From: Julie Dawson 
Subject: Equality of Opportunity -- HISTORY.TXT  (fwd)
engage in any  substantial gainful activity.   In 1965, Congress
established the Medicare and Medicaid programs that provided
health care coverage to select groups of people with
disabilities, as well as to elderly and lower income persons. 
Persons with disabilities could also be eligible for food stamps,
school lunches, and housing subsidies if they met income tests. 
Although these programs dem onstrated a recognition of disability
as a mat ter of national concern, they would later prove to be a
mixed blessing.  While they provided much-needed income security,
they could make paid employment less appealing. 
     Despite many improvements, problems for persons with
disabilities were widespread: unemployment, lack of education,
low income, and isolation.  Moreover, most Americans still
understood disability primarily as a problem that resided in the
individual.  They viewed disability as a  medical  problem that
required medical supervision.  People were to be  rehabilitated 
to become  normal.   The public policy approach to disability,
however, would be revolutionized in the wake of the 1960s.
                        The Twin Pillars
     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 aims of the Civil
Rights Act were not achieved over night.  But the legislation
heralded a revolutionary proposition: it is against the law to
discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, or
religion.  The Civil Rights Act was born of a protest movement. 
In the decade following the historic 1954 Supreme Court ruling,
Brown v. Board of Education, African Americans, students, and
white supporters participated in nationwide sit-ins to protest
segregated eating establishments; bus boycotts to protest
segregated bus seating; freedom rides to protest segregation in
bus stations; voting registration drives; and numerous
demonstration marches supporting, among other things, the
enrollment of African Americans in white educational
institutions.  This movement faced vehement and violent
opposition from whites viscerally commit ted to centuries of
white supremacy first in slavery and then in segregation and
disfranchisement. But television coverage of dogs and fire hoses
unleashed on peaceful marchers thrust the injustice of rampant
racism and racial subordination into the living rooms of
Americans throughout the country.  Confronted by the flagrant
violation of American principles of liberty and equality,
American public opinion shifted to support the aspirations of
America s blacks.
     President John F. Kennedy and, after Kennedy s 1963
assassination, President Lyndon B. Johnson, sought to quell the
social unrest by submitting to Congress comprehensive civil
rights legislation that would protect the rights that millions
earnestly pursued.  But it was a battle.  A protracted and
vigorous debate ensued; compromises were made.  When the
legislation finally reached the House floor, one Representative
introduced an amendment that would include women in the coverage
of the act by adding sex as a prohibitive category for employment
discrimination. His intent, however, was to kill the bill by
suggesting what to many was a laughable proposition: equality for
women.  The amendment was approved, but it did not kill the bill. 
The resulting Civil Rights Act of 1964, signed into law by
Johnson on July 2, 1964, provided numerous protections to racial
and ethnic minorities and persons of varied religious faiths. 
The heart of the law was the principle that all persons,
regardless of  race, color, religion, or national origin,  are
entitled to the  full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services,
privileges, advantages, and accommodations of any place of public
accommodation.   This was in accordance with one of the central
demands of the civil rights movement equal access.  Political
realities, however, restricted that access to places of lodging,
eating, and entertainment, and exempted private clubs and
religious organizations. Additional provisions of the Civil
Rights Act included the desegregation of public facilities and
public education.  Other provisions stipulated nondiscrimination
in federally-assisted programs and employment practices.  More
legislation followed close behind.  The Voting Rights Act of 1965
granted the Federal Government the power to ensure that racial
minorities could register to vote.  In 1968 the Fair Housing Act
expanded the scope of the Civil Rights Act by adding Title VIII,
which prohibited discrimination in the sale or rental of housing.
     All of these measures had varying degrees of success. 
