JFActivist

Will the Next Supreme Court Justice Protect the Rights of People with Disabilities?

From the Bazelon Center (4.29.10):

 
Action Alert

Tell the President We Need a Disability Rights Leader Like Justice Stevens!

April 29, 2010--Very soon, President Obama will name a replacement for Justice John Paul Stevens of the United States Supreme Court. For the past 35 years, Justice Stevens has been a strong voice on the Court for the disability community, consistently voting to protect the rights of people with disabilities in cases involving the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

The President now has his second opportunity to shape the Supreme Court for years to come. As he considers potential nominees, the stakes are high for people with disabilities.

Despite Congress's bipartisan passage in 2008 of the ADA Amendments Act (ADAAA) to restore the law's broad reach after years of hostile court rulings, judges are still getting the ADA wrong - still shutting the courthouse door on people with disabilities. We need a leader every bit as strong as Justice Stevens to ensure full enforcement of the ADA and other important disability rights laws. Justice Stevens' replacement must be committed to the protection of disability rights.

The White House needs to hear now from advocates for people with disabilities.

What You Can Do
Please tell the President why he should name someone who will uphold the rights of people with disabilities. Ask President Obama to:

Choose a justice who will interpret disability rights laws broadly, as Congress intended.
Choose a justice who understands the effect of Supreme Court decisions on people with disabilities.
Choose a justice who respects the role of Congress in protecting disability rights.
Contact the White House at (202) 456-1111 (phone), (202) 456-6213 (TTY) or online at www.whitehouse.gov/CONTACT.

Whythis nomination is so critical:

President Obama has voiced his support for the values -- including independence, integration and equal opportunity -- expressed in federal disability rights laws such as the ADA, the Rehabilitation Act, the Medicaid Act and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). To advance disability rights, we ask the President to:

Choose a justice who will give disability rights laws the broad remedial effect intended by Congress. In several significant decisions in the years before the ADAAA, the Supreme Court chipped away at core protections for people with disabilities. During this time, Justice Stevens concurred in important decisions affirming disability rights, including City of Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Center, 473 U.S. 432 (1985); Bragdon v. Abbott, 524 U.S. 624 (1998); and Olmstead v. L.C., 527 U.S. 581 (1999). In his dissent in Sutton v. United Air Lines, 527 U.S. 471 (1999), he argued forcefully that whether a person is disabled and thus protected by the ADA should be considered without regard to mitigating measures. Although his colleagues on the Court disagreed, Congress later followed Justice Stevens' dissent on this very point in enacting the ADAAA.

We want President Obama to select a justice who will interpret the ADA and other disability rights laws as broadly as Congress intended, so that all people with disabilities have an equal opportunity to succeed in school and at work and to lead independent lives in their communities.

Choose a justice who understands the effect of Supreme Court decisions on people with disabilities. Supreme Court decisions have consequences, not just for the parties before the court, but for everyone. For example, when the Supreme Court ruled that Casey Martin, a golfer with a mobility disability, could use a golf cart on the PGA tour, this made it easier for everyone, including students and workers (not just golfers), to get the accommodations they need for an equal opportunity. Justice Stevens authored the decision in P.G.A. Tour, Inc. v. Martin, 432 U.S. 661 (2001). Similarly, the Court's recent decision in Forest Grove Sch. Dist. v. T.A., 129 S. Ct. 2484 (2009), also authored by Justice Stevens, made it easier for families everywhere to access special education for children with disabilities when public schools have failed to provide needed services.

We want President Obama to choose a justice who understands how important Supreme Court decisions are to the everyday lives of people with disabilities.

Choose a justice who respects the role of Congress in protecting disability rights. In enacting the ADA and other disability rights laws, Congress carefully considered the history of people with disabilities in the United States. The lawmakers acknowledged that many people with disabilities have been ostracized from their families and communities - prevented from going to their neighborhood schools, from working at jobs for which they were qualified and from participating in all aspects of community life. Congress passed laws like the ADA to combat these problems. But in recent years, the Supreme Court has declared that Congress lacked the power to pass some of these laws. Justice Stevens disagreed. For example, he authored the ruling in Tennessee v. Lane, 541 U.S. 509 (2004), that Congress could require states to make courthouses and the entire justice system accessible to people with disabilities. Lower courts have followed this ruling, holding that the ADA requires states to provide access in schools, hospitals and prisons.

