From: Julie Dawson 
Subject: Equality of Opportunity -- HISTORY.TXT  (fwd)
But shortly after presenting the regulations to HEW Secretary
Casper Weinberger on July 23, 1975, Weinberger was replaced by
David Mathews, who was reputed to be  a cautious and indecisive
man who tended to be more philosophi cal than pragmatic in
running the department.   Mathews did not oppose the regulations
outright. But by demanding further analysis of the regulations,
rather than taking the usual step of publishing the regulations
as a proposal, Mathews delayed action.  He even sent the
regulations outside of HEW for review by a private firm.  On
March 11, 1976, OCR resubmitted the regulations with revisions,
but two months passed before Mathews presented the regulations to
the public. 
     The failure of HEW to issue regulations for Section 504
began to attract attention.  By the fall of 1974, for example,
Jim Cherry, a young attorney and disability lobbyist who had a
rare, degenerative muscular disease, began writing letters to HEW
requesting that the department issue regulations.  But nothing
came of these efforts.  Ultimately, Cherry turned to the legal
system and found a firm, Georgetown s Institute for Public
Interest Representation (INSPIRE), to support his cause pro bono. 
After a year of presenting formal petitions demanding that HEW
issue regulations, INSPIRE finally filed a case against HEW on
February 13, 1976 Cherry v. Mathews.  Later that spring, a group
of people with disabilities demonstrated in Secretary Mathews s
office.  The delay also began to catch the attention of Congress,
which held oversight hearings on May 5 to determine why no action
had been taken.
     Mathews finally presented the regulations to the public on
May 17, 1976, but he issued them only as an intent to propose
regulations, not an actual proposal.  Mathews did not issue a
Notice of Proposed Rule Making, the standard procedure for
soliciting public feedback on proposed regula tions, until July
16.  Three days later, on July 19, the district court of
Washington, D.C., ruled on the Cherry v. Mathews case and ordered
Mathews to promulgate regulations.  In the next six months, HEW
solicited public comment.  OCR made minor changes to the
regulations and presented the revised regulations to Mathews on
January 10, 1977.  Over three years had now passed since the
Rehabilitation Act became public law.  But Mathews still stalled. 
On January 18, instead of signing the regulations, he sent them
to the Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare for review an
unprecedented action in regulation writing.  That same day, the
district court ordered Secretary Mathews to cease the delay. 
But, two days later, Jimmy Carter was inaugurated as president
and Mathews left office.
     During his campaign, Carter had promised to make people with
disabilities  active partners in our attempts to achieve . . .
full civil rights  and made a commitment to signing the
regulations. As president, he nominated Joseph Califano to be
Secretary of HEW.  Califano allegedly supported the concept of
Section 504, but he too postponed action on the regulations; he
wanted to review them before attaching his name.  Califano
worried especially about the costs associated with the statute
and resisted the inclusion of drug and alcohol abusers as a
protected class.  When he proposed implementing a more limited
concept of making individual programs accessible rather than
demanding broad, structural changes, however, his actions drew
the ire of persons with disabilities.
                       Disability Protest
     Opposition to the delay in signing regulations developed
from growing collaboration among people with disabilities.  In
the early 1970s, the primary gathering place for people with
disabilities was the annual spring conference of the President s
Committee on Employment of the Handicapped (PCEH).  President
Harry S. Truman had founded PCEH in 1947 to assist physically
disabled veterans in finding employment.  In the 1960s, PCEH
expanded its mission to include persons with mental retardation
and mental illness. In addition to drawing attention to
employment for people with disabilities, which naturally led to a
broader interest in other disability issues,  PCEH became the
first central meeting ground where disability advocates,
disability professionals, and public officials could share ideas
and set agendas for the future. 
     At the 1973 PCEH meeting, following Nixon s second veto of
the Rehabilitation Act and the accompanying disability protest, a
group of disability activists discussed the need for an
organized, collective disability voice that would unite the
disparate disability-specific organizations.  Only then, they
thought, could they exert effective influence on the Federal
Government.  The coalition would not disband other disability
organizations: they would become its members.  In 1974, Fred Fay,
Roger Peterson, Dianne Latin, Al Pimentel, Judy Heumann, Fred
Schreiber, and others set up a committee to write the
constitution and bylaws for such an organization.  They named it
the American Coalition of Citizens with Disabilities (ACCD): it
was the first major cross-disability organization.  The purpose
of ACCD was to enhance communication among people with disabili
ties, promote the rights of disabled persons, educate people
about their rights, and foster collective political action.