Nondiscrimination in public accom modations resulted in the most
change.  Retail businesses welcomed this provision because it
translated into more customers and more money.  In addition, it
eliminated the cost of dual facilities. Gains in education and
employment nondiscrimination would come more slowly.  The civil
rights movement, however, left a crucial legacy to African
Americans and other disadvantaged groups, including persons with
disabilities.  They would seek the same protections and model the
protest movement.  First, the Civil rights movement legitimated
and proved the success of civil protest to demand civil rights. 
Persons with disabilities, as other groups, would use the same
sit-in and marching tactics.  Second, the civil rights movement
established a vital principle: discrimination according to
characteristics irrelevant to job performance and the denial of
access to public accom modations and public services was, simply,
against the law.  Once codified, logical implications extended
well beyond race.  Finally, the civil rights movement left a body
of statutes and case law  models for future legislation.  There
would be no ADA were it not for the successful protests of
African Americans, for their crowning achievement in the Civil
Rights Act was also the philosophi cal foundation of the ADA.
     The civil rights movement did not, however, have an
immediate, direct impact on the disability community.  The Civil
Rights Act made no reference to persons with disabilities.  The
only significant statute increasing access for persons with
disabilities, and passed near that time, was the Architectural
Barriers Act of 1968.  This act was largely the result of the
efforts of Hugh Gregory Gallagher.  As a legislative assistant,
Gallagher had been instrumental in making the Library of Congress
and other buildings in Washington accessible.  These efforts
culminated with his drafting of the Architectural Barriers Act,
which required that all buildings constructed, altered, or
financed by the Federal Government had to be physically
accessible.
     The first attempts to merge disability with the civil rights
movement were unsuccessful.  In 1972, for example, Senator Hubert
H. Humphrey, Jr. (D-MN) proposed an amendment to the Civil Rights
Act that would incorporate disability as a protected class.  But
the proposal made little headway.  There was no constituent base
to support such an endeavor.  Moreover, advocates of the Civil
Rights Act feared that the addition of  disability  as a
 protected class,  similar to ethnic minorities, might dilute the
Civil Rights Act.  And, once the act was on the table for
discussion, members might introduce damaging amendments.
     The legal foundation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 alone
could not adequately buttress as comprehensive a measure as the
ADA.The political climate of the late 1960s and early 1970s
worked against the advancement of civil rights for persons with
disabilities.  In 1968, Richard M. Nixon campaigned for the
presidency with pledges to stem the tide of civil rights
advances.  He won the election in part due to a cultural backlash
against the civil rights movement and President Johnson s War on
Poverty.  Nixon s election reflected a breakdown of the New Deal
consensus, the splintering of the Democratic party, and the dawn
of a conservative shift in American public opinion.  In the early
1970s, the nation also faced new economic pressures and financial
restraint.  Many thought welfare measures now exceeded the
American budget.  It was simply not a friendly time for new civil
rights protections.
     Ironically, however, a crucial component of the
infrastructure of disability law came precisely at this time. 
The legal foundation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 alone could
not adequately buttress as comprehensive a measure as the ADA. 
Although ethnic minorities and women had been afforded civil
rights protections identical to those for African Americans for
identical civil rights protections, disabled people as a class
were different and required such unique legal provi sions as
 reasonable accommodation  (see Appendix F).  This part of the
ADA s foundation came from Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act
of 1973, a stealth measure in the midst of a backlash against
civil rights. 
     This occurred in spite of President Nixon because Congress
continued to promote social legislation.  When the Vocational
Rehabilitation Act came up for re-authorization, Congress crafted
an even broader piece of legislation called the Rehabilitation
Act of 1972.  Congress sought to expand the program beyond its
traditional employment focus by identifying ways to improve the
overall lives of persons with disabilities:  the final goal of
all rehabilitation services was to improve in every possible
respect the lives as well as livelihood of individuals served.  