We want President Obama to choose a Supreme Court justice who will respect Congress's important role and hard work in writing and enacting the disability rights laws on which so many people with disabilities depend for protection from discrimination and an equal opportunity to succeed in life.

As we celebrate the 20th anniversary of the ADA, it is especially crucial that President Obama name, as Justice Stevens' replacement, a disability-rights champion for the 21st Century Supreme Court. We are confident he will, and look forward to supporting his nominee.

In the meantime, please let President Obama know that you want a Supreme Court nominee who will strongly support disability rights!

Contact the White House at (202) 456-1111 (phone), (202) 456-6213 (TTY) or at www.whitehouse.gov/CONTACT.

 

Health Care Reform Explained: What Does this Mean for Us?

From United Spinal Association, the National Spinal Cord Injury Association and JFAAN (4.27.10):

Impact of Health Care Reform on People with Disabilities

The disability community has worked together tirelessly for more than a year to achieve health care reform. After health care reform nearly died several times, Congress revived it and it became law in March 2010.

From any perspective, the final legislation is not perfect, but it will bring important improvements in health care coverage for people with spinal cord injuries and disorders and people with disabilities in general. The insurance market reforms alone are clearly beneficial. Once the permanent provisions go into effect, no longer will health insurers be able to deny coverage, charge outrageous premiums, offer less coverage to people with pre-existing conditions or impose annual or lifetime caps on benefits. In addition, the bill enacts several provisions that encourage home and community based services so that people with disabilities do not have to choose between living at home and getting the services they need...

Summarized in the attached document are major final health care reform provisions that particularly impact people with disabilities. This list is by no means exhaustive. The final legislation not only reforms health insurance but also addresses many health care issues including prevention and wellness and improving the health care workforce.

With enactment of the law, reform is only beginning. The disability community must stay involved and present as implementing regulations are drafted, proposed, promulgated, and implemented. For the foreseeable future, we will need to be vigilant in making our voices heard with regard to the countless rules and regulations to be issued, advisory boards and commissions to be established, and many other steps to be taken to implement health care reform.

>>> Download Health Reform and Disabilities

MDRI Exposes Torture in US Treatement Facility, Files "Urgent Appeal" with UN for

From Mental Disability Rights International (4.29.10):

MDRI Alleges Torture Against Children and Adults with Disabilities in the United States
Files Urgent Appeal to United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture in Geneva

Mental Disability Rights International (MDRI) has found children and adults with disabilities tortured and abused at a “special needs” residential facility in Massachusetts and has filed an “urgent appeal” with the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture to demand the United States government end the torture immediately.

MDRI’s latest report, Torture not Treatment: Electric Shock and Long-Term Restraint in the United States on Children and Adults with Disabilities at the Judge Rotenberg Center (JRC), documents the use of electric shocks on the legs, arms, torsos and soles of feet of people with disabilities – for weeks, months and sometimes years. JRC uses punishments as treatment and US advocates have been trying for decades to close the school and end these practices. The school also uses 4-point restraint boards, tying children to the boards while simultaneously shocking them for hours; mock assaults; food deprivation; shock chairs; isolation and long-term restraint...

>>>For the Full Release

ADAPT Hosts Community Choice Press Event; You should TOO!

From ADAPT:

Dear Colleagues,

It is long past time to REMOVE THE INSTITUTIONAL BIAS FROM MEDICAID!

On the morning of Wednesday, April 28, at a location in the Capitol complex (see below), ADAPT and the Coalition for Community Integration will hold a press conference to formally announce the results of a recent Harris Poll that show Americans are in strong support of the CCA and willing to pay the $6 a year it might cost. Folks in Congress are assisting us to set up this press conference.

We invite you to join us in DC (details on place/time below), and to encourage your affiliates and constituents all over the country to hold similar press conferences locally, whether at their own offices, or perhaps at the local offices of their state's congressional delegation.

To assist in that endeavor, I am attaching templates  that you and they are free to use. There is an email for IL Centers   that can be customized for any other organization, and there is a template news release as well, that can be easily customized. Finally, there are 2 Fact Sheets put together from the Harris Poll, one from ADAPT and one from CCI and ADAPT.

I'm here at the ADAPT action in DC, and wish all of you were here, too, to see people of every age and color and background and disability-  wheeling, signing, using assistive communication and canes and crutches and assistance animals. Our community includes everyone, from a new born baby to people over 80 years old. We are loud, and proud, and strong, and determined to see the institutional bias removed from Medicaid, so that ALL of us have the option to live freely in our own homes and communities with the assistance we need.

