From: Julie Dawson 
Subject: Equality of Opportunity -- HISTORY.TXT  (fwd)
There is a cost involved.  But isn t there also a cost involved
with us not being able to exercise our rights?
                  Congressman Tony Coelho
                  The Disability Community
Within a few weeks the ADA will become the law of the land
because of the vision of the disability community.  You knew in
your hearts what we now write into law that discrimi nation based
on fear, ignorance, prejudice, and indifference is wrong.  It is
true that I am the sponsor of the ADA, and my colleagues are
cosponsors.  However, the ADA is first and foremost the outcome
of the extraordinary efforts of the disability community.  This
is your bill, and you earned it.
                     Senator Tom Harkin
                     Changing the World
We are sent here by our constituents to change the world for the
better.  And today we have the opportunity to do that. . . . Many
have asked:  Why are we doing this for the disabled?  My answer
is twofold.  As Americans, our inherent belief is that there is a
place for everyone in our society, and that place is as a full
participant, not a bystander.  The second answer is less lofty. 
It is steeped in the reality of the world as we know it today. 
If, as we all suspect, the next great world competition will be
in the marketplace rather than the battlefield, we need the help
of every American. . . . We cannot afford to ignore millions of
Americans who want to contribute.
                 Congressman Steny H. Hoyer
                  Americans with Abilities
The road to enactment of this legislation was not easy.  But in
the process of reaching this goal, we have all learned something
about the evils of discrimination in any form, and the importance
of judging individuals by their abilities not patronizing
misconceptions, demeaning stereotypes, and irrational fears about
their disabilities.
                 Senator Edward M. Kennedy
             The Americans with Disabilities Act
No piece of legislation this Congress will pass articulates more
forcefully and eloquently the purposes which must be embodied in
our public policies and in our commitments as individ uals and as
a nation in order for America to thrive in the 1990s.  It
embodies a philosophy and constitutes a declaration in support of
human possibility and capability. . . . With a powerful
commitment to building a society which encourages and supports
the efforts of each individ ual to live a productive life, there
is no challenge which our Nation cannot meet.
                  Congressman Major Owens
                     The American Dream
The time has come for the Senate to send a loud, clear message
across this country: Individuals with disabilities, no less than
all other Americans, are entitled to an equal opportunity to
participate in the American dream.  It is time for that dream to
become a reality.
                   Senator Orrin G. Hatch
                        Independence
ADA will empower people to control their own lives.  It will
result in a cost savings to the Federal Government.  As we
empower people to be independent, to control their own lives, to
gain their own employment, their own income, their own housing,
their own transporta tion, taxpayers will save substantial sums
from the alternatives.
                 Congressman Steve Bartlett
                      The Time Has Come
I have supported the ADA because I believe it is a just and fair
bill, which will bring equality to the lives of all Americans
with disabilities.  Our message to America is that inequality and
prejudice will no longer be tolerated.  Our message to people
with disabilities is that your time has come.
                    Senator Robert Dole
                       Finding Balance
This historic civil rights legislation seeks to end the
unjustified segregation and exclusion of persons with
disabilities from the mainstream of American life. . . . The ADA
is fair and balanced legislation that carefully blends the rights
of people with disabilities . . . with the legitimate needs of
the American business community.
            Attorney General Richard Thornburgh
                      The Shameful Wall
And now I sign legislation which takes a sledgehammer to another
wall, one which has, for too many generations, separated
Americans with disabilities from the freedom they could glimpse,
but not grasp.  Once again, we rejoice as this barrier falls,
proclaiming together we will not accept, we will not excuse, we
will not tolerate discrimination in America. . . . Let the
shameful wall of exclusion finally come tumbling down.
