Transcript Disability Rights A HISTORY

Disability Rights
A HISTORY
Importance of the federal response to
disabled veterans
Department of War
 Veterans Administration

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 .

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.

The Precursor to Smith-Fess: The
Rehab Act of 1918-A Turning Point
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
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.
Benefits of Government
intervention
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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
Benefits(Cont.): The
Rehabilitation Act of 1943
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In 1943, people with mental retardation
were included in the legislation, making
vocational training available to them for the
first time.
Rehab act of 43
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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).
Post WWII
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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.
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.
Rehab Act of 54
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Professionalization: the
Rehabilitation Act of
1954 started federal
funding of research on
vocational rehabilitation
and funding of advanced
college training programs
in rehabilitation
counseling.
Rehab Act of 54
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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.
From Benefits to Accessibility
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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
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
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.

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.
Smith-Fess is Amended
In 1965 the Smith-Fess Rehabilitation Act was amended to
address physical barriers to access in federal buildings.
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.

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
Architectural Barriers Act
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The Act
mandated that
buildings
designed,
constructed,
altered, or leased
with federal
funds would
comply with
standards for
accessibility.
Architectural Barriers Act
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It established three federal agencies that would set
standards—1. 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.
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.

Civil Rights: Rehab Act of 73
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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.
Disability Rights/Activism
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Prior to the 1970’s there had been
significant efforts by people with
disabilities to advocate for change:
Example 1(organizations): the League
of the Physically Handicapped
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Wednesday, May 29, 1935, six young adults—
three women and three men—entered 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.
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.
Organizations (cont)
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Black Deaf Advocates:
oldest and largest
consumer
organization of
deaf and hard of
hearing black deaf
people in the
United States
(1982).
#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.

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 roachinfested two-bedroom apartment until the
Rehabilitation Administration gave them a
$50,000 grant in 1972.
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……….

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.
Rehabilitation Act of 73
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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.
Concepts coming out of the new era of
disability rights and legislation
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1.program accessibility
2.mainstreaming
3.independent living
1.program accessibility
2.mainstreaming 3.independent
living
Three important new concepts emerged
during the 1970's—program 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.
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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.
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2. mainstreaming
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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 environment—
when possible, the same environment
as children without disabilities.
3. Independent living
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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 selfhelp empowerment movement to liberate people
with disabilities from the traditional concept of
dependency, especially in their choice of living
environments.
1980’s
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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.
The 1980’s

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.
80’s(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.

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.
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.
ADA
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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.
ADA
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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.
ADA
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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.