Why disability rights

In the s, disability activists began to lobby for a consolidation of various pieces of legislation under one broad civil rights statute that would protect the rights of people with disabilities, much like the Civil Rights Act had achieved for Black Americans.

The Civil Rights Act of prohibited discrimination on the basis of race, religion, national origin, or gender, but people with disabilities were not included under such protection.

After decades of campaigning and lobbying, the Americans with Disabilities Act ADA was passed in , and ensured the equal treatment and equal access of people with disabilities to employment opportunities and to public accommodations. The ADA intended to prohibit discrimination on the basis of disability in: employment, services rendered by state and local governments, places of public accommodation, transportation, and telecommunications services.

Under the ADA, businesses were mandated to provide reasonable accommodations to people with disabilities such as restructuring jobs or modifying work equipment , public services could no longer deny services to people with disabilities such as public transportation systems , all public accommodations were expected to have modifications made to be accessible to people with disabilities, and all telecommunications services were mandated to offer adaptive services to people with disabilities.

With this piece of legislation, the US government identified the full participation, inclusion and integration of people with disabilities in all levels of society. While the signing of the ADA placed immediate legislative demands to ensure equal access and equal treatment of people with disabilities, deep-rooted assumptions and stereotypical biases were not instantly transformed with the stroke of a pen.

People with disabilities still face prejudice and bias with the stereotypical portrayal of people with disabilities in the movies and in the media, physical barriers to schools, housing and to voting stations, and lack of affordable health care. The promise of the ADA is yet to be fully realized, but the disability rights movement continues to make great strides towards the empowerment and self-determination of Americans with disabilities.

Allocation: to set apart for a special purpose, to distribute according to a plan. Self-determination: freedom of people to determine their own status and independence. Sterilization: the act of making a person infertile, or unable to conceive a child.

Fleischer, Doris and Zames, Freida. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Vaughn, Jacqueline. Washington, D. Skip Navigation. Expand search Search. John Tierney writes, "The welfare roles were reduced in the 's, but the disability roles were swelled by workers who learned how to qualify for lifetime income supports and free medical coverage" p.

Once again, people with disabilities were cast not as a population that has been struggling to get into the workforce, but rather as individuals seeking to "play the system" so as to avoid having to work. Tierney further states, "But that Medicare bill championed by Mr. Bush also contains a prescription drug benefit that was the costliest new entitlement in decades" p.

Tierney fails to mention that the real recipients of this benefit are not people in need of prescription drugs, but rather pharmaceutical companies that wrote and lobbied for the bill. In addition to featured articles, Op-Ed pieces over the years too often reflect all-too-common misconceptions regarding the ADA. Satel neglects to recognize that the Guidance is designed not to rehabilitate people with psychiatric disabilities, but rather to protect qualified people with such disabilities from the very stigmatization that she exhibits.

Frank Ruhl Peterson, who was stealing narcotics to feed his own drug habit while continuing to practice medicine A In truth, the well-crafted ADA does not protect unqualified workers, nor sanction illegal behavior. When the general public is bombarded by such distortions, why would they support the ADA? People underestimate, to their peril, their unacknowledged fear of disability, which results in the avoidance of the basic issues regarding disability that confront all humankind.

It is this fear that ultimately engenders the hostility and bigotry that are the real barriers to equality for people with disabilities. Since disability legislation is everyone's "insurance policy," Ogle, , p. The denial of that spectrum, which represents the truth about disability, is reminiscent of America's historical refusal to recognize another spectrum—the reality of race, that broad range of possible combinations and variations.

More than one hundred years after the Emancipation Proclamation, the Civil Rights Act legally protected African Americans from the effects of the racially related fiction that had rendered them second-class citizens. It should not take over one hundred years for people with disabilities to be afforded the rights of first-class citizenship promised in the Americans with Disabilities Act. Action alert regarding Supreme Court decision. Justice For All. Bell, C. Accommodating the spectrum of individual abilities.

Washington D. Commission on Civil Rights. Dart, J. Conference of disability advocates. Uniondale, New York. Statement made at this Conference. The disability rights movement. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Geraghty, J. Kennedy, Gregg agree on special ed school discipline. Boston Globe, p. Hahn, H. Accommodations and the ADA: Unreasonable bias or biased reasoning. Krieger Ed. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Haller, B. Confusing disability and tragedy. The Baltimore Sun , p. King, M. Naked city: The ADA? Krieger, L. Lewin, T. Where all doors are open for disabled students. The New York Times, sec. O'Brien, R. Crippled justice: The history of modern disability policy in the workplace. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Ogle, B. Proceedings of the U. Olson, W. Disabilities law protects bad doctors. The New York Times, p. Schemo, D. State approved education measures. The New York Times , p.

Scotch, R. From good will to civil rights. Supreme Court rules in Title I cases. The Center for an Accessible Society background briefing. Young-Bruehl, E. The anatomy of prejudice. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. Volume 1 through Volume 20, no. Beginning with Volume 36, Issue No. If you encounter problems with the site or have comments to offer, including any access difficulty due to incompatibility with adaptive technology, please contact libkbhelp lists.

Open Journal Systems. Current Issue. Section and Public Transportation Disability rights, which have been hard won, continue to be challenged in the courts. International Disability Alliance. International Disability and Development Consortium. Turn on more accessible mode. Turn off more accessible mode. Read more about the human rights of persons with disabilities OHCHR's work on the rights of persons with disabilities OHCHR has a mandate to ensure the inclusion of the rights of persons with disabilities in the United Nations system.

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