From: Julie Dawson 
Subject: Equality of Opportunity -- HISTORY.TXT  (fwd)
people who attended, which produced a massive list of people he
could later contact for political action.  And by spending years
touring the country, people in the grass roots felt as if they
were part of the ADA s development rather than objects of it. 
They were thus more willing and eager to join Dart when the time
came for action.  Dart simply had  no equal  in getting people
mobilized, said Maria Cuprill, a staff member of the House
Subcommittee on Select Education. 
     Members of Congress also recognized the need to demonstrate
broad-based support for the ADA.  Congressman Major R. Owens
(D-NY), in particular, devoted considerable energy to empowering
the grass roots.  Although Owens was a relative newcomer to
disability policy, first encountering it after becoming a member
of the House Education and Labor Committee in 1983, he brought
additional assets.  He had experienced the 1960s civil rights
movement first-hand, including service as chairman of the
Brooklyn chapter of the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE) an
organization central to the movement s success.  He had also
developed a passion for fostering citizen participation.  In
1987, Owens became Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Select
Education, which had jurisdiction over many disability issues. 
When he first learned about the ADA prior to its introduction, he
thought of it primarily as a civil rights issue: carrying forward
the banner for civil rights from African Americans to women to
people with disabilities.  Owens wanted to do whatever he could
to help energize people with disabilities.
     Accordingly, on May 2, 1988, less than a week after the
ADA s introduction, Congressman Owens created the Task Force on
the Rights and Empowerment of Americans with Disabilities. The
group s purpose was twofold: to present to Congress, the
executive branch, and the general public evidence of disability
discrimination, and to make recommendations.  Owens appointed
Dart to be the Chairperson.  Dart had testified before Owens s
subcommittee as Commissioner of the Rehabilitation Services
Administration (RSA), which was part of the Department of
Education. Owens thereby discovered that Dart shared his
philosophy that disability rights were primarily civil rights. 
But, following his critical testimony regarding the Department of
Education and its paternalistic attitudes toward and policies for
people with disabilities, Dart resigned as RSA Commissioner. 
Owens saw his task force as an opportunity for Dart to continue
his mission of achieving civil rights for people with
disabilities.  Owens named Elizabeth Boggs, of the ARC, as
Co-chair with Dart.  And Lex Frieden assumed the reins as
Coordinator.  Thirty-five others from the disability community
were selected as task force members. 
     Justin Dart chaired 63 forums in all fifty states, with over
7,000 people in attendance, and collected more than 5,000
documents supporting the ADA.Dart immediately began organizing
another series of public forums.  As always, Dart s wife Yoshiko
was crucial for the management and execution of Dart s
activities, which they paid for primarily with their own funds. 
Justin met Yoshiko in Japan, where Justin worked as president of
Japan Tupperware.  Yoshiko was a remarkably successful sales
representative for the company.  In addition to managing his
company, which met with great success, Justin used his position
as president to assist people with disabilities in attaining
better livelihoods.  For example, he sponsored sales campaigns in
which the company and employees donated profits to buy
wheelchairs for persons with disabilities.  Justin also provided
employment opportunities to boys who used wheel chairs.  And
Yoshiko took an active role in training them for work and
assisting them in building greater self-confidence as productive
citizens. Yoshiko s success, capabilities, and interest in
disabil ity attracted Justin s attention, who ultimately hired
her as an executive assistant.  They married in 1968 and became
partners in championing the rights of persons with disabilities.
     Between 1988 and 1990 Justin Dart chaired a total of 63
forums in all fifty states, Guam, and Puerto Rico, with over
7,000 people in attendance overall.  Attending a public forum was
extraordi narily empowering, said Denise Figueroa of New York. 
When someone has a disability, she said, one tends to  tolerate
the discrimination, because it s how you survive.   Hearing
people talk about their experiences, however, could be a
consciousness-raising experience and charge one with a desire to
fight for human rights.  It was also empowering, said Figueroa,
because one realized  you weren t alone. 