     In April, 1975, again at the annual PCEH meeting,
representatives from a spectrum of disability organizations
approved the ACCD constitution and bylaws and established a
governing board.  They elected Eunice Fiorito, a blind woman who
had become the first director of the New York City Mayor s Office
for the Handicapped (the first of its kind) in 1972, to be
president. Fiorito was an aggressive and effective disability
rights advocate and crucial to ACCD s early development.   If it
wasn t for Eunice,  said Rubenfeld, who was one of the successors
as ACCD President,  I don t think there d be an ACCD.  
Schreiber, Heumann, and Fay joined Fiorito as vice president,
secretary, and treasurer.  In 1976, Frank Bowe, a recent Ph.D.
graduate, became the first Executive Director.  Scores of
disability organizations scurried to join ACCD.  Some, such as
the Houston Coalition for Barrier Free Living, were established
in order to be a part of ACCD.
     The fast-growing power and reputation of ACCD positioned it
take the lead in coordinating advocacy regarding the Section 504
regulations.The fast-growing power and reputation of ACCD
positioned it take the lead in coord inating advocacy regarding
the Section 504 regulations.  ACCD threatened to demonstrate at
the 1976 Republican convention with black coffins, symbols of the
plight of people with disabilities, if the Ford administration
did not act. Representatives of ACCD worked with Democrats to
have Carter issue statements that he would ensure the signing of
the regulations if elected.   On the first day of the Carter
administration in January, 1977, ACCD sent a telegram to HEW
reminding the agency of the 504 regulations and, the next day,
showed up at the HEW office to demand signing within 30 days.  In
addition, ACCD Executive Director Frank Bowe, who worked full
time in ACCD s Washington office, organized the production of
 Sign 504  buttons to heighten public awareness about the
regulatory stalemate. 
     After it became evident that a signature from Secretary
Califano was not forthcoming, ACCD began considering ways to
exert additional pressure.  Members decided to be dramatic and
attract press coverage.   When you put the pressure on, you
embarrass politicians,  said Rubenfeld.  Accordingly, in
February, ACCD decided to stage sit-ins at Regional Offices of
HEW. On March 18, ACCD wrote a letter to President Carter
asserting that disability advocates would resort to political
action if the regulations were not signed by April 4.   The
disabled are furious over what they see as a retreat by President
Carter on his promises  to help people with disabilities,
reported The Washington Post in an editorial publicizing the
planned sit-in.  Still, no action came. On Monday, April 4, at
1:30 p.m., Frank Bowe, Dan Yohalem, Deborah Kaplan, and others
met with Secretary Califano in his office.  Califano tried to
explain the delay and expressed support of public demonstrations
to urge signing of the regulations.  The disability activists,
however, stated their demand for immediate signing of the
unchanged regulations and then walked and rolled out of the
office.  Television cameras captured the events on film.  The
following morning, on April 5, hundreds of disability activists
gathered at the Capitol building, where they publicly declared
their demand for immediate signing of the regulations.  Later in
the afternoon, they marched several blocks from the Capitol to
the HEW building.  Simultaneously, activists staged
demonstrations at regional offices in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago,
Dallas, Denver, Philadelphia, New York, San Francisco, and
Seattle.
     In Washington, the HEW demonstration had two components. 
Most of the activists who marched from the Capitol remained
outside the HEW building to make sure the protest stayed in the
eye of the media.  A second group of about fifty activists,
however, stealthily entered the building in small groups and then
gathered in the waiting room outside Califano s office.  They
tried to storm Califano s personal office, but dozens of guards
blocked their way.  Consequently, they decided to stay in the
waiting room until they met the secretary personally.  The guards
permitted them to stay, but they imposed tight restrictions. 
