From: Julie Dawson 
Subject: Equality of Opportunity -- HISTORY.TXT  (fwd)
hopes to finish before bad weather gets here.  It is a fast-paced
time of the year requiring extra time and money, not to mention
patience. 
     I am a paraplegic and use a wheelchair to get around.  I
have my own car and most of the time travel independently.  I
have my own money and I am old enough to take care of myself.  I
expect no more from people than anyone else would.
     While I have been doing my Christmas shopping I have
encountered several de pressing situations.  I have been ignored
at the cash register, only to have the next person acknowledged. 
The lanes between each cash register are too narrow for my
wheelchair. Those lanes designated for wheelchairs are either
closed or have an extra long line. Boxes and boxes of extra
merchandise fill the walkways.  People can t walk around it much
less get a wheelchair around.  Parking in handicapped parking
places is abused highly.  If you re lucky enough to get a
handicapped parking place, by the time you reach the front of the
store you find that another car has blocked the ramp.  There is
no other way to get upon the sidewalk.
     With all of these problems to face on each shopping trip,
one episode sticks out more than others.  While shopping in a
large store in Mercer Mall, I overheard the clerk call for
security.   When security called her back I overheard her say,  I
have a girl in a wheel chair that needs watching.   I was
speechless.  I was hurt.  I was mad.  I waited.
     A few minutes later a nicely-dressed young man started
browsing in the same area where I was looking.  A few quick looks
told me that he was  the one.   After some time I approached the
clerk about calling security.  She denied it.  No matter.  The
point is that she called security just because I was in a
wheelchair no other reason.  I find this action rude and
disgusting and it should not be tolerated by anyone.  I realized
that security is  stepped up  during the holidays.  Everyone is
being watched at one time or another.  W hat I can t understand
is why I was singled out to watch. 
     Disabled individuals, including myself, have the same right
to enjoy the holidays as anyone else.   We do expect the same
courtesy and respect that anyone else would re ceive.  During
this time of giving, the public needs to be aware of these
problems.  It would be a good time to give away some good tidings
of respect.  Most of all, remember that a disabled person is just
that a person.   We have feelings just like anyone else. 
     Happy Holidays!
     
     Debbie Wimmer
     Bluefield, VA
* The call for security occurred in a J.C. Penny Store, being
over-looked at the cash register happened in Leggett s.  No lanes
for wheelchairs in several stores.
     I am a head injured survivor and know many survivors who are
not given the opportunity for growth. (in many different ways!). 
     The current problem that I am battling is employment and the
law discontinuing support after being employed for a period of
time and not being eligible for returning to State aid.  This
disincentive means that H[ead] I[njured]] people will not try to
find work, thus remaining on State aid for ever, certainly not a
satisfactory solution!
     I completely support ADA!
Cinda Lium
Seattle, WA
     In 1974 I was attending Boettcher School (Specially Designed
school for the Disabled) and is still recognized as a part of the
Denver Public School System.  Unfortunately, the focus more on  
a nice place to keep us  instead of education.  It was my desire
to receive the proper creden tials to continue my education on
the high school and college level.  I pursued a transfer to a
high school in the Denver Public School system, went through
testing and interviewing.  After passing all testing, the school
system still refused the transfer.  It wasn t until I filled a
petition in the city court, did the school system grant me the
transfer.  Three years later I graduated with honors and
continued on to college.
     Mary Frances Brown
     Denver, CO
     Everyone must become aware of the external barriers the
general public has created mentally and physically to the more
obvious impairments that some very intellectual and capable
citizens of our country have to cope with to be fulfilled.  I
have a couple very limiting handicapps that time and wear have
inflicted on my feet and hands; I have a terrific sense of
imagination , so I am able to magnify these minor conditions in
my mind and I would not be able to continue in my job without
some understanding and adjusting.
     I have witnessed the courage and emotional strength of
people inflicted with impair ments and/or disabilities from birth
and from accidents.  We need to utilize this portion of our
society, but to do so we must alter our norms.
     Please consider the possibility of becoming one of the
millions that have had to over come their limitations and create
personal integrity for themselves, and imagine if you were faced
with the same barriers, would you persevere?
