ADA Threatened

By Arie Farnam

Once, not so many years ago, the Dean of the University of California at Berkeley told a prospective student with a mobility impairment, "We've tried cripples before and it didn't work." An employer in North Carolina told an interviewee, "If I knew you were blind, I wouldn't have bothered bringing you in for an interview."

Both of these statements were uttered prior to 1990, when the United States was a very different country for people with disabilities. Then, Congress, hearing these testimonies and many others like them, passed the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Ten years later, eight states say Congress was wrong; 14 say Congress was right.

Although Oregon, like most states, has so far remained neutral, one group of Oregonians refused to keep quiet. The Blanche Fischer Foundation sponsored a delegation of 14 disability rights advocates from Portland, Grand Ronde, Willsonville, Bend, La Grande and Ontario to travel to Washington, D.C., to lobby for protection of the ADA. On Oct. 3, they marched with 3,500 other activists to the Supreme Court, where oral arguments in the State of Alabama's case against the ADA began eight days later.

The case began with two disputes over employment discrimination. In the first, Patricia Garrett claimed the University of Alabama's medical center harrassed and demoted her after she was treated for breast cancer. In the second, Milton Ash, who has severe asthma, sued Alabama's youth correction agency for not enforcing its own nonsmoking policy and requiring him to drive vehicles that admitted fumes into the the passenger compartment.

After losing both cases on appeal, the defendants' lawyers decided to challenge parts of the ADA in the Supreme Court as an unconstitutional breach of the state's 11th Amendment right to self-government. The case charges that when Congress passed the ADA it did not have a "record of egregious discrimination," which is necessary before the federal government can enforce a civil rights law on the states. The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the combined cases.

Leaders in the disability community say the states' rights case is not only the most grave threat to the ADA since it became law, but also a potential threat to every civil rights law on the books. Demonstrations in support of the ADA were immediately planned in Washington, D.C., and other major cities. "This is a profound challenge to our civil rights. . . . Much more important than that, it is a profound challenge to democracy as we know it," said longtime activist Justin Dart, who was a crucial player in passing the ADA. "They are questioning the constitutionality of the U.S. Congress to require states to implement civil rights."

The Rev. Jesse Jackson and the Rev. Martin Luther King III spoke at the rally and emphasized the parallels between the disabilties rights and civil rights movements. "Don't ever get tired," King shouted to a cheering crowd. "We have come too far. No one ever told us our road would be easy, but I know our God did not bring us this far to leave us now. . . . We are prepared again to bring street action and street heat. It is unfortunate that we have to do that. Enough is enough. We aren't going to take it any more." Jackson exhorted the crowd to make its voice heard on election day and vote. Thunderous applause and cheers followed his closing remark: "And stay out of the Bushes!"

From the capitol lawn, the crowd walked and rolled their wheelchairs, chanting all the while, to the steps of the Supreme Court. After the rally dissipated, the Oregon delegation forged onward. Having learned that Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden holds an open house for Oregonians every Tuesday at 5 p.m., the group called on Oregon's senior senator.

Packed into the Senator's front office, the Oregonians asked Wyden to join a pledge agreeing not to compromise the ADA. The Senator signed the declaration on the spot. "If there were to be any court decision to gut the ADA, the Congress should move immediately to get rights for the disabled back on track," said Wyden.