When the protesters tried to order food around 5:00 p.m., the
guards ripped the phones from the wall.  Security also shadowed
activists to the restrooms to prevent use of public phones. 
Guards even prohibited Schreiber, who was the president of NAD,
from contacting his wife or leaving the floor to get his heart
medication.  Eventually, however, the guards recognized the
severity of the situation and enabled Schreiber to receive his
medication.  The protesters went without food and stayed over
night sleeping on couches, desks, and the floor.  On Wednesday,
April 6, Secretary Califano met with the protesters and asked
them to leave.  But he would not commit to signing the
regulations immediately.   The demonstrators discussed staying
and being forcibly arrested, but voted to end the protest that
afternoon instead.
     The longest demonstration was in San Francisco, where the
group refused to leave the HEW building until the regulations
were signed.  As in Washington, HEW officials initially tried to
squelch the protest by starving the demonstrators and cutting off
telephone communications.  Persons whose conditions required
personal attendants, medication, and medical devices such as
catheters were thus putting their health and lives at risk. The
clamp-down, however, served to motivate and unite the
demonstrators rather than discourage and disband them.  Moreover,
largely due to the intervention of Governor Jerry Brown,
protesters were ultimately allowed to stay in the building and
receive outside assistance.  Within days, the number of people
dwelling inside the building grew to well over 100. 
     The battle over Section 504 regulations gave voice to the
disability rights movement.The surrounding community, which
cherished its tradition of protest, aided the protesters. Area
grocers and restaurants donated food.  The local Black Panthers
prepared and delivered an Easter dinner.  And community religious
leaders assisted in celebrating Easter and Passover. Congressman
Phillip Burton helped win the installation of pay phones. This
helped demonstrators maintain their lines of communication with
the outside world, which they sustained as well through banners,
sign language, and a set of walkie-talkies smuggled in by a local
gay activist group, the Butterfly Brigade.  On the inside,
demonstrators were cultivating  a mini-Woodstock,  as one
journalist described it.  Rubenfeld called it  a love-fest.  
Living in open quarters stimulated close friendships.  People
with diverse disabilities came to know and understand each other
better, which helped cultivate a united vision for their common
betterment. The persistence of the demonstrators was a powerful
testi mony to their determination to achieve their civil rights.
And their actions left Secretary Califano little choice but to
sign the regulations without change, which he finally did, on
April 28.  Two days later, the disability activists ended their
occupation of the HEW building.
     The Rehabilitation Act of 1973, Section 504, and the 504
regulations were significant for a number of reasons.  First,
Section 504 eventually helped change the way people thought about
disability.  As one disability historian explained:  The words we
use to define problems, or to evaluate potential solutions to
those problems, structure thinking by linking concrete situations
to moral categories.  Section 504 transformed federal disability
policy by conceptualizing access for people with disabilities as
a civil right rather than as a welfare benefit.   This was a
decisive and important shift.  Disability had long been viewed as
a condition meriting government assistance, but this elevated
disability to the realm of civil rights and gave persons with
disabilities access to a new legal vehicle for asserting their
place in American society.  The regulations affirmed this point:
Section 504  represents the first federal civil rights law
protecting the rights of handicapped persons and reflects a
national commitment to end discrimination on the basis of
handicap.  
     Legislation develops in political, social, intellectual, and
cultural contexts.  Successful laws are as much about the people
that shape them as they are about legislative language.Second,
the battle over Section 504 regulations gave voice to the
disability rights movement. The disability community s minor role
in bringing about the original Section 504 legislation is less
important than the protests that the regulations spurred. 
Secretary Califano would have had to sign the regulations
eventually.  But the protests made it extremely difficult for the
secretary to incorporate any changes that might have weak ened
the regulations.  And they left a lasting image of persons with
wheelchairs taking over federal buildings a practice which became
a model for future demonstrations.
     Third, the Section 504 regulations established legal
standards for nondiscrimination tailored to the civil rights
needs of persons with disabilities, which would later be
replicated in the ADA. The regulations determined that ending
discrimination for persons with disabilities meant taking
proactive steps to remove barriers and make reasonable
accommodations.  Additionally, the reg ulations balanced this
need against a limit of  undue hardship  (see Appendix F) for the
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