buses with special lifts help disabled people in wheelchairs travel around. [Headline] New Law for Americans with Disabilities Can a deaf person use a public telephone? Can a person in a wheelchair work on the top floor of a tall building? Can a mentally retarded person work and earn money? The answer to all of these questions is yes—if they receive special help. A new law in the U.S. may provide that special help for millions of disabled Americans. The law is called the Americans with Disabilities Act. The law says that Americans who are disabled have the same rights as Americans who aren't disabled. The law may help change and im- ... (Continued on page 2) INSERT: Vocabulary Box disabled—not able to do something right—something to which a person has a claim
ADAPT (553)
June 12, 1990 - Guardian. 5 Disabled 'ecstatic' as rights act clears House By DIANE COLEMAN The Americans with Disabilities Act, considered by many to be the most sweeping civil rights legislation since the 1964 Civil Rights Act, easily cleared the House of Representatives May 22. It is expected to reach the president‘s desk by July 4. The act prohibits discrimination based on disability in public accommodations, employment, transportation and telecommunications. It is intended to address "rampant, daily discrimination in every sphere of American life,“ Rep. Pat Schroeder, D-Colo., told her colleagues on the House floor. “Mentally retarded persons are kept out of restaurants. Persons with cerebral palsy are turned away from theaters. . . . Employers cite fears of hiring disabled persons because their customers will feel uncomfortable or even repulsed,” Schroeder added. Despite strong opposition from private business and transportation lobbies, chief among them the National Federation of Independent Businesses and Greyhound Lines, Inc. , the Americans With Disabilities Act achieved bipartisan support in both houses of Congress. The House vote was 403-29. Under pressure from the NFIB and the National Restaurant Association, the House version of the bill was amended at the last minute to allow employers to remove people with HIV infection from food handling positions. Sponsored by Rep. Jim Chapman, the amendment passed narrowly, although the Texas Democrat conceded there is no “evidence that‘AIDS can be transferred in the process of handling food.” Tom Sheridan of AIDS Action, representing 500 community-based service organizations, predicted that the Chapman amendment would go down to defeat in the House-Senate conference committee. “It’s a horrible amendment for all people with disabilities because . . . it begins to codify the fact that irrational fear is protected by the law,” he said. Nonetheless at press time Senate conferees had agreed to include the restrictions. “Cheers and tears” filled the House gallery at the moment of the ADA's long-awaited passage, according to Tennessee disabled activist Michael Gibson, “but we all know that the bill is only a first step. Several agencies will be writing key regulations which offer innumerable opportunities to weaken the effect of this legislation,” Gibson said. SOME DELAYS, FEW LOSSES While many activists feared the House would water down the Senate version of the bill, Marilyn Golden of the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund said that the ADA “has not been weakened anywhere near the extent that much legislation is. " According to Golden, who has worked intensively for the bill's passage over the last two years, various timetables and phase-in provisions were adopted to avoid other forms of compromise. The ADA’s protections against employment discrimination, which parallel those applied to federally funded entities since 1973, do not go into effect for two years. Prohibitions against discrimination in public accommodations, such as theaters and restaurants, will require accessibility in facilities “construct[ed] . . . for first occupancy no later than 30 months after the date of enactment." Telephone companies will have three years to put in place a relay service for deaf people and others who depend on non-voice telecommunication. A requirement that all new public buses be lift-equipped will take effect in only 30 days. Many attribute this to seven years of non-violent civil disobedience by the American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit. Greyhound, a private carrier, was given six years to begin replacing its retired buses with accessible ones. Activists also waged a last-minute battle over employment discrimination remedies. Recently proposed legislation would add damages to the relief available to discrimination victims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In the face of this, Golden said. the Bush administration tried “to renege on its agreement for parallelism” between the ADA and the 1964 act. It backed an amendment that would have kept remedies for disability-based discrimination at current levels if and when discrimination remedies are increased for other minority groups and women. The amendment was narrowly defeated just prior to the final vote on the bill itself. Overall, Golden said. “We're ecstatic." The ADA “will hopefully begin to convey to the American public. left, center and right (because in some ways I don't think the consciousness of the left is any better), that disability is not a personal issue, that there’s a systematic oppression of people with disabilities. . . . Even Congress has faced the fact of the systematic discrimination. " PHOTO (by Tom Olin): A closer view of a mass of marchers coming around a huge tree on a broad sidewalk leading up to the Capitol. Stephanie Thomas, Frank Lozano, Jennifer Keelan and others lead the march which is 12 across in some places and scattered in others. The ADAPT flag (an American Flag with the stars arranged in the wheelchair symbol instead of in rows) flies over the crowd from a few rows back. Some people are in suits and ties, some in T-shirts. Some are in wheelchairs, some carry cameras; children to older folks are in the mix. Caption reads: Seven years of nonviolent civil disobedience by the American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit has been credited for the requirement that all new buses be lift-equipped. Above, ADAPT march on U.S. Capitol.
ADAPT (549)
Denver Post Rights bill OK’d for disabled President expected to sign landmark act By The Washington Post WASHINGTON — Amid rare displays of personal emotion, the Senate gave final approval yesterday to landmark legislation barring discrimination against an estimated 43 million Americans with physical and mental disabilities and sent the bill to President Bush, who is expected to sign it. The legislation was overwhelmingly approved by the Senate after several members spoke with deep emotion of the importance of the legislation to brothers, sisters and children in their own families. The Americans with Disabilities Act, which would give the disabled the same civil-rights protections in jobs, accommodations and services that currently apply to minorities, women and the elderly, was approved by the Senate by a vote of 91 to 6. The House, voting 377 to 28, approved it late Thursday. The way was cleared for final action on the measure when House-Senate negotiators agreed Thursday morning to a Senate proposal to drop a provision that would have let employers transfer workers with AIDS out of food-handling jobs. On the Senate floor yesterday, Sens. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Edward Kennedy, D-Mass, visibly struggled with their own emotions as they told of close relatives who were inspirations to them in spite of — or because of — their disabilities. Simultaneously ,'speaking and giving his summation in sign language in tribute to an older brother who is deaf, Harkin, the bill's sponsor, said it “sends the world a clear and unequivocal message that people with disabilities are entitled to be judged on the basis of their abilities and not on the basis of ignorance, fear and prejudice.” “American will be a better place because of the action we take today,” said Hatch, who fought back tears as he told of the inspiration he drew from a brother-in-law "who was stricken by polio and slept nights in an iron lung after working every day until his death. Kennedy told of his mentally retarded sister, Rosemary, and his son, Ted. who lost a leg to cancer. PHOTO (Associated Press): A group of people stand in a fancy Capitol room. On the left side of the picture two men in suits stand together (Rep. Hoyer and Sen. Hatch) one holding a cloth and smiling, the other wiping his eye. Facing them is a small crowd of people several of whom are clapping and smiling. A man on the far right appears to be blind. In front of the others are a woman and a man (Justin Dart) in wheelchairs. Justin, wearing his trademark cowboy hat, has his head down and is wiping his eyes. A tall man in the back is taking a picture over other people's heads. Caption reads: EMOTIONAL SHOW. Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., left, and Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, wiping away a tear, join in celebrating passage of bill on employing people with disabilities.