Disability Rights

1
Disability Rights

• A HISTORY

2
Importance of the federal response to disabled
veterans

• Department of War
• Veterans Administration

3
Smith-Fess Vocational Rehabilitation Act

• Following each of the major wars of the 20th
  century,Congress responded to the needs of
  returning veterans with rehabilitation
  legislation
• But in 1920 Congress passed the Civilian
  Vocational Rehabilitation Act .

4
Smith-Fess

• It established a civilian vocational
  rehabilitation program under the Federal Board
  for Vocational Education to be funded on a 50-50
  matching basis with the states.
• The funding could be used for vocational
  guidance, training, occupational adjustment
  services, and job placement.

5
The Precursor to Smith-Fess The Rehab Act of
1918-A Turning Point

• After the war, U.S. towns and cities suddenly had
  lots of physically disabled veterans wandering
  around without jobs.
• Americans rejected the European approach -
  building large institutions where the veterans
  and their families could live for free. Instead,
  Congress passed legislation to get them back to
  work and passed the Soldiers Rehabilitation Act
  of 1918.

6
Benefits of Government intervention

• In World War I, only about 2 percent of veterans
  with spinal-cord injuries survived more than a
  year, but three decades later during World War
  II, the discovery of antibiotics and more
  sophisticated medical interventions brought the
  survival rate up to 85 percent

7
Benefits(Cont.) The Rehabilitation Act of 1943

• In 1943, people with mental retardation were
  included in the legislation, making vocational
  training available to them for the first time.

8
Rehab act of 43

• It also changed the type of services the
  government provided for vocational
  rehabilitation.
• In addition to training and guidance, VR started
  paying for certain types of treatments to correct
  disabilities(cataracts, orthopedic services,
  rehab therapy, hearing aids).

9
Post WWII

• the end of World War II changed VR when it
  flooded the nation with wounded veterans.
• More progress in medicine meant not only that
  more people survived the war, but also they
  survived with greater variety of disabilities.

10
Post WWII

• In addition to veterans with loss of limbs,
  vision or hearing, there were now people in
  wheelchairs, people with head injuries, people
  with epilepsy, and people with seizure disorders.
  

11
Rehab Act of 54

• Professionalization the Rehabilitation Act of
  1954 started federal funding of research on
  vocational rehabilitation and funding of advanced
  college training programs in rehabilitation
  counseling.

12
Rehab Act of 54

• Rehabilitation counselors became trained
  professionals, and research offices sprang up.
  This eventually led to the creation of the
  National Institute on Disability and
  Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR) in the U.S.
  Department of Education.

13
From Benefits to Accessibility

• none of this legislation, however included any
  consideration of building accessibility. The
  entire focus was on the clinical impairments of
  people with disabilities and their management

14
1st Efforts to address issues of reasonable
accommodation in building design

• 1958 conference sponsored by the President's
  Commission on Employment of the Handicapped, the
  National Easter Seal Society, and the American
  National Standards Institute

15
Outcomes of 1958 conference

• With a grant from the Easter Seal Foundation, the
  ideas generated at the 1958 conference were
  developed by Timothy Nugent at the Rehabilitation
  Center at the University of Illinois.
• Oversight was provided by a committee of
  representatives from government, advocacy,
  health, trade, and professional associations.

16
Outcomes of 1958 conference

• the standards that were developed by the 1958
  conference, Nugent and the oversight entities
  described the minimal features required to remove
  the major barriers that prevent many persons from
  using buildings and facilities and became the
  first scientifically developed design guideline
  on accessibility in the world.

17
Smith-Fess is Amended

• In 1965 the Smith-Fess Rehabilitation Act was
  amended to address physical barriers to access in
  federal buildings.

18
65 Amendment to Smith-Fess

• The National Commission on Architectural Barriers
  was established and three years later issued a
  report titled "Design for All Americans",
• addressed the remarkable lack of awareness of
  American businesses, public officials, and design
  and construction professionals to the existence
  of barriers to access.

19
Architectural Barriers Act (68)

• After additional study of the issue of physical
  accommodation in buildings by the government, the
  Architectural Barriers Act was passed by Congress

20
Architectural Barriers Act

• The Act mandated that buildings designed,
  constructed, altered, or leased with federal
  funds would comply with standards for
  accessibility.

21
Architectural Barriers Act

• It established three federal agencies that would
  set standards1. the General Services
  Administration,
• 2. the Department of Housing and Urban
  Development, 3. the Department of Defense.
• The Act required two majors amendments (1970 and
  1976) before it started to have a significant
  effect on the accessibility of public buildings.

22
The Rehabilitation Act of 1973

• The disability rights movement has its roots in
  the civil rights movement of the 1960's.
• The Civil Rights Act of 1964, focused on the
  elimination of racial discrimination and set the
  stage for a number of minority groups to broaden
  its coverage and use its mandate to demand
  equality.

23
Civil Rights Rehab Act of 73

• The disability rights movement began to be a
  force and have its agendas recognized in
  legislation during the 1970's, starting with the
  Rehabilitation Act of 1973.

24
Disability Rights/Activism

• Prior to the 1970s there had been significant
  efforts by people with disabilities to advocate
  for change

25
Example 1(organizations) the League of the
Physically Handicapped

• Wednesday, May 29, 1935, six young adultsthree
  women and three menentered New York City's
  Emergency Relief Bureau (ERB), demanding to see
  the Director.
• Told he would be unavailable until the next week,
  they declared they would sit there until he met
  with them or, one vowed, until "hell freezes
  over.
• The next day a large crowd backed the
  demonstrators and demanded jobs for themselves.

