From: Julie Dawson 
Subject: Equality of Opportunity -- HISTORY.TXT  (fwd)
ADA: that in granting civil rights to persons with disabilities,
equal treatment alone is inadequate.  Truly equal opportunity for
people with disabilities required that governments and businesses
take proactive steps to provide opportunity.  This might mean
adding a lift to a bus, providing an employee with an amplified
telephone headset, ramping a few steps, installing braille signs,
or allowing an individual to modify his or her work schedule. 
Unlike providing civil rights to minorities or to women, however,
bestowing civil rights upon persons with disabilities could
therefore require governments and businesses to spend money. 
Unique among civil rights laws, this meant that disability rights
had to be balanced against the fiscal responsibility of society.
     There could have been no successful and meaningful ADA
without a ground swell of people who demonstrated what happened
in the absence of significant legal protections and told positive
stories of how legislative initiatives helped improve their
lives.In the context of disability rights legislation, the
various provisions of the ADA are not unique.  In fact, virtually
every one had been implemented somewhere in the nation by a state
or local government in the form of new laws and constitutional
amendments.  The ADA built on these provisions as well as on
federal statutes and court cases.  The ADA was nonetheless unique
amidst this growing nationwide recognition of disability rights
in its comprehensive application to the entire nation and the
private sector.  Pat Wright likens disability policy before the
ADA to Swiss cheese covering a map of the United States: there
were many holes where there were little to no civil rights
protections for persons with dis abilities.  Disability policy
under the ADA, by contrast, is more like a piece of American
cheese: it covers the entire nation thoroughly and uniformly. 
Every new building must follow accessibility guidelines.  Every
new transit bus must be accessible.  No place of public
accommodation can willfully exclude persons with disabilities.
Every state must provide a telecommunication relay service.  No
employer can overlook an applicant because he or she required a
reasonable accommodation.
     These two unique aspects of the ADA civil rights that had
financial implications and comprehensive application to the
public and private sectors are what made the ADA s passage so
difficult.  The overwhelming margins in both the House and the
Senate with which the ADA was finally approved mask how
challenging it was to work the bill through Congress and acquire
a signature from the president.  By the fall of 1989, it was
evident that an ADA would pass in some form, but the provisions
it would contain were still very much contested.  Only through
intense efforts were disability rights advocates able to achieve
their goals. 
     No single factor alone can account for the ADA s success. 
Rather, a whole host of factors worked in its favor.  First and
foremost, the ADA is a tribute to the growth and organization of
the disability rights movement.  Through such pivotal
developments as the protests to issue the Section 504 regulations
and the nationwide outcry against President Ronald Reagan s Task
Force on Reg ulatory Relief, the disability community asserted
itself and became a political force to be reckoned with.  On the
state and local levels, persons and parents of persons with
disabilities fought aggres sively to obtain for themselves and
their children decent education and employment opportunities.
Students on college campuses organized to demand greater
accessibility.  Centers for independent living built systems of
community support and helped people with disabilities understand
and exercise their rights.  Disability-specific and
cross-disability organizations advocated for state and federal
laws that became building blocks for the ADA.  And people with
disabilities demonstrated a willingness to take to the streets
and risk arrest to bring public attention to the problems they
faced. There could have been no successful and meaningful ADA
without a ground swell of people who demonstrated what happened
in the absence of significant legal protections and told positive
stories of how legislative initiatives helped improve their
lives.
     A crucial factor that helps explain the ADA s positive
reception in Congress was the extent to which the ADA drew on
ideological justifications from both the left and the right.In
addition to providing sheer numbers to demand passage of the ADA,
the disability rights movement produced extraordinarily ef
fective leaders.  Disability rights advocates such as Pat Wright,
Ralph Neas, Justin and Yoshiko Dart, Liz Savage, Paul Marchand,
Marilyn Golden, and Lex Frieden were simply remarkable.  The
legal expertise of people such as Arlene Mayerson, Chai Feldblum,
Robert Burgdorf, Jim Weisman, David Capozzi, Timothy Cook, Karen
Peltz-Strauss, and Bonnie Milstein was indispensable.  Scores of
organizations and their members contributed countless hours to
the ADA campaign.  Over the course of the 1980s, the disability
community proved that it could stand its own ground in the court
room and in the halls of Congress.  Moreover, the disability
community effectively formed crucial relationships with members
of Congress and the White House.  By the time the ADA emerged on
the national scene, people were in place to move it.