The new law would extend rehabilitation services to all persons
with disabilities, give priority to those with severe
disabilities, provide for extensive research and training for
rehabilitation services, and coordinate federal disability
programs.  The act would be carried out by a Rehabilitation
Services Administration (RSA) housed in the Department of Health,
Education and Welfare (HEW).  Passage of this legislation,
however, resulted in a vigorous battle.  Nixon vetoed the bill on
two occasions. He claimed that the bill was  fiscally
irresponsible  and represented a  Congressional spending spree. 
He urged:  We should not dilute the resources of [the Vocational
Rehabilitation] program by turning it toward welfare or medical
goals.   After failing to override the president s veto by six
votes, the Senate was forced to negotiate with the Nixon
administration. 
     The compromise legislation signed into public law on
September 26, 1973, made for a weaker RSA tightly controlled by
the Secretary of HEW.  It reduced appropriations levels, abol
ished programs designed to help address certain categories of
disability, substituted  emphasis  for  priority  in dealing with
persons with severe disabilities, and eliminated a proposed
Division of Research, Training and Evaluation.  Nevertheless, the
Rehabilitation Act fell short of original congressional intent,
it was the first legislation designed to improve the overall
lives of persons with disabilities.  Especially significant was
Title V of the act.  Section 501 directed federal agencies to
develop affirmative action programs for the hiring, placement,
and advancement of persons with disabilities.  Section 502
established the Architectural and Transportation Barriers
Compliance Board (ATBCB), which would ensure compliance with the
Architectural Barriers Act of 1968, pursue ways to eliminate
transportation barriers, and seek ways to make housing
accessible.  Under Section 503, parties contracting with the
United States were required to use affirmative action to employ
qualified persons with disabilities.  Finally, and most
importantly, Section 504 stated:  No otherwise qualified
handicapped individual in the United States . . . shall, solely
by reason of his handicap, be excluded from the participation in,
be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination
under any program or activity receiving Federal financial
assistance. 
     This phrase was modeled after Title VI of the Civil Rights
Act of 1964 and Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972,
which prohibited discrimination in federally-assisted pro grams
on account of race, color, religion, national origin, or sex. 
Unlike the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Section 504 did not emerge
in response to protest.  Rather, it was created silently by a
group of congressional staff members.  No suggestion for such a
provision was made at the hearings, and the provision was not in
the original draft of the bill.  Staff added the section late in
the deliberative process without any statement of congressional
intent or appropriations to finance it.  Not a single member of
Congress mentioned the section during floor debate, and President
Nixon made no reference to it as grounds for his veto.  The
section apparently developed out of a fear that persons receiving
vocational rehabilitation would later be blocked from employment,
thus negating the rehabilitative benefits.  It was a way to add
an element of civil rights language without the danger of
amending the Civil Rights Act.
     Although Section 504 was not introduced at the behest of
disability advocates, the Rehabili tation Act helped energize the
disability community.  Persons with disabilities protested each
of President Nixon s vetoes.  And, though it appears that many in
the disability community were only vaguely familiar with Section
504 as late as 1975, conflict over the regulations for Section
504 culminated with unprecedented demonstrations by the
disability community in the spring of 1977.
     Three consecutive administrations delayed action in issuing
regulations for Section 504.  Part of the problem was that
Section 504 did not expressly mandate regulations.  Accordingly,
for the year culminating with President Nixon s resignation on
August 9, 1974, the Nixon administra tion failed to take any
action toward developing Section 504 regulations.  President
Gerald Ford, however, supported the promulgation of Section 504
regulations and assigned HEW with the responsibility to issue
them.  HEW s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) was appointed to write
the regulations.  This was significant because such regulatory
agencies as RSA, a potential alternative for writing the Section
504 regulations, focused mostly on community education and
voluntary compliance among recipients of federal assistance. 
OCR, however, based its regulations on its history in dealing
with civil rights and segregation, where firm legal foundations
rather than mere voluntary compliance was necessary.
     Under the leadership of John Wodatch, OCR prepared
regulations that offered a new definition of disability, issued
mandates for educating persons with disabilities in public
schools, and demanded accessible buildings and transportation. 
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