From: Julie Dawson 
Subject: Equality of Opportunity -- HISTORY.TXT  (fwd)
prohibiting discrimination on the basis of handicap.   This time,
however, the proposal came with a thorough explanation for why
such an ap proach was necessary to facilitate the employment and
general life satisfaction of persons with disabili ties.  It also
delineated what such a law should en tail.
     With the support of Frieden and newly-hired staff member
Andrea Farbman in January, 1986, Burgdorf devoted a weekend to
synthesizing the topic papers into a short readable report, which
specified over forty different recommendations.  Pressed for
time, NCD contracted at the Federal Prison Industry to publish
the document rather than risk the potential for delay with the
Government Printing Office.  About a week before the scheduled
release, however, with 10,000 copies of Toward Independence
prepared for distribution, Frieden received a call from Bob Sweet
at the White House.  Sweet threatened to block the report because
the White House allegedly could not support it.   This report is
so liberal, Ted Kennedy wouldn t produce it,  he told Frieden in
reaction to the report s ambitious proposals.  But Sweet s
superior highly-respected physician and public health expert, Dr.
William L. Roper quelled the conflict after being persuaded by
Frieden that the basic principle of Toward Independence was that
all Americans should share in society.  He simply directed
Frieden not to attach the presidential seal to the report. 
     NCD officially presented Toward Independence, accompanied by
letters of transmittal, to President Reagan, President of the
Senate George Bush, and Speaker of the House James C. Wright
(D-TX), on February 1, 1986.  NCD also scheduled a press release
for January 28, 1986.  But media attention that day was riveted
to the explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger, leaving few
reporters and little time for Toward Independence.
     The NASA catastrophe also canceled another Council
arrangement: a meeting with President Reagan to present the
report in person.  Consequently, Vice President Bush and Boyden
Gray met with Parrino, Dart, Milbank, and Frieden.  The White
House meeting was noteworthy because Bush exhibited tremendous
interest in NCD s report.  A ten-minute photo-op evolved into a
substantive discussion that lasted nearly an hour.  Bush
recounted his own personal experience with disability through
family members.  Evidently, as Frieden recalled, Bush had
familiarized himself with the report before the meeting: he
talked about some of the issues in detail, namely education and
equal opportunity laws.  Bush ended the meeting without a single
criticism of NCD s recommendations and with a promise that he
would pass the report along to Reagan.  He also said he wished he
could do more, but noted that there was only so much he could do
as vice president. 
     Although NCD s press conference and meeting with President
Reagan were canceled, the agency s third public relations event
went through as planned: a reception on Capitol Hill, where many
members of Congress gathered to accept the report.  Senator
Weicker, Senator Paul Simon (D-IL), and Congressman Steve
Bartlett (R-TX), among others, offered remarks.
     NCD ultimately distributed over 20,000 copies of Toward
Independence to legislators, government officials, disability
advocates, and disability organizations.  DIMENET, the computer
network started under the aegis of NCIL, received permission from
NCD to type the report and make it available on the Internet. 
The report  made a big splash,  as Bonnie O Day, at the time the
director of an independent living center in Norfolk, Virginia,
put it.  Thousands of people across the country read it and
talked about it.  The attraction was not the novelty of the
proposals it contained: virtually every issue and recommendation
presented by NCD had been initiated or proposed at the state and
local level.  Rather, the report was significant because it
represented a proposal for a national, comprehensive approach to
disability policy.  Moreover, it carried the clout of being the
product of a federal agency.  Regardless of the content of the
report, simply producing a comprehensive analysis of disability
programs was significant in the stature it gave to disability as
part of the national policy agenda. 
     With respect to Kingdon s analysis, Toward Independence can
be seen as a body of policy solutions.  Of special importance was
NCD s prioritization of a comprehensive equal opportunity law as
necessary to achieve functional independence and social
participation for persons with disabilities.  But at this stage
it represented only a potential solution.  Getting the issue on
the legislative agenda would require further documentation that
the lack of such a law was a desperate problem.  An influential
national poll helped this process along.