     While traveling throughout the country, Dart collected
upwards of 5,000 documents and tape recordings detailing
discrimination, offering proposals, and urging passage of the ADA
(see Appendix E for a collection of examples).  In addition to
people with disabilities, comments came from parents, health care
providers, and others who worked with people with disabilities. 
Virtually every type of disability was represented.  Thousands of
people filled out petitions titled  A vote for justice,  which
declared support of the ADA and concluded with the invitation:  I
have personally experienced and/or observed the following
discrimination against people with disabilities:.   For example,
when Gary Janski, who had a psychiatric disability, tried to rent
a favorite, vacant apartment, the owner said:  we won t rent to
your kind.   When you re  crippled,  observed Sheila Sorenson,
 you get treated like you re a two year old and can t do
anything.    It makes us feel better to [do] things on our own
instead of having everything done for [us],  she said. Ree
Steidemann described how deaf persons she worked with repeatedly
tried to reach hospitals and other institutions through TTY s,
where no one answered or people answered and did not know how to
use their TTY devices.   Please, please help us,  wrote Frances
Murtagh, an exasperated mother of a child with cerebral palsy. 
 I m at my wits end trying to fight these people alone.   In a
profound poem, Carolyn Schwartz pleaded:  So before you condemn
what you don t understand. Let me reach out to you and come touch
my hand.   Debbie Wimmer described how she overheard a security
guard announce:  I have a girl in a wheelchair that needs
watching.    I was speechless. I was hurt.  I was mad,  wrote
Wimmer.  Phyllis Geldzalh captured the blunt sentiments of many
people with disabilities:  It would be a serious injustice if ADA
was not passed.  
     In addition to presenting boxes of materials to Congress,
the task force issued 11 interim reports to Congress, and
prepared 37 statements to leaders in the disability community. 
Dart also sponsored 14 meetings in Washington and made
presentations to various organizations around the country,
reaching an estimated 25,000 persons.  Moreover, task force
members contributed to lobbying efforts by consulting with
members of Congress and the executive branch.  As a testimony to
its dedication to, passion for, and personal investment in
disability policy, the task force carried out all its efforts
without government funding, through volunteered time and money. 
And it far exceeded Congressman Owens s expectations. 
     Although the disability community conducted very little
legal work on the ADA in 1988, this was the fourth main objective
in addition to strategy development, grass roots mobilization,
and lobbying.  By mid-1989, a legal team was fairly organized. 
The lead attorney for the disability community, and the one who
most often testified before Congress on behalf of the ADA, was
Arlene Mayerson of DREDF.  She had worked extensively on the
Voting Accessibility for the Elderly and Handicapped Act, Civil
Rights Restoration Act, and Fair Housing Amendments Act, and had
submitted countless briefs to various committees and courts. 
Especially significant was her role in passing the Handicapped
Children s Protection Act.  Although Mayerson lived in Berkeley,
California, during the congressional deliberations on the ADA,
Mayerson visited Washington frequently, for weeks at a time, in
order to guide legal strategy.  Chai Feldblum of the ACLU, who
had met Wright while working on the Civil Rights Restoration Act
(the first time HIV/AIDS entered a Senate bill for civil rights
protections), fulfilled much of the daily responsibilities of
legal writing while Mayerson was in California.  Although
Feldblum specialized in AIDS-related law, and championed the
efforts to include persons with HIV and AIDS within the housing
provisions, she began developing a firm grasp on general
disability law.
     Mayerson and Feldblum were hardly alone, however.  Robert
Burgdorf, the original author of the ADA and now a professor at
the District of Columbia School of Law, participated in all
modifications to the bill and helped ensure continuity from the
original version.  Tim Cook of the National Disability Action
Center offered general guidance as well as his expertise with
respect to public accommodations and transportation.  Weisman, of
EPVA, served as the resident specialist in Transportation. 
Bonnie Milstein of the Mental Health Law Project offered her
expertise concerning mental impairments.  Karen Peltz-Strauss,
from the National Center for Law and the Deaf, focused on
telecommunication provisions.  Depending on the issues pressing
at any given moment, these and other attorneys worked closely
with Congress, disability strategists, and lobbyists to translate
disability objectives into proper legal form.  Meanwhile,
attorneys Robert Funk and Evan Kemp worked on behalf of the
disability community within the Bush administration, respectively
as a White House negotiator and Chairman of the Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission (EEOC).
