Wednesday, September 27, 2000
The Columbus Dispatch
[Headline] SUPREME COURT CASE
[Subheading] Disabilities act in danger, advocates say

By Malt Ferenchik
Dispatch City Hall Reporter

Advocates of the Americans with Disabilities Act from Ohio are on their way to Washington, where the U.S. Supreme Court is to hear arguments next month in a case the advocates say could weaken the act.

About 100 people chanting "Don't tread on the ADA" rallied at noon yesterday outside the State, house, including a busload of 40 activists traveling to nine cities on their way to Washington Ohio is one of seven states that have filed a "states' rights" brief in support of Alabama in its case against two state employees.

In the case, University of Alabama v. Garrett, Alabama is arguing that plaintiffs suing states for money under the 'disabilities act should have to sue in state courts rather than federal courts.

The Ohio Statewide Independent Living Council and other groups say the case challenges the constitutionality of the disabilities act.

"The Garrett case is a wake-up call that says • the ADA is under attack and could be weakened or, lost," said Kimberly Harper, 30, of Columbus. Harper, who works for Mobile Independent Living, is hearing-impaired and used sign language to deliver her comments.

"What's going to come out of this," said Woody Osburn, executive director of the Ohio Statewide Independent Living Council, "is whether the states' rights supersede the ADA."

He said advocates worry that if Alabama wins, a private-sector case could come along "that renders the act useless to us."

But the Ohio attorney general's office says the [text cut off.]

[image]
[image caption] Kimberly Harper of Columbus signs her message at a Statehouse rally in support of the Americans with Disabilities Act Activists say a pending Supreme Court case could weaken the law. Neal C. Laurim/Dispatch

[text resumes] "This whole case is about proper jurisdiction," said Joe Case, a spokesman for Ohio Attorney General Betty D. Montgomery. "WI not about dismantling or chipping away at the ADA."

Montgomery wrote Osburn that the states' brief to the Supreme Court "stresses that the states must still follow every single substantive requirement of the ADA, and it stresses that the. states can still 'be sued by citizens who feel that their state is not doing enough under the law."

Osburn said any Supreme Court ruling should not affect the federal consent decree Columbus entered into last year in which it promised to build wheelchair Curb ramps. The cost to the city now stands at $27.8 million, and city attorneys are negotiating with Osburn's group and the Equal Justice Foundation to extend a Jan. 1 deadline to build 10,853 ramps.

The question before the Supreme Court is, "Does the 11th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution [text cuts off]

[text resumes] under the Americans with Disabilities Act against nonconsenting, states?" Nonconsenting states are states that are not complying with the ac the 11th Amendment limits federal-court jurisdiction. The other states filing, the brief supporting Altanta are Arkansas, Hawaii, Idaho, Nebraska, Nevada and Tennessee.

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Oct. 11 in the case — actually two cases combined in a lower court. Patricia Garrett sued the University of Alabama's Birmingham medical center for demoting her and then transferring her from her job as a supervisory nurse after she was treated for breast cancer. In the other case, Milton Ash, a corrections officer with asthma, sued Alabama's youth corrections agency for not enforcing no-smoking rules and not servicing state cars that emit noxious fumes.

Disability advocates. will hold a March for Justice in Washington on Tuesday. The bus tour [text cuts off]

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• The Rolling Freedom Express & Washington DC, fall 2000

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