     As NCD deliberated the topic papers comprising Toward
Independence, one of its members, Milbank, voiced the concern
that NCD s conclusions might not adequately reflect what average
Americans with disabilities thought.  He feared that the forums
sponsored by Dart and NCD were too selective.  Unfortunately,
there was no substantive survey data on how having a disability
affected a person s ability to participate in the life of the
community.  This led Milbank to contact his friends at the
polling agency Louis Harris and Associates, namely its president,
Humphrey Taylor, who agreed to conduct a study.  NCD staff and
members contributed to the development of the questions and
structure of the survey.  The International Center for the
Disabled (ICD), where Milbank served as Chairman of the Board,
provided most of the funding.  Although NCD hoped the results
would be available in time for inclusion in Toward Independence,
it was finished soon after and published in March, 1986, with the
title: The ICD Survey of Disabled Americans: Bringing Disabled
Americans into the Mainstream.
     The purpose of the survey,  explained ICD Executive Director
John Wingate,  was to obtain data on disabled people s
experiences and attitudes that would provide a clear information
framework of NCD s recommendations on public policy for disabled
people.   The nationwide survey was based on 1,000 telephone
interviews with a national sample of non-institutionalized
disabled persons aged sixteen and above.  In some respects it
paralleled the significance of NCD s report Toward Independence. 
While other organizations had conducted surveys, this was the
first comprehensive survey of persons with disabilities that
solicited their perceptions of their own quality of life.  It
provided solid data that could document the extent of problems
faced by persons with disabilities and help guide fruitful
directions for policy development.  Significantly, it suggested
that federal disability programs had improved the lives of
persons with disabilities, which warranted continued policy
development and federal funding.
     67% aged 16-64 were not working; 66% of those not working
said they would like to be employed.The Harris poll found that
the prevalence of disability for non-institutionalized persons
aged 16 and over was 15.2% of the United States, or about 27 to
28 million people.  In an analysis of the Harris results, NCD
concluded that the addition of institu tionalized persons,
children, and households that could not be reached by telephone
would place the total number of per sons with disabilities
somewhere near the oft-quoted figure of 36 million.  The poll
also presented a series of significant, quantified findings about
this group of Americans:
     72% said their lives had been at least  somewhat better  in
the past decade.
     67% said the federal policies had helped at least
 somewhat. 
     40% did not finish high school, compared with 15% in the
non-disabled population.
     50% reported household incomes less than $15,000, compared
with 25% among the non-disabled population.
     56% reported that disability prevented desired levels of
social and community participation.
     49% identified lack of transportation as a barrier to social
and community participation.
     67% aged 16 to 64 were not working; 66% of those not working
said they would like to be employed.
     Employment correlated with levels of education, income, life
satisfaction, self-perception as disabled, and perception of life
potential.
     95% advocated increased public and private efforts to
educate, train, and employ persons with disabilities.
     74% supported implementation of anti-discrimination laws
affording disabled persons the same protections as other
minorities.
     For the most part, these findings were not surprising.  But
they served the crucial role of documenting what were previously
subjective assessments.  And the survey was a ringing endorse
ment of initiatives to help disabled Americans find work. 
Unemployment more than anything else seemed to define disability,
and the correlation between employment and life satisfaction
cried out for attention.  NCD had argued strongly in Toward
Independence that civil rights protections would help improve
accessibility and facilitate employment.  The poll affixed
numbers to a real and pressing problem and functioned as a
nationwide endorsement of NCD s report.  With respect to
Kingdon s policy analysis, this linked two policy streams:
problems and solutions.  Frieden asserted:  I doubt that the
recommendations in Toward Independence, and particularly [those
regarding] civil rights, would have been taken as seriously by
the policy makers had we not had the data.  