                  President George Bush

  1 
                                   Laying the Foundation:
                                   Disability Policy & Activism,
1968-1988
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 raced through
Congress.  So much momentum drove the bill forward that many
members of Congress, caught by surprise, reacted by claiming the
bill had come from nowhere, that there was little precedent for
such sweeping legislation, and that the deliberative process
should be extended to provide time to grasp the novelty of the
bill s provisions.  Such claims, however, overlooked one crucial
fact: the ADA had been long in gestation.  Indeed, part of the
reason the bill became law with such alacrity is precisely the
degree to which the legislation was built on a solid foundation:
of policy, legal principle, personal networks, coalition-forming,
and an increasingly active disability community. Without this
foundation, which was put in place largely over the 1970s and
1980s, the ADA s passage would have been impossible.  To
comprehend the ADA one must first understand the context in which
it developed.
                Contours of Disability in America
     Disability has a history.  In colonial America, persons with
disabilities were often viewed as part of the  deserving poor.  
They were consequently accepted by local communities, where they
contributed however possible and shared in the community s
offerings.  But with the nine teenth-century industrial and
market revolutions and the growth of a liberal individualistic
culture, the cohesion of physical and geographic communities
began to break down.  One consequence was that persons with
disabilities, increasingly deemed unable to compete in America s
industrial economy, were spurned by society.  Growing
side-by-side with social structures catering to individual
achievement were custodial institutions for those who did not
 fit  with the American creed: persons with sensory impairments,
reduced cognitive capacities, physical impairments, mental
illnesses, or other conditions.  Institutions supposedly
 protected  these persons from public harm.  Institutions also
allegedly protected society from those who were feared by many as
dangerous and a threat to the gene pool.  Some persons with
physical disabilities were displayed as  freaks  of nature, to be
marveled at like exotic animals.  Such literary works as Herman
Melville s Moby Dick reinforced stereotypes of persons with
disabilities as sinister, or even crazy, through such characters
as the peg-legged Captain Ahab.  
     Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes ruled that it was  better for
all the world, if, instead of waiting to execute degenerate
offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility,
society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from
continuing their kind. Racism, ethnic imperialism, and xenophobia
plagued early twentieth-century America. Darwin s theories about
the origin of species gave rise to universal theories about
natural selection within humankind and the evolution of soci ety. 
Many believed it was in the best interest of humanity to
eliminate or at least cur tail populations considered inferior,
as wit nessed in the treatment of African Ameri cans and Jews. 
These ideas also adversely affected persons with disabilities,
displayed most starkly in the 1927 Supreme Court case Buck v.
Bell. 
     Carrie Buck argued before the Court that state-imposed
sterilization, based on disability, was unconstitutional.  The
Court disagreed.  Instead, the Court sided with  experts  who
alleged that persons with disabilities, namely those collectively
classified as  the feeble-minded,  were  a menace  to society,
threatened society s  best citizens,  and tended to  sap the
strength of the state.   Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes thought it
best for society to seek to avoid  being swamped with
incompetence.   He thus ruled that it was  better for all the
world, if, instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for
crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can
prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their
kind.   Although sterilization and segregation practices targeted
those classified as  feeble-minded  persons or people with mental
retardation, mental illness, and epilepsy it reflected a general
intolerance for those who allegedly did not fit the model for the
rugged, individualistic, capitalistic American.
     Increasing numbers of persons with disabilities made
disability a societal challenge rather than a scattered, personal
predicament.Significant developments over the course of the
twentieth century, however, transformed the na ture of disability
in American life.  These included demographic changes among
persons and parents of persons with disabilities, the creation of
disability organizations, and the growth of rehabilitation as a
profession.  In the early twentieth century, the demographics of
disability changed as thousands of Americans acquired
disabilities through industrial, work-place injuries.  Moreover,
World War I introduced thousands of veterans with disabilities,
as did World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War.  In
addition to the in creased numbers of disabilities caused by
injuries, Americans also began to live longer.  Whereas in 1900
the average life span was 47 years, by 1980 life expectancy had
increased to the age of 74. Since disability tends to increase
with age, an older population meant an America with greater
prevalence of disability.  By 1980 at least thirty million
Americans experienced disability first-hand.  As all Americans,
these persons wanted the best life possible and worked to get it. 
