Civil Rights & Disability Featured at University of Pittsburgh

When Dick and Ginny Thornburgh were presented with the prestigious Henry Betts Award, they generously invested the proceeds to establish the Thornburgh Family Lecture in Disability Law and Policy at the University of Pittsburgh. At the inaugural lecture on October 14, 2004, Peter Blanck of the University of Iowa presented Americans with Disabilities and Their Civil Rights. A panel of leaders from business, employment, law, policy, health and the disability community then set out thoughtful responses to the challenges to the ADA that Professor Blanck described.

The Betts Award is presented annually by the American Association of People with Disabilities, the nation's largest disability consumer membership organization. The award is given to individuals who have helped lead the social transformation that is producing better outcomes for people with disabilities. Dick and Ginny Thornburgh transformed the Betts Award proceeds into an investment in scholarship and advocacy in disability policy and law. The Lectureship was supplemented by the Chancellor's Office, the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences and the School of Law.

In his remarks, Dick Thornburgh, former Governor of Pennsylvania and Attorney General of the United States, noted that "Democracy is not a spectator sport." Dick Thornburgh was at the forefront of the Olmstead decision when he filed a brief amicus on behalf of the National Organization on Disability. Later, Thornburgh would author another important amicus brief in the 2004 Supreme Court case Lane v. Tennessee. While Olmstead examined the question of the right to live in the community, Lane v. Tennessee examined the question of whether or not courthouses had to be accessible under the ADA. To put it simply, can disabled people be forced to crawl up the courthouse steps? In both cases, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of people with disabilities.

In his lecture, Professor Blanck shared "Disability Rights Stories" involving individuals who want paychecks rather than welfare checks. The stories involved actual court cases in which he has been involved. One case involved job discrimination. An individual with mental retardation was fired apparently because he looked different. Another case involved reasonable accommodations for a person who had worked at his job for twenty years and received positive performance evaluations. When the job was outsourced, he was eventually fired. Still, another case involved a "smart, bright-eyed ten-year-old girl who had spina bifida. She had spent most of her young life in the hospital unit of a training school and she wanted to live at home. Blanck described the outcomes of these cases, sometimes winning, sometimes losing and sometimes the client didn't outlive the litigation. Looking to the future of the ADA, he forcefully rejected the criticism that the rights model is not succeeding: "the rights model has become a model for the world." He summarized a group of ADA employment and public access cases in which the Supreme Court had restricted the meaning of disability and narrowed constitutional authority to limit the states' immunity from civil rights suit. The proposed "ADA Restoration Act" is one vehicle considered by advocates to clarify the ADA's definition of disability. Blanck also identified a number of future challenges including the applicability of Title III of the ADA to the Internet.

The lecture was followed by a panel discussion. While each panelist described their own experience with disability activity, one panelist in particular drove the message of the day home: Kelvin Ross said he had been looking for a job for 20 years; he now is employed by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. To achieve this goal, Mr. Ross put together a support team including an assistive technology expert in the University's Center for Assistive Technology and a counselor from the Office of Vocational Rehabilitation who have supported his objective to work. Too bad it took 20 years to realize his talents!

For more information about Peter Blanck's lecture and work, see http://disability.law.uiowa.edu or email him at peter-blanck@uiowa.edu.

For information about the Thornburgh Family Lecture in Disability Law and Policy, contact Kate Seelman at kds31@pitt.edu

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