Please join us, and please urge your constituents to be part of this national effort to once and for all get the Community Choice Act passed!

>>>Download NCIL Email Template

>>>Download Media Release Template

>>>Download Talking Points

>>> Download The Cost and Benefits of CCA

DC Press Event to Announce Shocking Community Choice Data

Who: Coalition for Community Integration, ADAPT, American Association for People with Disabilities, National Council on Independent Living, TASH and additional disability groups from the Justice for All Action Network

What : Press/Media Event

Where: Ways and Means Committee Room in 1100 Longworth House Office Building

When: from 10:00 - 11:00 a.m. on Wednesday, April 28, 2010.

Why: Release results of Harris Poll showing89% of all Americans, and 94% of retirees support legislation like the Community Choice Act which would provide home and community-based supports and services instead of older and disabled Americans being forced by the current Medicaid law into nursing homes and other institutional settings that they do not desire.

The Harris Poll showed overwhelming support for CCA, across age groups and all regions of the country, with that support increasing to a high of 94% in the baby-boomer/retiree age group.

Even more striking was the fact that supporters said "yes, I would pay an extra $6/year in taxes to fund this community-based option."

The $6 figure was calculated via 3 different methodologies, by the Coalition for Community Integration and two universities, using IRS numbers, and the result was the same each time. In addition, the $6 represents the cost to middle-class tax-payers in the "worst-case" scenario.

More information will be available at the press conference, and will be posted on the ADAPT website and the NationalADAPT FreeOurPeople Facebook page after the press conference.

Sec. of Education Recognizes Prejudice Against and Describes Vision for Students with Disabilities

From The White House (4.26.10):

 

Keeping the Promise to All America's Children Secretary Arne Duncan's Remarks to the Council for Exceptional Children, April 21, 2010