                        Drafting the ADA
     As Frieden s successor Paul Hearne observed in 1988, NCD s
preparation of Toward Independence and instigation of the ICD
Survey helped  put the Council on the map.   NCD member Michael
Marge said of the reports:  We were very well received by both
sides of the aisle as a valuable, worthwhile group.  Our entree
to the Congress was fantastic.   Despite the tremendous respect
NCD gained, however, Congress took little action a great
frustration to NCD members.  Although Congress pointed to Toward
Independence as  the Manifesto, the Declaration of Independence
for people with disabilities,  said Frieden,  nobody bothered to
do anything about it.   NCD members and staff especially
Burgdorf, Dart, Frieden, and Parrino were frustrated most by the
lack of attention to their number-one recommendation, an equal
opportunity law.  
     Congress pointed to Toward Independence as the Manifesto,
the Declaration of Independence for people with disabilities, 
but  nobody bothered to do anything about it. 
          Lex Frieden    After waiting for nearly a year, they
began discussing what NCD could do.  They concluded that the only
way to overcome legislative inertia was for NCD to take the lead. 
(See Appendix C for a chronology of the events leading up to the
ADA s introduction in Congress.)  Frieden remembers talking about
drafting a civil rights proposal as early as December, 1986. 
There was some early dispute over whether disability rights
legislation should come in the form of an amendment to the Civil
Rights Act or whether it should be an independent initiative.  At
a strategy meeting, Burgdorf and Frieden solicited the input from
such disability rights advocates as Marca Bristo, Evan Kemp, and
Robert Funk.  They discussed whether using the vehicle of a
separate law might ironically reinforce discrimination by
underscoring the separateness of people with disabilities.  But
they decided that an adequate foundation for disability rights
required unique provisions and that a separate law could serve as
an energizing force for the disability community.  
     The framework for such a law was already sketched out.  In
Toward Independence, Burgdorf specified that the law should
prohibit discrimination by the Federal Government, recipients of
financial assistance, federal contractors and subcontractors,
employers, housing providers, places of public accommodation,
persons and agencies of interstate commerce, transportation
providers, insurance providers, and state and local governments. 
He also proposed that the law secure private right to action to
remedy discrimination, give the Architectural and Transportation
Barriers Compliance Board (ATBCB) the authority to remove
barriers according to universal accessibility standards, and
establish Protection and Advocacy Systems in each state to
protect and advocate for the rights of persons with disabilities. 
To make nondiscrimination on the basis of handicap meaningful, he
stressed, the law would have to be founded on the concept of
providing reasonable accommodations and taking affirmative steps
to eliminate barriers.  Among the proposal s most ambitious
provisions was that all existing barriers to accessibility would
have to be removed in two to five years, except where a private
business or public entity received a special waiver.
     By August, 1987, Robert Burgdorf had a complete draft of
what was now called, at the suggestion of NCD member Kent
Waldrep, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1987.Yet it was
not an optimal time to introduce new civil rights legislation. 
The disability community, the civil rights community, and
Congress were just beginning their campaign for the Civil Rights
Restoration Act, which was introduced on February 19, 1987. 
Another civil rights measure might adversely affect its passage. 
Burgdorf nonetheless began putting the law on paper, expecting it
could be used eventually, and fin ished a preliminary draft in
February.  During the spring of 1987, he and others began holding
brainstorming sessions with  impor tant and knowledgeable persons
in the disabil ity community  to include them in the process and
facilitate the drafting.  At the May quarterly meeting, NCD
decided to move forward and give official sanction to crafting a
legislative proposal, deciding that a comprehensive law, rather
than a piecemeal approach, was the best way to protect disabled
persons  civil rights.  Staff members Burgdorf and Frieden worked
most intensively on the law.  And NCD members reviewed draft
after draft of the proposal prepared by Burgdorf, who advanced
his own vision for the law while helping to put NCD members 
thoughts in proper legal form.
     By August, 1987, Burgdorf had a complete draft of what was
now called, at the suggestion of NCD member Kent Waldrep, the
Americans with Disabilities Act of 1987.  Principal strategic
planning for the legislative proposal was carried out by Parrino,
Frieden, and Burgdorf.  They concluded that success required a
body of individuals and organizations to support the endeavor and
good timing of its introduction so as not to obstruct the efforts
of the civil rights community.  At the August Council meeting,
members hoped that the bill would be passed in the 100th
Congress by the end of 1988.  Dart, who was in attendance at the
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