     Enact and encourage the signing of the Disabilities Act
1988.
Sincerely,
Andree Kingsley
Clifton, TX
     August 22, 1988
     Dear Mr. Dart
     As a disabled person who uses a wheelchair, discrimination
seems to be a part of my life, and the way that I cope with it
seems to make a difference in not only how I view myself, but the
way others view me also.  I am becoming accustomed to going in
through the door reserved for the hearse when I attend funerals
at certain funeral homes, coping with steps in the homes of
friends and seldom being able to get a reserved handicapped
parking place.  I may not like the problems, but they do exist. 
I have found that because I gently complain each and every time,
two of the funeral homes in the valley have put in ramps, West
Valley City has instituted a parking enforcement officer corps to
give tickets to insensitive drivers, Salt Lake City has en listed
all citizens to play watchdog over handicapped parking places and
even friends have arranged to have portable ramps one even built
a ramp onto his deck for accessibility.
     I continuously talk to the city about curb cuts that are not
there, and slowly, they are beginning to appear.
     I travel as a part of my job.  I have found hotels that
claim to be accessible usually mean that the bathroom doors are
wide and that there are hand rails in place.  Tubs are invariably
very deep and slippery, shower controls are often beyond reach,
sometimes there are shower door rails along the edge of the tub
making the tub inaccessible to any disabled person who transfers
into the tub, and many hotels, even with ramps or lifts, keep
them a secret from the general public, and sometimes even from
the staff.  Many hotels forget that a curb surrounds the building
mak ing it inaccessible and so many of the convention arranged
hotels do not have bathroom doors wide enough for wheelchairs,
and therefore no accommodations.
     . . .
     When the Environmental Protection Agency held a workshop on
the new Superfund grants to community groups, it was held in the
only inaccessible meeting room in the Sheraton Hotel, up a flight
of steps.
     Most galling of all, was a recent Fair Housing,
anti-discrimination tri-regional convention sponsored by the
Department of Housing and Urban Development.  At this meeting,
there was a specific workshop called  Advocacy rights for the
Handicapped.   It was moderated by the Southern Nevada
Association for the Handicapped with presenters from
Mid-Peninsula Citizens for Fair Housing, Sioux Falls Human Rights
Commission, Washington State Human Rights Commission and Tacoma
Human Rights Commission.  There was not one disabled person on
the panel.  In this day and age, at an anti-discrimination
conference, I was absolutely outraged.  In my letter to the
director of Region VIII, I pointed out that if the workshop had
been on Black Advo cacy, and there were no blacks on the podium,
pandemonium would follow.
     . . .
     I appreciate you spending time and efforts to address these
issues, and support whole heartedly the Americans with
Disabilities Act of 1988.  Discrimination is truly alive and well
in these United States.  We disabled absolutely must have the Act
to begin to combat the paternal ism, discrimination and the
injustices perpetrated upon certain citizens of America.
     Barbara G.  Toomer
     West Valley City, UT
     August 20, 1988
     Dear Mr. Dart:
     Being a bilateral arm amputee, I have some serious concerns
regarding conditions facing handicapped citizens of the United
States.  The Federal Government and most States have done a
commendable job of eliminating architectural barriers for those
with ambulatory handicaps, providing television closed captions
for hearing impaired, and providing audible signals at traffic
intersections and braille warnings in buildings for the
sightless.
     There is, however, one area that has not received sufficient
attention and that is the area concerning barriers that
continually confront individuals who have lost or lost the use of
their hands or arms.  An example is the fact that in most public
buildings the door-opening hardware, especially on internal
doors, consists of round knobs instead of levers.  Other problems
that face upper-extremity handicapped are such things as the
design of pay telephones, vending machines, packaging and many
consumer products.
     It would be appreciated if some attention could be directed
towards this neglected area.
     Sincerely,
     Edwin V.  Rawley
     Bountiful, UT
     October 3, 1988
     To Congressional Task Force
     In my position as rehabilitation counselor, I often see
clients who have been fired from their jobs because of the onset
of or an existing disability.  Most of the time, it seems that
the employer has not instituted any measures of accommodations;
and in many cases, clients were fired simply because of the
disability not because of the inability to perform the duties of
the work.  I feel this is totally unfair and some measures of
correction should be implemented as soon as possible.