     The ADA would have made little headway were it not for the
early and consistent support from the nation s highest office.The
success of the ADA is due in no small part to the American civil
rights heritage.  The Civil Rights Act of 1964 provided not only
a legal principle that could be extended to other constituencies,
but also a model for civil protest to achieve political goals. 
Although  during the 1970s and 1980s there were attempts to roll
back some of the achievements of the civil rights movement, the
basic notion that no individual should be denied basic civil
rights endured.  Because the disability community successfully
presented the ADA as a civil rights initiative, few could afford
to take the position of opposing the ADA outright.  Indeed, a
crucial development in the ADA s success was that even those
organizations that worked to tighten and refine the ADA in
Congress called themselves the Disability Rights Working Group. 
The disability community forced opponents to fight the battle on
its own terms: opponents had to explain why disability advocates 
pro posals should not be implemented.  Forming a tight bond with
Neas and the Leadership Con ference on Civil Rights (LCCR) was
essential for that achievement.
     More than any other single player, the role of President
Bush cannot be overestimated.  The ADA would have made little
headway were it not for the early and consistent support from the
nation s highest office.  Of course, the president did not do the
detail work: there were plenty of others to assume that role. 
But, by speaking out on behalf of the ADA, Bush made passage more
certain.  In Congress, Democrats were primarily responsible for
pushing the ADA aggressively forward.  The president s support
brought people to the table to work out a bipartisan compromise
bill that could attain the support of the business community as
well as that of the disability commu nity.
     The ADA s progress in Congress and the administration was
dependent largely on the roles of key individuals who were
extraordinarily dedicated to the objectives of the ADA.  Part of
this was due to personal experience, either from having a
disability or through a relative s disability.  Senator Tom
Harkin s (D-IA) brother was deaf.  Senator Edward M. Kennedy
(D-MA) had a son who lost a leg to cancer and a sister with
mental retardation.  Senator Orrin G. Hatch s (R-UT)
brother-in-law was paralyzed from polio.  Senator Robert Dole
(R-KS) acquired partial paralysis from a war injury. Senator
Lowell P. Weicker, Jr. (R-CT) had a son with Down s Syndrome. 
Congressman Tony Coelho (D-CA) had epilepsy.  Congressman Steny
H. Hoyer s (D-MD) wife had epilepsy.  These and other personal
encounters with disability made the ADA vitally real to many
members of Congress.
     The ADA s progress in Congress and the administration was
dependent largely on the roles of key individuals who were
extraordinarily dedicated to the objectives of the ADA.The same
was true for the Bush adminis tration.  President George Bush had
a daughter who died from leukemia, a son with a learning
disability, an uncle with quadriplegia, and a son whose cancer
required a plastic ostomy bag. Attorney General Richard
Thornburgh s son had a traumatic head injury.  EEOC Chairman Evan
J. Kemp used a wheelchair because of a form of muscular
dystrophy.  White House negotiator Robert Funk had part of one
leg amputated due to a disease similar to leprosy and
tuberculosis.  These and other members of Congress and White
House officials approached the ADA with a passionate desire to
see not only their own and their children s lives improved, but
those of the entire population of Americans with disabilities.
     One of the key factors of the ADA s success was, as
President Bush said, the desire of members of Congress and
representatives of the Bush administration,  on both sides of the
political aisle,  to  put politics aside  and  do something
decent, something right.   This is seen most clearly in the
negotiations between the Senate and the White House during the
summer of 1989 and the member-to-member negotiations of
Congressmen Steny Hoyer and Steve Bartlett (D-TX).  Although
working out the details was frequently intense, most Washington
political leaders supported the basic goals of the ADA and wanted
to see people with disabilities enter the mainstream of American
life. This cooperation was critical.  Voting on the ADA  would
have come out as deep partisan splits,  said Chai Feldblum,  if
people had not committed to engage in a negotiation process and
if the negotiation process did not have effective people in
them. 