26
Organizations (cont)

• Disabled Women's Coalition founded at UC Berkeley
  by Susan Sygall and Deborah Kaplan. The coalition
  ran support groups, held disabled women's
  retreats, wrote for feminist publications, and
  lectured on women and disability.

27
Organizations (cont)

• Black Deaf Advocates
• oldest and largest consumer organization of deaf
  and hard of hearing black deaf people in the
  United States (1982).

28
2 Independent Living Movement

• Ed Roberts and his peers at Cowell (UC Berkeley
  Health Center) formed a group called the Rolling
  Quads.
• The Rolling Quads form the Disabled Students'
  Program on the U.C. Berkeley campus.

29
Independent living movement

• Ed Roberts and his associates establish a Center
  for Independent Living (CIL) in Berkeley, CA for
  the community at large. The center was originally
  in a roach-infested two-bedroom apartment until
  the Rehabilitation Administration gave them a
  50,000 grant in 1972.

30
The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and Section 504
the outgrowth of organization, ideology and
activism

• The importance of the Rehabilitation Act comes
  from the fact that its language, especially
  Section 504, echoes Title VII of the 1964 Civil
  Rights Act.
• Signed into law by Richard Nixon, the law was an
  important step for people with disabilities.

31
Rehabilitation Act of 73

• Section 504 was the first statutory definition of
  discrimination towards people with disabilities.
  Although it did not have the scope of the Civil
  Rights Act of 1964 and only outlawed
  discrimination by those entities that received
  federal funds, it was a crucial factor in
  shifting disability issues to a political and
  civil rights context.

32
Rehabilitation Act of 73

• The Act survived 2 presidential vetoes,
  suggesting that Congress finally understood the
  social significance of the issues.
• The Act laid important groundwork for change but
  did not address implementation it took four more
  years for the regulations enforcing Section 504
  of the Rehabilitation Act to be issued in 1978.

33
Concepts coming out of the new era of disability
rights and legislation

• 1.program accessibility
• 2.mainstreaming
• 3.independent living

34
1.program accessibility 2.mainstreaming
3.independent living

• Three important new concepts emerged during the
  1970'sprogram accessibility, mainstreaming, and
  independent living. While none of them directly
  addressed the specific technical issues of
  accessibility, each had implications for the
  accommodation of people with disabilities by
  organizations that own and operate buildings.

35
Program Accessibility

• Section 504 introduced the concept of program
  accessibility, which allowed programs to achieve
  accessibility by being "viewed in their
  entirety."
• This permitted some flexibility for compliance.
• -For example, a community program could relocate
  activities to a physically accessible space
  instead of costly renovations to an existing
  location.

36
2. mainstreaming

• In 1975, Congress passed the Education for All
  Handicapped Children Act, mandating free,
  appropriate public education for children with
  disabilities. This legislation introduced the
  concept of mainstreaming, ensuring children with
  disabilities an education in the least
  restrictive environmentwhen possible, the same
  environment as children without disabilities.

37
3. Independent living

• The independent-living concept, first talked
  about in rehabilitation circles in the 1950's and
  1960's as a full menu of services provided by
  expert professionals to people with disabilities,
  was redefined by the disability movement as a
  self-help empowerment movement to liberate people
  with disabilities from the traditional concept of
  dependency, especially in their choice of living
  environments.

38
1980s

• The 1980's were a difficult period for people
  with disabilities because the prevailing notion
  that the best government was no government
  threatened to undo hard won rights.

39
The 1980s

• In spite of efforts by detractors, the disability
  movement was successful in opposing attempts to
  deregulate Section 504 and the Architectural
  Barriers Act, achieving some bipartisan support
  and making apparent its potential political
  power. The groundswell of response from parents
  had a profound effect on George Bush, who chaired
  the Commission on Regulatory Relief.

40
80s(cont)

• In 1981, the Architectural and Transportation
  Barriers Compliance Board (ATBCB) first issued
  its "Minimum Guidelines and Requirements for
  Accessible Design,"
• the new Reagan appointees on the ATBCB proposed
  were not enthusiastic.

41
MGRAD Minimum Guidelines and Requirements for
Accessible Design

• These established the basic underpinnings for the
  Uniform Federal Accessibility Standards (UFAS)
  issued by four federal agencies General Services
  Administration, Department of Defense, Department
  of Housing and Urban Development, and the U.S.
  Postal Service.

42
Fair Housing Amendments Act

• The Fair Housing Amendments Act, the prelude to
  the Americans with Disabilities Act, expanded the
  protections of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 to
  include both people with disabilities and
  families with children. It expanded the scope of
  accessible housing from that which received
  public funds to all new multifamily housing with
  four or more units, both public and private. For
  the first time, a person with a disability could
  reasonably expect to be able to seek accessible
  housing in the open market.

43
ADA

• In 1988, the first version of the Americans with
  Disabilities Act went before Congress, crafted
  not by radicals in the disability movement, but
  by Reagan appointees to the National Council on
  Disability.

44
ADA

• At this time the disability movement, from the
  conservative to the radical wing of the movement,
  was unified in the view that what was needed was
  not a new and better brand of social welfare
  system, but a fundamental examination and
  redefinition of the democratic tradition of equal
  opportunity and equal rights.

45
ADA

• in 1990, President George Bush held the largest
  signing ceremony in history on the south lawn of
  the White House, an historic moment for all
  people with disabilities.