     The massive effort of the disability community was not
without its tensions.  Many disability organizations had
previously been in conflict with one another over limited
government resources.  As with any coalition, there were tensions
between those who held Washington leadership roles and those who
worked in the trenches, between inside-the-beltway politicos and
persons throughout the rest of the country.  Some felt that their
views were not being adequately represented in the
decision-making process.  Others resented claims that persons
outside of Washington did not understand the legislative process. 
There was also tension between persons with disabilities and
those without them.  It is natural to assume that
African-American and women s advocacy groups would be led by
African Americans and women.  In the disability community,
however, one found large numbers of persons without disabilities
at the helm. Regardless of the actual impact on policy
development and implementation, some persons with disabilities
demanded that  their own  be in charge.  The important point,
however, is not the presence of these tensions, but the way in
which the disability community overcame them. 
     No subgroup of people with any type of physical or mental
disability, or perceived disability, . . . will be sacrificed. 
          Task Force on the Rights andEmpowerment of
Americanswith DisabilitiesThere was something in the ADA for
every one.  Virtually all disability sub-groups wanted to, and
subsequently did, champion the goals of the ADA.  With few
exceptions, they were united in the commitment that there would
be  no long term legitimation of unequal status for people with
dis abilities.   Full realization of the goals might take
decades, but they wanted to undercut any national policies that
would promote discrimination indefinitely.  The disability
community made a second important commitment.  There would be no
splintering with respect to the ADA:  No subgroup of people with
any type of physical or mental disability, or perceived
disability, no matter how politically impotent or how
stigmatized, will be sacrificed.   And they would fight each
other s battles.  Advocates for persons with mental retardation
pushed for ending discrimination against AIDS; people with
epilepsy argued for the need for accessible transportation; and
individuals using wheelchairs urged that persons with mental
disabilities equally deserved freedom from employment
discrimination.  Even at the most intense moments in
congressional deliberations, the community would stick together.
                     The Government Response
     While persons with disabilities throughout the country were
mobilizing to learn about and support the ADA, the general public
remained largely unaware of the legislation.  Prior to the ADA s
introduction, The Washington Post pointed to the ADA as a
potential rallying point for the disability community.  But there
was virtually no mainstream press coverage, either of the bill s
introduction, or during the rest of 1988.  This was due in part
to the lateness of the bill s entree to Congress.  Since the
ADA s advocates were not pushing for immediate passage, the bill
drew neither the press coverage nor the opposition it would when
the bill became a serious proposal in 1989.  Individuals
throughout the country, however, helped raise consciousness about
the ADA by talking with their circles of friends and family.  And
scores of disability and non-disability organizations endorsed
the ADA and funneled information to their members.
     Disability and congressional advocates focused much more on
the executive branch and Congress than on the general public. 
The ADA was first introduced, as Congressman Coelho said,  to
just get reaction, to get people to respond.   A prominent
executive branch voice was Evan Kemp, who approached the issue
both as a Commissioner of EEOC and as a disability rights
advocate.  He made his first public declaration on the ADA before
hundreds of people at the Employers Banquet of the President s
Committee on Employment of the Handicapped.  The event took place
in the International Ballroom of the Washington Hilton Hotel,
just a week after the bill s introduction on May 5.  Kemp wanted
a bill that President Bush could support and therefore alerted
people to problematic provisions.  Kemp spoke primarily about
employment issues, of how it made good business sense to tap the
market of disabled persons by promoting accessibility, and good
government sense to reduce federal spending through employment. 
For these reasons he applauded the ADA, but he also questioned
its current form.  Kemp thought the bill needed to be more
detailed to avoid control by bureaucratic regulators.  He was
especially concerned about the definition of  reasonable
accommodation  (see Appendix F), and advocated federal economic
assistance to employers to ease the economic burden the ADA might
cause.  He also thought the proposed limit on reasonable
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