     Another crucial factor that helps explain the ADA s positive
reception in Congress was the extent to which the ADA drew on
ideological justifications from both the left and the right.
Historically, the disability community has had a powerful
Democratic contingency because of its insistence on governmental
support and its identity as a disadvantaged class.  But the ADA
entered Congress at the behest of a Republican federal agency:
the National Council on the Handicapped (NCD).  NCD s work in
reviewing federal disability programs, identifying problems, and
making legislative proposals, among them passage of equal
opportunity laws, rooted the ADA in principles of independence,
personal choice, and fiscal responsibility.  By presenting the
ADA as a way to reduce dependence on government, the NCD helped
win over people who might otherwise be reluctant to extend civil
rights protections.
     Voting on the ADA  would have come out as deep partisan
splits if people had not committed to engage in a negotiation
process. 
          Chai Feldblum
     I m convinced that maybe more than anything else I ever
worked on, people were motivated primarily by what they perceived
as the right thing to do. 
          Ralph Neas     There was a certain inherent
righteousness to the ADA.  How could one argue with the desire of
people who wanted simply to become part of the American
mainstream and to share in the fruits of society that others took
for granted?   What s wrong with a person trying to work instead
of securing welfare?  asked Wright.  People involved in the ADA s
passage recognized that the cause was just.   I m convinced that
maybe more than anything else I ever worked on,  said Ralph Neas,
 people were motivated primarily by what they perceived as the
right thing to do.   There was comparatively little negative
fallout for advo cating the ADA:  you could do the right thing
without really getting anybody that upset.  Some people question
whether pity played a role in the ADA s passage.  Congressman
Coelho appropriately said the issue is irrele vant.  If what you
want to do is really right,  he said,  get the votes and worry
about those other things later.  
     One factor that helped secure the necessary votes was that
the deliberations over the ADA were, for the most part, kept out
of the  gutter.   Although ADA advocates wanted to educate the
public about the ADA, especially administration officials and
members of Congress, they worked to control the level of press
coverage.  People such as Congressman Coelho and Pat Wright
feared that the press might distort the ADA.  As Rochelle Dornatt
of Coelho s staff explained:  it would be too easy to lose
control over the spin of what this bill was supposed to be, which
was a bill to help people realize their potential and incorporate
them and assimilate them into . . . American society, as opposed
to  The final bill simply would not have looked the same if we
had carried the debate into the press. 
          Pat Wrightboiling it down to its dollar figures.  
Coelho repeatedly told those around him,  I don t want fanfare, I
don t want a lot of publicity.   Rather, the goal was to work
toward agreement with members of Congress and the Bush
administration quietly and efficiently.  Wright described it as
 a press blackout.   While this helped the ADA make it through
Congress, Denise Figueroa noted that it had the side effect of
limiting the gen eral public s knowledge of the ADA, which compli
cates the implementation process.  Nevertheless,  in retrospect,
I would do it again,  says Wright,  be cause the final bill
simply would not have looked the same if we had carried the
debate into the press. 
     Although this historical account closes with the signing of
the ADA into public law,  the history of the ADA does not end on
July 26, 1990.  It continues through the important process of
regulation-writing and implementation.  In stark contrast to the
regulatory delay regarding Section 504, the Department of Justice
and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission moved with
striking speed to issue their regulations within a year of the
ADA s signing.  On July 26, 1991, Attorney General Thornburgh
signed the regulations at a ceremony reminiscent of President
Bush s signing a year before. 
     In the years since the ADA s passage, the act has proved
remarkably durable.  This is a tribute to the deliberative
process that refined the ADA.  Many critics have claimed that the
ADA was passed as motherhood and apple pie and without serious
consideration.  But the Senate and House records indicate that
such assertions are false.  Members, staff, disability advocates,
officials from the Bush administration, and representatives of
covered entities scrutinized every title, section, paragraph,
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