President Obama and I believe that every child deserves a world-class education. When the president says every child, it is not just rhetoric--he means every child, regardless of his or her skin color, nationality, ethnicity, or ability. The truth is, however, that virtually everyone professes to believe that all children deserve a world-class education.
Yet today, a significant gap between our aspirations and reality persists. And here is the harder, unspoken truth. Subtle, unexpressed prejudices and lingering roadblocks still prevent children with disabilities from receiving the world-class education they deserve. No belief is more pernicious in education than the conviction that disabilities and demography are destiny--that the burdens of poverty, disability, and race mean the children cannot really succeed and should be treated with low expectations.
We should never forget the past. Even in my lifetime, public schools virtually ignored children with disabilities. Many children were denied access to public schools, and those who attended didn't get the individualized instruction and appropriate services they needed and deserved.
Over the past 35 years, we've made great strides in delivering on the promise of a free, appropriate public education for children with disabilities. Thanks to the advocacy and hard work of people and organizations like the Council for Exceptional Children, six million students with disabilities are in school—and millions of them are thriving.
Yet unfortunately, many children with disabilities are not getting a world-class education. The President and I are committed to doing everything in our power to make that bedrock American promise of equal educational opportunity a reality. With the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, we have a historic opportunity to move closer to fulfilling that promise for all students.
The President has set a goal that, by the end of the decade, America once again will have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world. That ambitious goal will require our educational institutions to produce eight million new graduates with two-year and four-year degrees. We simply cannot achieve that goal without Americans of all ages and abilities going to college and getting degrees in far greater numbers than they are today.
And we know, more than ever before, that in a global economy, a country's economic security depends on the skills and knowledge of its workers. The country that out-educates us today will out-compete us tomorrow. America does not have expendable students.
But education for all is more than an economic issue. It's a moral issue. I have often said that education is the civil rights issue of our time. In March, I had the opportunity to speak at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama on the 45th anniversary of one of the most important events of the Civil Rights movement. On that bridge, police savagely beat several hundred peaceful protesters with clubs, lashed them with bullwhips, and stung their eyes and throats with tear gas—all because the protesters wanted to secure the right to vote. Our nation wept with shame that day. Within months, Congress passed the landmark voting Rights Act of 1965.
The civil rights protesters on the Edmund Pettus Bridge weren't in wheelchairs and they weren't marching on behalf of students with dyslexia, learning disabilities, ADD, or other disabilities. But their spirit and commitment emboldened the disability rights movement. In education, no victory for disability advocates was bigger than the 1975 law that guaranteed students with disabilities the right to a free, appropriate public education. On the 35th anniversary of that law's passage, it's important to remember many students with disabilities were turned away from school altogether. Others were put in separate classrooms – sometimes a place as unwelcoming as a converted broom closet. Very few ever interacted with peers without disabilities. Today, six million students are guaranteed a free, appropriate public education.
Great advocates continue to work tirelessly on behalf of persons with disabilities. In Congress, we are fortunate the education committees are led by two great champions for students with disabilities – Senator Tom Harkin and Representative George Miller. As you know, Senator Harkin has dedicated much of his career to protecting the rights of people with disabilities. He was an author of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Representative Miller is a passionate advocate for people with disabilities. He takes a back seat to no one in his commitment to accountability for educating students with disabilities.
I look forward to working with both of them to reauthorize ESEA. We'll be working closely with Republicans as well, including Senator Enzi, Senator Alexander, and Representative Kline.
Senator Harkin, Chairman Miller, and House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey also have introduced legislation to save education jobs. In this tough economy, hundreds of thousands of education professionals could be facing layoffs. Maybe you are one of them – maybe one or your colleagues or friends is. I look forward to working with them to pass an education jobs bill. Education reform and saving education jobs go hand in hand.
Because of the leadership of Senator Harkin, Chairman Miller and many others the lives of children with disabilities are so much richer today than a generation ago. The nation has made significant progress for students with disabilities – but we have more work to do.
Today, 57 percent of students with disabilities spend at least 80 percent of their day within the regular school environment. Overall, 95 percent of students with disabilities attend a neighborhood school. We're working to put an end to the days of students with disabilities being bused across town or put into a separate school solely because they have a disability. Students with disabilities are learning alongside their peers. They're eating lunch with them. They're making art with them. They're becoming friends with them. And once they graduate they will be working side-by-side.
I know that you'll be hearing from Tim Shriver on Friday. As the chairman and CEO of the Special Olympics, Tim is a strong advocate for including students with disabilities across community groups. He recounts story after story to illustrate how people with disabilities enrich the lives of all children.
One story he shared with me came in an essay by a girl named Kaitlyn Smith from Conifer High School in Colorado. She wrote about her best friend, Kathleen. Kaitlyn and Kathleen met while they were paired off as partners in P.E. class. They quickly became best friends and they do all of the things best friends do. They eat lunch together every day. When neither of them had a date for the Homecoming dance, they went together as friends.
Kaitlyn wrote that Kathleen taught her what truly matters. It's not dressing well, doing your hair right, or making sure everyone likes you. In fact, when high school bullies made fun of Kathleen, her response was to look them in the eye, smile, and ignore them. Kaitlyn wrote about their friendship: "Right from the moment I met her, I knew my best friend was a blessing. I needed someone in my life that was going to change my perspective and give me a different outlook."
Kathleen happens to have Down syndrome. But the story about Kaitlyn's and Kathleen's friendship shows how the inclusion of students with disabilities benefits more than just the student with the disability. Inclusion benefits the whole community. Sometimes, parents, students, and teachers fail to recognize the great leadership that students with disabilities can provide our school communities.
But I'm sure you can tell me hundreds of stories of how inclusion enriched the lives of everyone in a school. These are stories we need to tell, over and over again. So many students with disabilities have gone on to become insightful and effective leaders for children who followed in their wake.
Judy Heumann was the assistant secretary for special education and rehabilitative services under Secretary Riley. She contracted polio when she was 18 months old and grew up using a wheelchair. The New York City Public Schools refused to enroll her – not because she wasn't smart enough, not because she couldn't learn – simply because she used a wheelchair. When she was old enough for 4th grade, she was allowed to enroll in school. She went on to graduate high school and then college. She applied for job as teacher in the system and was turned away again. Once again, she didn't give up. She eventually got a job as a teacher -- but only after suing the school board.
Judy knows that a disability shouldn't stop any child from attending school, pursuing a career, and making a difference in the lives of others. In addition to eight years of public service at the Department of Education, she has been a strong advocate for persons with disabilities. She has worked with the World Bank to ensure that it addresses disability issues in its work with countries throughout the world. Today, she is the director of the Department of Disability Services in the District of Columbia.