Increasing numbers of persons with disabilities made disability a
societal challenge rather than a scattered, personal predicament.
     As demographics changed, persons with disabilities began
forming organizations to act as advocates for their interests. 
Early examples include the Disabled Veterans of America (DVA) and
the National Mental Health Association (NMHA), both founded in
1920, and the National Federation of the Blind (NFB), founded in
1940.  After World War II, this growth accelerated.  The
Paralyzed Veterans of America (PVA) opened its doors in 1946, the
United Cerebral Palsy Associa tions (UCPA) began in 1949, the
National Association for Retarded Citizens (ARC) was founded in
1950, the first Home Office of the National Association of the
Deaf (NAD, originally founded in 1880) opened in 1953, and the
American Council of the Blind (ACB) started its operations in
1961. These organizations dedicated their existence to improving
the lives of their constituencies and gave persons with
disabilities a stronger voice.  They raised money, identified
areas of need, and lobbied to pass legislation that would help
solve problems.  They looked for ways to achieve employment and
to gain better education.  By working with Congress and the
judiciary to achieve their goals, they also gained valuable legal
experience.  As a result of these activities, they further
imprinted disability on the American landscape.
     Most Americans still understood disability primarily as a
problem that resided in the individual.  People were to be
 rehabilitated  to become  normal. Throughout the twentieth
century a variety of professions developed to attend to the
challenges posed by disability.  By giving increased attention to
persons with disabilities, physi cians, researchers, nurses,
physical and occupational therapists, and vocational
rehabilitation counselors, and other professionals enabled many
persons with disabilities to live healthier lives.  New
technologies, drugs, and devices enabled persons to live longer
with lower inci dence of secondary disabilities, and with greater
control over their daily activities. It also helped transform
disability rehabilitation into a full-fledged industry, which had
the concomi tant affect of making rehabilitation a commodity to
be bought and sold in the marketplace.  Moreover, professionals
tended to focus their attention on specific disabilities,
fostering the compartmentalization and fragmentation of people
with disabilities.
     As the numbers of persons with disabilities grew, and as
they, their parents, organizations, and professionals worked to
improve their lives, the attitudes manifest in Buck v. Bell came
under attack: persons with disabilities, too, deserved to be part
of society.  National policy developments assisted in this
transition.  Over the course of the twentieth century, the scope
and power of the Federal Government expanded to meet the growing
demands of an industrializing nation.  New legislative endeavors
accordingly addressed disability issues.  Reforms directed at
corporate America provided benefits to persons injured on the
job.  By 1941, forty-five states ensured compensation for
work-place injuries.  The United States Public Health Service
(USPHS), estab lished in 1902, gave new attention to the
importance of health care for society.  The Veterans 
Rehabilitation Act of 1918 established a program for training
veterans with disabilities.  In 1920, the combined problems posed
by industrial impairments and war veterans led to the Smith-Fess
Act, which established the vocational rehabilitation program.  By
1935, every state had a vocational program in operation,
providing vocational training, job placement assistance, and
counseling to those with physical disabilities.  During World War
II, Congress expanded the vocational rehabilita tion program to
offer  medical, surgical, and other physical restorative
services  and to include services for the mentally ill and
mentally retarded.  Legislatures passed other laws directed
toward greater access for persons with disabilities: for example,
laws permitting the public use of guide dogs and white canes for
blind persons.
     Advocates of the ADA regularly declared that it was the most
sweeping civil rights legislation in a quarter century: that is,
since the Civil Rights Act of 1964 one of the most important
twentieth-century domestic initiatives.The Social Security system
also had a profound effect on persons with disabilities.  In the
1950s, Congress amended the Social Security Act to provide income
benefits to working-age people with disabilities who could not
---
---------------