     Mrs. Kareen D. Windley
     Virginia Beach, VA
     Discrimination Diary
     Ken Burns
     June 27,1988
     I went to a big department store and asked for some
information.  The woman didn t pay attention to me.  She
pretended she did not hear me.  People don t want to take the
time to listen. If they did, there would not be so much
complaining.
     The new driver on the van does that.  He doesn t listen. 
When I wanted to go to  Best Buy , he didn t listen.  He brought
me home instead, because that s where he picked me up.
     I went to City Hall to find about progress on the issue of
putting in sidewalks throughout the community.  I couldn t get
into the building because there are three steps going up to the
front door and two steps going down on the inside.  We (those who
use wheelchairs) stayed outside the front door.  We put up signs
saying that we couldn t get in.  They didn t have microphones and
loud speakers so we couldn t find out what was going on inside,
and we couldn t speak
     There are no sidewalks outside my door.  I can t go outside
to take a breath of fresh air because if I did, my  wheelchair
would get stuck in the ground.  It keeps me from going to the
store to do my personal shopping.  I have to order a van to take
me to the store and that way, again, I get no fresh air or see
how warm the sun is.  With sidewalks, I could drive my chair to
the store and do my personal shopping.  That way, I could enjoy
the beautiful weather and enjoy driving in my chair.  I have to
take the van just to go one block and it costs money. 
     If I want to go to the front door of the Grand Mall, there
is no place for the van to park. We have to go a block and a half
down the street to get out and then go all the way back to get
inside.
     Once, when I was out, I had to go to the bathroom and I had
a female aid with me.  I went to a near by McDonald s and asked
the person cleaning tables to check to see if there was any other
man in the bathroom.  There was no one.  Fortunately, there was a
lock on the door and so my attendant was able to help me use the
bathroom in privacy. 
     Reason From Rhyme: Poems From Outside the Mainstream
     by Carolyn Schwartz
                  Speak Out
          The doctors gave me a drug to survive.
     It cured my body, but was I alive?
          I was only a child, what had I done?
     to be bound in a cell and locked from the sun.
          But I d committed no crime!  I cried
     out in vain, yet the bars were so real
     and no family came
          The worst was later when I went home.
     I found out what it was to be truly alone.
          I was seen as different and set apart.
     No day care for me, no place with a heart.
          I am just the same as any of you.
          I contribute my work to society too.
          So before you condemn what you don t
     understand.  Let me reach out to you
     and come touch my hand.
                           Appendix F
                     Key Concepts in the ADA
This appendix is intended only to provide elementary descriptions
of several, select concepts in the ADA to supplement the main
text, principally regarding Title I and Title III.  This appendix
should not be used as a technical source.  For complete
information, readers should consult the organiza tions providing
technical assistance that are listed in Appendix J.  
Definition of Disability 
     The ADA prohibits discrimination against  individuals with
disabilities.   Unlike prohibi tions of discrimination according
to race or gender, where one is automatically a member of a
protected class by one s physical characteristics at birth, for
one to be protected by the ADA one must qualify as a person with
a disability.  According to the ADA, a person with a disability
is one who meets at least one of three criteria: 1) having a
physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one s
ability to perform one or more major life activities; 2) having a
record of such an impairment; or 3) being regarded as having such
an impairment.
     Regulations for the ADA define an impairment as  any
physiological disorder or condition, cosmetic disfigurement, or
anatomical loss affecting one or more of the following body
systems: Neurological; musculoskeletal; special sense organs
(including speech organs that are not respira tory, such as vocal
cords, soft palate, and tongue); respiratory, including speech
organs; cardiovas cular; reproductive; digestive; genitourinary;
hemic and lymphatic; skin; and endocrine.  It also means any
mental or psychological disorder, such as mental retardation,
organic brain syndrome, emotional or mental illness, and specific
learning disabilities. 
     In addition to having an impairment, to qualify under the
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