Her work and dedication are reminders of the power of determination and the time-honored truth that disabilities alone do not define us or our work and worth as human beings. Students like Kaitlyn and Kathleen – and adults like Judy – show us that disabilities are not destiny.
The work you do as special education leaders and teachers is vitally important for the students you work with – and our society as well. Children no longer have to fight to be enrolled in school. People who use wheelchairs no longer need to sue simply to have their job application considered by public school districts or other employers. And students like Kathleen can be important parts of a school community – learning with her peers and teaching her peers important lessons about respect, self-confidence, and friendship.
Those are civil rights victories truly worth celebrating. But we haven't fulfilled the promise of education for students with disabilities. The struggle for equal opportunity in our nation's schools and universities did not end with the passage of IDEA or at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge. We will work with schools and enforce laws to ensure that all children, no matter what their race, gender, disability or national origin, have a fair chance at a good future. We will make sure ESEA doesn't lose track of these students, who in many cases are making significant progress.
The data show us that we're making progress. In 2007, nearly 60 percent of students with disabilities graduated high school with a regular diploma, compared to 32 percent twenty years earlier. And a third of students with disabilities were enrolled in postsecondary education – up from just one in seven two decades ago. More adults with disabilities are employed than ever before. By just about every measure, students with disabilities are better educated today than they were a generation ago.
But while America can justly celebrate those successes, we have a long way to go before we rest on our laurels. The graduation rate, postsecondary enrollment rate, and employment rate are all increasing, but they're still far too low. Too many students with disabilities are leaving school, without the knowledge and skills they truly need to succeed.
From Washington, we're working hard to ensure that we have the right policies and incentives in place to help states and districts accelerate achievement for all students, including those with disabilities. This year, I'm working closely with Democrats and Republicans in Congress to fix the No Child Left Behind Act through the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. We want the law to be fair, flexible, and focused on the right goals. We want a law that ensures all students are prepared for success in college and careers. Our proposal will set a goal that all students graduate high school ready to succeed in college and careers. We want to make sure that students with disabilities are included in all aspects of ESEA, and to continue the measure achievement gaps and work to close them. We want to align ESEA with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act so that we create one seamless system that addresses the needs of each child.
Under our proposal, students with disabilities will continue to be full participants in accountability systems. One thing NCLB did right was hold schools accountable for all students and highlighted the achievement gaps between subgroups of students. We absolutely want to continue that. But NCLB doesn't measure student growth. If students start the year two grade levels behind, and, through excellent teaching and strong supports, progress so much that they end the year just below grade level, their school is still labeled a failure instead of a success.
Our accountability system will be based mostly on student growth. Schools where students show large gains in learning over the course of the school year will be rewarded. And the emphasis on student growth will ensure that schools have an incentive to improve the academic performance of our highest-achieving students as well. While we will reward and recognize the best schools, the vast majority of schools will have more flexibility to implement locally designed plans to reach the benchmarks they set for themselves. But schools with chronically low performance and persistent achievement gaps will be required to take far-reaching steps to help students.
We'll maintain that focus on achievement gaps from NCLB. Our proposal would continue to hold schools accountable for teaching students with disabilities but will also reward them for increasing student learning. Our proposal will also include meaningful district accountability. That means even where achievement gaps aren't apparent in schools with small numbers of students with disabilities, we will see these gaps at the district level and ask districts to focus on closing them.
While we're confident that our accountability system will be fair and flexible, we recognize it won't be flawless. To build a first-rate accountability system, states have to significantly improve existing assessments used to measure our students' growth and move beyond fill-in-the bubble tests. Our ESEA Blueprint and Race to the Top Assessment Competition will invest in that next generation of tests to measure student growth and achievement. And it will enhance states' use of technology and advances in the field of testing to evaluate a range of skills, including those that have traditionally been difficult to measure.
The Department plans to support consortia of states, who will design better assessments for the purposes of both measuring student growth and providing feedback to inform teaching and learning in the classroom. All students will benefit from these tests, but the tests are especially important for students with disabilities.
Today, we have a complicated set of rules around assessing students with disabilities. The majority of students with disabilities take the regular state tests based on the state's standards for all students, with appropriate accommodations to ensure that their results are valid. Students with the most significant cognitive disabilities can take alternate tests based on alternate standards and other students with disabilities may take an alternate test based on modified standards.
Developing these alternate assessments requires specialized expertise. The Department intends to run an alternate assessments competition that will be managed by the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, with a notice inviting applications later this year.
We need to move toward assessments that allow practically all students to take tests that report results tracking their progress toward college- or career-readiness. Our Blueprint also recognizes the uniquely transformative power of teachers on students. We will invest almost $4 billion in programs that recruit, prepare, develop, retain, and reward effective teachers. That's an unprecedented amount. Our proposal goes further by bolstering traditional and alternative pathways to teaching – especially for those teaching in high-need areas – such as special education – and those teaching in high-need schools.
This reauthorized ESEA will provide the building block for the reauthorization of the IDEA that will follow. Alexa Posny will be leading our work in IDEA reauthorization, and she will be a strong advocate for students with disabilities in ESEA reauthorization as well. You'll be hearing from her tomorrow morning. Alexa and I look forward to hearing your voices and working with you as Congress shapes this very important law.
Before I close, I want to want to issue a challenge to each of you individually and to the whole field of special education. Everything we do at the U.S. Department of Education is aimed toward meeting the President's goal that by 2020 America once again will lead the world in college completion. We cannot get there unless students are earning postsecondary degrees at record levels. I know you've made tremendous progress over the decades, but there's still significant work to be done. I want to challenge each of you to be personally responsible for the success of your students once they graduate. This will mean helping students not just in school but assisting them to plan their transition from high school to college or careers.
I know you already work hard on this, but I'm asking you to redouble your efforts. The success of your students, the well being of our communities, and the economic prosperity of our nation depends on creating a cradle to career educational pipeline, not an education system that continues to function in its separate silos.
Working together, and with your courage and commitment to challenging the status quo, we can create an education system that delivers a world-class education to every learner. This is a promise we must keep to our nation's students with disabilities, and to all of America's children.

