From: Julie Dawson 
Subject: Equality of Opportunity -- HISTORY.TXT  (fwd)
from the Chairmanship, under the pretext of instituting a
one-year term for the Chairperson.  In his place, Vice-chair
Parrino became the Chairperson. 
     Yet before Dusenbury stepped down (in spite of the
Department of Education s insistence that he have no direct
contact with Congress), he and NCD Executive Director Harvey
Hirshi lobbied Congress to make NCD an independent agency, so
that it would not have its hands tied by the administration,
particularly the Department of Education.  Congress granted NCD
its request in the 1984 amendments to the Rehabilitation Act,
claiming that  the Council has not been able to meet
congressional intent for an independent body to advise on all
matters in the Government affecting handicapped individuals.  
     NCD s independence, however, also reflected Congress s
dissatisfaction with the agency s operation.  Some members of
Congress had even advocated disbanding NCD.  But others saw the
potential for a centralized evaluation of a patchwork of
disability programs as requested by the White House Conference on
Handicapped Individuals.  As a result, in addition to making NCD
an independent agency, Congress issued a mandate that NCD produce
a comprehensive analysis of federal disability programs and
policy by February 1, 1986.  It was  kind of a test  of NCD s
mettle, an ultimatum, and the future of NCD s authorization hung
in the balance.  Congress demanded a  priority listing  of
federal disability programs according to the number of
individuals served and the costs of such programs. Congress also
requested that NCD evaluate the degree to which federal
disability programs  provide incentives or disincentives to the
establishment of community-based services for handicapped
individuals, promote the full integration of such individuals in
the community, in schools, and in the workplace, and contribute
to the independence and dignity of such individuals.   Members of
Congress wanted to know: was the Federal Government promoting
dependence?  
     Congressman Steve Bartlett (R-TX) appeared before NCD on
April 30, 1984, to explain the significance of the challenge that
lay ahead.   You are to advise Congress in a whole new approach,
a whole new concept,  he said,  on how to decrease dependence and
increase independence.  This, he suggested, represented what the
disability community knew and that Congress was only reluctantly
recognizing:  Sometimes Federal laws or provisions in Federal
laws are the worst enemy of independence.   According to NCD s
minutes, Bartlett emphasized that  Congress is not looking for
more programs, more maintenance grants, and larger
appropriations.  Instead, NCD should  look for ways to convert
existing maintenance dollars to help recipients achieve
independence.   Disability policy was therefore not only about
improving the lives of persons with disabilities; curtailing
dependence also helped minimize the federal cost of disability.
     By reviewing federal programs NCD might actually reduce
government expenditures.  Thus, while many were surprised by
NCD s subsequent actions, these goals for NCD substantially
coincided with President Reagan s philosophy.  Although
Republicans and the disability community might seem  strange
bedfellows,  wrote Evan Kemp in a compelling Washington Post
article,  their philosophical similarities are striking.  He
explained:  Both have accused big government of stifling
individual initiative.  Both have advocated that only the truly
needy should receive welfare and that others should be given the
opportunity to work and to become self-reliant and responsible
citizens.   As an example of excessive government, Kemp noted
that Social Security benefits for people with disabilities had
risen 400 percent in just seven years.  If physically and
mentally disabled persons became wholly or partially
self-sufficient, opined Kemp, there would be  more taxpayers and
fewer tax users the ultimate Reagan objective.   Patricia Owens,
Associate Commissioner for Disability in the Social Security
Administration, reinforced this link at an appearance before NCD. 
 The Administration wants a program that encourages people to
return to work,  reported NCD s minutes.  Motivations to improve
the lives of persons with disabilities intertwined with attempts
to reduce dependence on government and federal outlays.  The
subsequent work of NCD reflected this dual concern. 