>>>For More Information 

Meet the Women of the Administration: Kathleen Martinez

From The White House (4.22.10):

Meet the Women of the Administration: Kathleen Martinez

By Maggie Chen on April 22, 2010 at 01:20 PM EDT 
Following our first post on Under Secretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs Rebecca Blank, the second post in our Meet the Women of the Administration series features Assistant Secretary of Labor for Disability Employment Policy Kathleen Martinez. Read on to learn more about her path to becoming a disability rights leader and an inspirational member of the Administration!

 

 
How did your childhood influence you?
I come from a large family, and am proud of my Latino and Native American heritage. When I was eight months old, my parents, with limited education and English skills, feared for my future when they realized that I probably would never be able to see. Fortunately, I was mainstreamed in the public school system from kindergarten through high school. This experience made me realize early on that I would have to develop different strategies.
During my early years I encountered many instances of people struggling because of their differences. For example, even though my parents were both U.S. citizens, I have vivid memories of Immigration officials pounding on our door, demanding that my parents produce their birth certificates. I remember when we would go to meetings at my school and the administrators would speak very loudly to my mother because her English wasn't very good at the time. In addition, we lived very close to strawberry fields and orange groves in southern California and I became increasingly aware of the farm workers who worked in those fields. A student teacher in 8th grade read the book Sweatshops in the Sun by Ronald B. Taylor for me on tape. The book was about child labor on farms, and it profoundly influenced my awareness of working conditions in those fields just a couple blocks from my house. I soon became involved in the youth effort to improve conditions for local farm workers.
My childhood became the time when I realized that although I felt different, I had much in common with other kids. I loved to run and play, just like everybody else, yet I soon discovered that everybody else also had certain vulnerabilities that made them somewhat different, just like me. One classmate was picked on because she had freckles; another student was ridiculed because he had psoriasis. The commonalities helped shape my self confidence to reach out and communicate freely with people from all walks of life...

>>>Read More at the White House blog

This Sunday Watch CBS Presentation on Addiction and Recovery

From SAMHSA (4/19/10):

Support Recovery: Watch "When Love Is Not Enough: The Lois Wilson Story"

Public awareness and support represent one of SAMHSA’s priority initiatives. The goal of this initiative is to increase understanding of mental and substance use disorder prevention and treatment services. The hope is to achieve the full potential of prevention and to help people recognize and seek assistance for these health conditions with the same urgency as they would for any other health condition.
SAMHSA is working in collaboration with the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, Inc., to spread the word about the Hallmark Hall of Fame world premiere of When Love Is Not Enough: The Lois Wilson Story. Please join us in watching, and share this information widely.
Sunday, April 25  |  9/8 Central on CBS
Starring Winona Ryder (The Age of Innocence, Little Women) and Barry Pepper (61*), the latest Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation is based on the true story of the sorely tested, but ultimately enduring love between Lois Wilson (Ryder), cofounder of Al-Anon, and her husband Bill Wilson (Pepper), cofounder of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Comment: Do you have a favorite movie that can bring awareness to an important issue like this one? Feel free to recommend your movie and share it with others.

Jobs Bill Could Open Doors to Employment for PWD

From AAPD (4.19.10):

AAPD Learns About “Local Jobs for America Act:” People with Disabilities Could Benefit

Story by Abir  Joubran–Dakwar, Policy Intern, AAPD.

On Monday, April 12, 2010 AAPD participated in a teleconference entitled “America's Most Pressing Need - Good Jobs:  Supporting the Local Jobs for America Act”, a briefing provided by the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights (LCCR). The briefing provided a summary and update on a bill, the “Local Jobs for America Act” (H.R. 4812), sponsored by Rep. George Miller (D-CA) Chairman of the House Education & Labor Committee, a bill that would create new jobs in the public sector. Currently H.R.4812 has 139 Democratic co-sponsors, and has been referred to the full committee for action.  While the measure does not specifically mention people with disabilities, expansion of jobs in the public sector could lead to more jobs for some people with disabilities.

According to the United States Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, in March 2010 the work participation rate of non-institutional people with disabilities, 16 years old and over, was only 22.5% compared to 70.2% of people with no disability. For more information on current disability employment statistics, see http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t06.htm

Briefing presentations were provided by: Steve Savner, director of public policy for The Center for Community Change; Liz Shuler, secretary treasurer of the AFL-CIO; Alan Charney, campaign manager for Jobs for America Now; Ellen Buchman, vice president for field operations for the Leadership Conference; and Gordon Lafer, senior labor policy advisor for House Committee on Education and Labor.  Wade Henderson, president of the Leadership Conference, moderated the call.   Henderson noted that there are “roughly 6 unemployed Americans for every job,” noting the need for “economic justice” and that “job creation has to be priority.” He said that the “the local jobs for America Act H.R. 4812 … will help ...the most vulnerable who need good secure jobs in their communities.”

Savner, Center for Community Change, said that “there is a wide agreement that there is a need to create new jobs and to extend job security” and that H.R. 4812 would use federal resources to create jobs, using a hundred million dollars over the next two years to create a million jobs. These jobs would be created in states and municipalities with the greatest number of people out of work. These jobs would be education, daycare, healthcare, transportation, public safety and other community services.

According to Shuler, Chairman Miller and his staff are working closely with the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees to make sure that "this bill will accomplish its aim of creating good jobs where needed most, without displacing current public sector jobs or public sector workers.”   Charney, campaign manager for Jobs for America Now, said that even if the bill is enacted, there still be challenges and coordination needed “in the states in the districts and states all around the country to create real movement for job creation.”

Committee staffer Lafer stated that the bill would not create part-time jobs or low rate jobs or temporary jobs, but would create about a million average fully federal paid jobs for two years in public services and in community-based organizations in high poverty areas, with pay at about $30,000 per year. Lafer emphasized that passing the bill depends not only on local officials, but on people and organizations working to support the bill.

For full details of what speakers said, listen to audio recording of the briefing, click Here! 
For more information on the jobs campaign, click here!
AAPD is a board member of LCCR. More on LCCR here!

 

CA Legislature Considers "Disability History Week" Resolution

From California Foundation for Independent Living Centers (4.20.10):

Youth-Led Campaign Drives Introduction of New “Disability History Week” Resolution

SACRAMENTO, CA – A campaign led by young people with disabilities has resulted in the introduction of a new resolution authored by Assemblymember Jim Beall (D-San Jose), which aims to foster better understanding of the contributions people with disabilities have made to our society.  ACR 162, co-authored by Assemblymember Jared Huffman ( D-San Rafael), would designate the second week of October as Disability History Week and encourage schools and colleges to incorporate disability history into their curricula.

“Teaching disability history will bring a united vision and shared understanding that people with disabilities are so much more than their circumstance,” said Kevin Dat Vu, a student at Fresno State University. “We want to educate youth that people with disabilities are just the same and can do exactly the same things.”

Part of a national youth-led movement to increase awareness of disability history, youth advocates in California launched their drive for a resolution recognizing Disability History week at a Youth Leadership Forum for Students with Disabilities in 2009.   Their effort was supported by the YO! Youth Organizing Disabled and Proud, a program of the California Foundation for Independent Living Centers, Silicon Valley Independent Living Centers, Marin Center for Indepdent Living and comes after youth movements in several other states were successful in gaining recognition of Disability History Weeks.  Nationwide, efforts to recognize disability history are supported by the federal Department of Labor’s  Office of Disability Employment Policy.