     Although NCD now carried new independence, it remained
substantively beholden to both the administration, which held the
purse strings, and Congress, which controlled authorization and
appropriations.  Nevertheless, the establishment of NCD as an
independent agency heralded a decisive shift.  Congress now
prioritized recommendations concerning the entire sweep of
disability policy over such specific responsibilities as
overseeing NIHR.  And NCD s new identity as an independent  think
tank  gave increased stature to disability as a policy.   For the
first time, disability as an issue is institutionalized, by
statute, in the structure of the Federal Government,  said John
Doyle, who left his post on the Senate Subcommittee on the
Handicapped for six months to help NCD in its transition.  The
actions of the disability community were clearly gaining
attention, and the themes of independence and community
integration were working their way into national policy
directives. 
     Chairperson Parrino accepted the heightened responsibilities
for NCD eagerly and passionately.  She was a longtime advocate
for people with disabilities based on her experience in raising a
child with a major physical disability.  In Briarcliffe Manor,
New York, Parrino had become a leading spokesperson for parents
of persons with disabilities and helped obtain improved
transportation and voting accessibility for disabled persons. 
Under her leadership, NCD met its statutory requirements by
holding four quarterly meetings each year. These public meetings
rotated around the country, and often met in conjunction with
 consumer forums  designed to solicit the views of persons in the
disability community.  Although NCD attended to the requirements
to monitor NIHR, RSA, and explored the ideas of its various
members, it increasingly turned its attention to satisfying
Congress s mandate to prepare a report, which imposed heightened
work demands.  This required hiring new staff. 
     Parrino and Dart recruited Lex Frieden, who initially agreed
to serve for two years as Executive Director.  Frieden had
founded the Independent Living Research Utilization Program, an
independent living technical assistance program, in 1977, and had
earned great respect within the independent living community.  In
the early 1980s, he worked closely with Dart on the Texas
Governor s Committee for the Employment of the Handicapped.  And
in 1984, coincidentally, he testified before Congress to promote
a blue-ribbon panel to evaluate federal programs, which
culminated in NCD s mandate.  Meeting that requirement was
precisely the kind of task-directed job Frieden relished. 
     The Contribution of this Council and its continued existence
will rest almost entirely on the content of our February, 1986,
Report to the President. 
          Sandra Parrino Frieden assumed NCD s reins in December,
1984, and immediately turned to the task of finding high-quality
staff to support him.  He hired Ethel Briggs, who had extensive
experience in vocational rehabilitation, as Adult Services
Specialist.  Attorney Robert Burgdorf filled the Research
Specialist position.  Burgdorf had actually sought out the job
when he heard of NCD s new responsibilities.  He had devoted much
of his career to promoting disability rights, and saw this as an
opportunity to continue his campaigns.  Naomi Karp joined Frieden
as Children s Services Specialist (on detail from NIHR), and
Brenda Bratton became Secretary.  Having acquired independence,
additional staff, and a $500,000 budget, NCD was now able to face
its growing responsibilities with increased zeal.
  Toward Independence and The ICD Survey of Disabled Americans
     The Contribution of this Council and its continued
existence,  Chairperson Parrino asserted at the quarterly NCD
meeting on January 23, 1985,  will rest almost entirely on the
content of our February, 1986, Report to the President and how it
is judged by the president and the Congress.  She urged NCD
members to unite in common purpose and pledge their highest
commitment. In April, as preparation for NCD meetings and
consumer forums dominated the better part of NCD s time, Frieden
directed NCD to clear the table and focus almost exclusively on
the report.
     To make the report manageable, Frieden and Burgdorf
presented Council members with a list of 41 potential topics and
recommended that they focus on eight to ten of them.  Since most
of the 1983 council still served as members, the 1983 report was
fresh in their collective memory. Building on and narrowing its
earlier report, NCD settled on eleven topics.  One of them was
 Unified disability laws including civil rights.   Some members
doubted  whether the subject of civil rights is a topic that
should be addressed in the 1986 report, in view of the breadth
and complexity of the subject.   But others contended  there is
no question about its central importance  and noted that it was
consistently discussed at the consumer forums.  To make the
concept more palatable to reluctant NCD members and ultimately to
the Reagan administration, NCD presented the issue as an  equal
opportunity law  rather than  civil rights.   The former
coincided with independence and self-reliance; the latter smacked
of affirmative action. 