“Coming together for the Youth Leadership Forum, many youth learned about disability history for the first time.  We realized that all students should know that people with disabilities have been important leaders in our communities and we pledged to take action to make sure our history is recognized,” said YO! volunteer Elizabeth Pope.  “Youth organizers are proud to have brought this bill from idea to introduction and we look forward to working with Assemblymembers Beall and Huffman to see it passed.”

ACR 162 acknowledges the significant gains people with disabilities have made in overcoming painful discrimination and exclusion from our communities and serves as a reminder that people with disabilities are still fighting for equal access to employment, education, and inclusion.  Recognized in the resolution are leaders such as Ed Roberts, a former director of the California Department of Rehabilitation and one of the founders of the national disability rights and independent living movements.  The resolution would also highlight the activism and leadership from within the disability community that has resulted in important legislative accomplishments and landmark legal victories such as federal Rehabilitation Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in the Olmstead case.

“The history of the struggle for civil rights in America is incomplete without recognition of the battles fought by people with disabilities to gain equality,’’ said Assemblymember Jim Beall. “Their stories need to be told.  “People with disabilities will not be fully accepted as equal, contributing members of the community unless our children's education promotes an understanding and awareness of disability history and the disability rights movement.’’

 ACR 162 would encourage school districts, community college districts, public and private institutions of higher learning and other organizations to observe Disability History Week by dedicating appropriate classroom instructional time or coordinating all-inclusive activities to be observed during that week to afford opportunities for students and the general public to expand their knowledge of disability history.

“I am extremely proud to be a co-author of this resolution,” said Assemblymember Jared Huffman. “Raising awareness of disability issues in our educational facilities will foster a better understanding between students with and without disabilities and it will also help to achieve the ultimate goal of eliminating the discrimination and stigma towards the disability community.”

Signaling the importance of ACR 162 to the disability community, the following organizations have already expressed their support for the bill: ARC California, California Disability Community Action Network, Disability Rights California, Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund, Disability Rights Legal Center, National Alliance on Mental Illness California, National Multiple Sclerosis Society, Northern California and World Institute on Disability.

The California Foundation for Independent Living Centers, based in Sacramento, Calif., is a statewide, non-profit trade organization made up of 25 Independent Living Centers. Through unified action, CFILC envisions civil rights for all people with disabilities. CFILC's mission is to support independent living centers in their local communities through advocating for systems change and promoting access and integration for people with disabilities.

>>>Download For the full text of the Resolution

Justice Department, Congress, Advance ADA and Web Accessibility

From AFB (4.23.10):

 

ALERT!--With Milestone Justice Department and Congressional Action,
ADA and Web Accessibility to Proudly Take Center Stage

Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, Tom Parez, confirmed late last week that the long-awaited refresh of the Justice Department’s Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) regulations pertaining to state and local government and public accommodations will, when published soon, include provisions bringing greater clarity to the ADA’s applicability to e-commerce. The new rules are expected to favorably resolve, among other things, the question of whether retailers and other public accommodations doing business exclusively online must ensure the accessibility of their online premises to people with disabilities.

Advocates will recall that AFB coordinated the vision loss and disability community’s response to the Justice Department’s proposed ADA rules to call on the Department to address this critical issue and to promulgate rules with more meaningful impact on the wider availability of accessible electronic and information technologies used and offered by government and public accommodations. The call for such modernization of federal rules was most recently joined by the Federal Communications Commission’s own National Broadband Plan which specifically urges the Justice Department and other federal agencies to undertake these significant improvements.

The Assistant Attorney General’s announced commitment came simultaneously with an announcement by the House Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on the Constitution, to hold a hearing this Thursday, April 22 entitled Achieving the Promise of the Americans with Disabilities Act in the Digital Age: Current Issues, Challenges, and Opportunities. The hearing is intended to highlight the relevance of the ADA to technology and Internet accessibility generally and to further build the record for the expected Justice Department rulemaking.

Confirmed witnesses to testify at the hearing include Mark Richert, AFB Policy Director, Judy Brewer, Web Accessibility Initiative, and Dan Goldstein, Brown, Goldstein and Levy, counsel representing the National Federation of the Blind in its litigation against Target for failure to make Target.com accessible to people who are blind.

Advocates willing to share personal stories about the impact of Internet accessibility or inaccessibility in daily life and who are willing to have such short personal stories considered for inclusion in the official hearing record of AFB’s testimony are encouraged to email such content, no more than the equivalent of one-half printed page, to afbgov@afb.net.