     In June, NCD members held working sessions to sketch out the
content of each proposed topic and finally settled on the
following ten topics: equal opportunity laws, employment,
disincen tives to work under Social Security laws, prevention of
disabilities, transportation, housing, community-based services
for independent living, educating children with disabilities,
personal assistant services, and coordination of disability
policy and programs.  NCD chose to take responsibility for the
report rather than simply contracting an outside organization to
do it.  Because of the logistical problems posed by meeting only
four times a year, primary responsibility for designing the
report fell to Frieden and Burgdorf.  They committed to
developing detailed and thorough topic papers to document their
findings.  The project was a model of teamwork in which staff
members and a few consultants wrote most of the essays and NCD
members worked with them closely in the review process.  
     One recurring theme in NCD s discussion of the papers was
the cost of disability policy to the Federal Government.  NCD
members generally agreed not to recommend any funding increases. 
Jeremiah Milbank, for example, suggested that any request for
federal dollars required anticipation of  massive Federal
cost-saving benefits with positive human results.   Indeed, NCD
took care not to embarrass the president by presenting
recommendations that would require large funding increases. 
Chairperson Parrino explained that NCD s recommendations were
 designed to improve the ability of persons with disabilities to
live with dignity and as independently as possible within their
communities.   By following them, she added,  current Federal
expenditures for disability can be significantly redirected from
dependency-related approaches to programs that enhance
independence and productivity of people with disabilities,
thereby engendering future efficiencies in federal spending.  
This fiscal conservatism was crucially important for securing the
later success of the ADA.  It demonstrated that efforts to
improve the lives of persons with disabilities could coincide
with fiscal restraint, and thus win the support of skeptical
members of Congress. 
     Moreover, NCD rooted the ADA in Republican soil, preventing
it from being discarded as a  liberal  bill.  In fact, NCD
members endeavored to depoliticize their job and focus simply on
what was most important for persons with disabilities.  Frieden,
Burgdorf, and others praised NCD for this approach.  Dart
captured the spirit in a statement to NCD about the direction of
disability policy:  Major emphasis should be given to the
absolute necessity for all who believe in the fulfillment of the
American dream . . . to rise above the traditional limits of
politics and personality and to unite in support of the
fundamental human rights of disabled people.   
     Also crucial to the ADA s eventual success was the approach
NCD took in developing the report.  As he did in 1982, Dart
personally financed another series of public forums, visiting
every state to learn what persons with disabilities throughout
the country thought were the most important issues.  In the same
vein, NCD devoted its 1985  consumer forums  to soliciting
feedback about the various topic papers.  Moreover, Frieden
consulted with disability organizations from around the country
constantly.  He also developed a list of approximately 50 people
from the grass roots that he spoke to on at least a monthly
basis.  It was, said Frieden,  ironic  that supposedly  elitist 
Republicans were so interested in cultivating grass roots
collaboration.  Nevertheless, this extensive, nationwide
involvement helped give the disability community a sense of
ownership over NCD s activities and helped form important links
that would pay dividends later.  By the end of 1986, NCD had
crafted over 400 pages of policy analyses; the disability
community had helped to refine them. 
     The philosophy of the disability rights movement manifested
itself in the report s title.  At a brainstorming session, staff
reflected on the independent living movement and on Dart s
findings. Facilitating independence through equal participation,
they thought, must be the ultimate goal of disability policy and
evident in the report s title.  But the goals were yet to be
reached, so they focused on policy direction.  They thus
conceived an appropriate title: Toward Independence.
     NCD prioritized the advancement of  equal opportunity laws 
for people with disabilities as its primary recommendation. 
Although Congress had enacted several anti-discrimination laws
for persons with disabilities, council members noted, coverage
for persons with disabilities paled in NCD prioritized the
advancement of  equal opportunity laws  for people with
disabilities as its primary recommendation in Toward
Independence.comparison to those afforded racial minorities and
women.  Reminiscent of the 1983 report, NCD therefore proposed
that Congress  enact a comprehensive law requiring equal
opportunity for individuals with disabilities, with broad
coverage and setting clear, consistent, and enforceable standards
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